Curriculum Bridging Across Chinese and English Instructional Time in a Dual-Language Education Program

• In Event: 81.032 - MTCC Roundtable Session 37
  In Roundtable Session: 81.032-5 - Chinese Language Education: Insights and Challenges

Abstract

Drawing on the Sociocultural Theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and the Common Underlying Proficiency model (Cummins, 1981), the present study analyzes how a Chinese teacher and her English teaching partner in a Chinese-English dual language (DL) program bridge their curricula to support continuity of students’ learning experiences, and examines the benefits and limitations of this teacher-initiated curriculum bridging approach. By collecting and analyzing such data as interviews with teachers, audio recordings of teachers’ co-planning meetings and classes, and teachers’ reflections, this study finds that the curriculum bridging process is a bottom-up approach that tries to reconcile the arbitrary divides between languages and content areas set up in DL immersion programs and may be an effective approach to improve current language immersion models.

Authors

• Tiange Wang, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Jin-Sook Lee, University of California - Santa Barbara