Fostering Bilingual Reading Identities in Dual-Language Bilingual Classrooms

• In Event: Translanguaging and Transformative Teaching for Emergent Bilingual Students: Lessons From the City University of New York–New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals Project

Abstract

Purpose: This paper describes how two sets of teachers in one dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in New York City created translanguaging spaces within traditional language allocation policies that separate students’ languages in instruction. Through an analysis of the teachers’ literacy pedagogies and the students’ classroom work, we offer five central principles that can guide all bilingual education teachers as they work to develop students’ bilingual reading identities.

Theoretical Framework: DLBE programs are often structured based on policies that rigidly separate the languages of instruction and allocate specific times and/or spaces for each language (Authors, 2018). This strict separation of languages, which is also often driven by monoglossic views of bilingualism rather than dynamic language practices of bilingual communities, creates a linguistic hierarchy that positions standardized versions of each language as more valuable than students’ home language practices (García & Kleifgen, 2018; García & Otheguy, 2017; Palmer & Martínez, 2016). This separation of students’ language practices in DLBE programs is especially pronounced – and especially problematic – in the teaching of literacy, and particularly reading (Authors, 2021; García et al., 2017).

Methods and Data Sources: This paper draws on qualitative, classroom-based research done in one fourth grade and one kindergarten DLBE classroom through the CUNY-NYSIEB project. The teachers we worked with took up a translanguaging approach, which frames language and literacy learning as a unified process in which students fluidly use features from their full linguistic repertoires to make meaning of texts, regardless of the language of those texts (Author, 2018; Espinosa & Lehner-Quam, 2019). The research was conducted over the course of one academic year in which we collected and analyzed field notes from planning sessions with teachers and classroom activities, transcriptions of interviews with teachers, and students’ classroom work, including their writing and transcriptions of their reading-related discussions.

Results and Significance: In our analysis of the reading instruction in both DLBE classrooms, we saw that the teachers’ linguistic flexibility and attention to students’ bilingualism in the reading process resulted in high levels of student engagement, students’ sophisticated readings of texts, and their articulations of metalinguistic awareness about how language is used and what authors’ linguistic choices communicate about characters. Through this analysis, we offer five central principles that can guide all bilingual teachers as they work to develop students’ bilingual reading identities, from leveraging students’ existing bilingual reading practices to choosing texts that themselves include translanguaging to going beyond the texts through cultural and linguistic “extensions'' that invite students to recreate those texts in ways that align with their bilingual and bicultural realities. We believe these principles can guide teachers as they design instructional spaces that leverage dynamic bilingual practices to develop students’ bilingual reading identities and challenge the monoglossic ideologies that often inform dual language literacy pedagogies.

Authors

• Ivana Espinet, Kingsborough Community College - CUNY

• Kate Seltzer, Rowan University