Morning Circle as a Community of Practice: Co-Teachers' Transmodality in a Dual-Language Preschool Classroom

• In Event: Innovative Instruction in Dual-Language Bilingual Education Contexts

Abstract

To understand how verbal (including translanguaging), visual, and/or actional modalities serve dual language (DL) instruction/ learning in the preschool activity of Morning Circle (MC), we ask: (a) What is the nature of teachers’ transmodal practices to facilitate MC? (b) How do teacher pairs enact transmodal practices across MC activities? Using a communities of practice perspective, we explore how co-teachers pairs establish a nexus of high-valued practices and transmodal norms. Bi-weekly video recordings of co-teachers in MC were collected across three preschool classrooms in a Spanish/English DL preschool. Results reveal co-teachers vary their transmodalities based on instructional foci/content of different MC activities (i.e., singing songs; reviewing numeracy concepts or literacy concepts; fostering behavior norms), expanding or mirroring each other’s transmodal practices.

Authors

• Sabrina Francesca Sembiante, Florida Atlantic University

• Alain Bengochea, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Mileidis Gort, University of Colorado - Boulder