Leveraging Multimodal Systems for Emergent Bilinguals

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Ways to Support the Literacy Development of Multilingual Learners (Table 1)

Abstract

As the US diversifies, there has been an increase in emergent bilinguals (EBs) in classrooms. Despite having access to bilingual education in their heritage language, English tends to dominate EBs' linguistic repertoires. As new technologies evolve, multiple semiotic modes are recognized as alternative affordances for communicating and may offer a viable solution for EBs to develop their heritage language and biliteracy. This qualitative descriptive study chronicles how multimodal instruction implemented in a two-way Spanish-English dual language bilingual classroom appeared to assist EBs to develop their heritage language and biliteracy. Six themes describing multimodal instruction were identified: respond to language identities, deliver explicit instruction, provide access to comprehensible input, build conceptual knowledge, customize creative paths, and construct metalinguistic knowledge.

Authors

• Germaine Koskina, Texas Woman's University

• Nancy L. Anderson, Texas Woman's University