Mapping the Affordances of Multilingual Peer Interaction for Language and Content Learning

• In Event: Developing Multi/Translingual Competencies and Expertise Through Peer Interactions: Affordances, Constraints, and Complexities

Abstract

Objectives
Today, one in ten students in the US is classified as an English learner (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Although there has been an increase in research and understanding about the experiences of immigrant youth who are still learning English in school, the role of peer interaction in learning remains poorly understood. While educators readily acknowledge the importance of engaging students’ home language and culture to bridge to academic content and language in the classroom, in practice, peers who speak a language other than English are not routinely conceptualized as resources for learning (Author, blinded). For Spanish-speaking youth, who are segregated by race, poverty, and language, leveraging bilingual peer resources is an equity issue. To support teachers and schools in engaging this important resource, research is needed to better understand how emergent bilingual students scaffold their own learning with peer support through the use of multiple linguistic codes in classroom contexts.

Theoretical framework
The current study draws on an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; van Lier, 1996), together with sociocultural theories of language development (Vygotsky, 1978) and a human capabilities approach (Sen, 1992) to describe how layers of social context—including classroom and group conditions—and individual choices contribute to the construction and interpretation of multilingual interactions in secondary ESL classrooms. Within the ecological framing of this study, bilingual peer relationships are conceptualized as an affordance for academic language and content learning that are part of the dynamic relationship between social context and individual agency.

Methods
Ethnography and discourse analysis of student interactions were used to contextualize and analyze the language use of six groups of bilingual adolescent immigrant students engaged in project-based work, taking into account the affordances of classroom discourse structures and peer talk. Analysis of peer talk drew on interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982) to understand patterns of interaction through turn-by-turn analysis of talk in context.

Data sources
Data included 68 hours of audio recordings, artifacts, and ethnographic fieldnotes spanning three years.

Results
Findings show that Spanish and English were used together to scaffold academic tasks, apprentice less experienced students into social and academic practices, and to maintain the engagement of group members. The linguistic orientation of the classroom and group ethos set up important conditions for the use of Spanish and English, but individual choices including the use of technology and language preferences also influenced when and how bilingual interactions occurred. Theoretically, findings also indicate that peer talk in and of itself does not always constitute an affordance.

Significance
This study provides much needed description of the ways in which emergent bilingual students engage the support of multilingual peers to scaffold their own learning. Findings presented here are nuanced, moving beyond a simple endorsement of peer interaction to concretely support teachers and schools in leveraging this important resource for adolescent immigrant students. The study also supports strong policy recommendations that bridge local and national contexts.

Author

• Avary Carhill-Poza, University of Massachusetts - Boston