Reconceptualizing Teacher-Student Dialogue to Support Dual Language Learners' Oral and Written Responses to Questions

• In Event: Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: Rethinking Traditions in (Normative) Literacy Practices: Heteronormativity, Multilingualism, and Dialogue

Abstract

This study seeks to demonstrate the benefits of Bakhtinian concepts to explore interactions between two bilingual kindergarten students and their teacher in an early childhood classroom. A dialogic research approach (Sullivan, (2012) was used as the methodological framework and an utterance was the unit of analysis. The teacher read-aloud narrative texts for nine weeks, asked questions after each reading, and audiotaped and transcribed responses. The students produced drawings/writings of what they remembered. The results indicated that allowing students to reflect and interact dialogically using both oral and written communication led to more complex understandings of the narrative texts. Providing opportunities for a dialogic atmosphere can generate multiple utterances from bilingual students, thus increasing oral language skills and meaning making.

Authors

• Maureen Schwartz, Lawrence Union Free School District

• Lynn E. Cohen, Long Island University - C.W. Post Campus