Emergent Bilingual Students' Vocabulary Engagement During Discussions of Culturally Relevant Texts

• In Event: Instruction and Language Learning

Abstract

We examine how a book’s cultural relevance to an Emergent Bilingual (EB) student and prior teacher and students' talk turns during the interactive read-aloud are related to their vocabulary meaning engagement (e.g., defining word meanings). Two teachers and eight EBs from refugee backgrounds participated in the study in two groups. Statistical discourse analyses showed that particular talk turns (e.g., providing information, making unclear inferences, asking questions about vocabulary, asking questions for connecting, restating, and guiding the conversational direction) supported students’ vocabulary engagement. Two dimensions of books’ cultural relevance, race/ethnicity/religion and dialogue, predicted students’ vocabulary meaning engagement. These results suggest that teachers should encourage these talk turns and consider these dimensions of text selection to promote their EB students’ vocabulary engagement.

Authors

• Hyonsuk Cho, University of North Dakota

• Tanya M. Christ, Oakland University

• Ming Ming Chiu, The Education University of Hong Kong