Teaching Dual Language Learners

What Early Childhood Educators Need to Know

Lisa Lopez, Mariela Paez

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781681253855
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Teoria e pratica della didattica

As the number of dual language learners (DLLs) in early childhood settings continues to rise, educators need to know how to teach, engage, and assess children from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. They'll have the proven strategies they need with this timely book, a reader?friendly guide that expertly connects research to practice for teachers of young DLLs.

Early childhood educators will start with a detailed review of the demographics of today's DLLs and the latest research findings on supporting the learning and development of bilingual and multilingual children. Then they'll find practical, real?world guidance on the best instructional and assessment practices to integrate into their classrooms. Throughout the book, five in?depth case studies of diverse children highlight the importance of considering each child's background, skills, and home experiences when designing effective learning environments.

Extending the groundbreaking work of Patton O. Tabors and ideal for use as a textbook or in?service guide, this concise book compiles everything teachers need to know about working with young DLLs—and setting them up for a lifetime of school success.

TEACHERS WILL LEARN HOW TO

• Connect and work with families, with consideration for their cultural context, practices, beliefs, goals, and diverse experiences
• Internalize eight key beliefs every teacher should have about dual language learning and apply those beliefs to practice
• Implement specific, evidence?based classroom practices that promote the learning of young DLLs
• Use best practices to help DLL children develop language and early literacy skills
• Assess the learning of DLLs in culturally valid and linguistically appropriate ways
• Use the results of assessments to inform instruction

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: Preservice and in?service teachers alike will benefit from the learning objectives, guiding questions, self?study and reflection activities, and downloadable forms, including a case study template for child observations and a helpful resource guide to share with families.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Dual Language Learners (DLLs)

This chapter will:

• • Present important demographic characteristics of the DLL population, including information about the home, school, and community contexts
• • Describe five diverse cases of DLL children
• • Review the research on language and literacy development of DLLs
• • Discuss recent studies of cognitive and social-emotional development
• • Review recent national mandates for working with DLL children

As an early childhood professional, you have probably noticed the increased diversity of children and families in your program. Indeed, early childhood settings have been transformed in recent years given the rise in immigration and the expanding presence of DLL children and families from different language and cultural backgrounds. This increase in diversity has been experienced across the United States, including in low-incidence communities that in the past had only a few DLLs in their programs and schools. Some programs have seen their enrollment increase from serving zero DLLs to serving more than 80% DLLs. This shift in population requires all early childhood professionals to learn instructional strategies and best practices for working with a diverse group of children and families.

This chapter describes important demographic characteristics of the DLL population, including the heterogeneity of the population and descriptions of the home, education, and community contexts that support learning for these children. This chapter gives special attention to DLLs’ language and literacy developmental processes, reviewing results from longitudinal studies and effective intervention studies in the field of early childhood development. In addition, the chapter discusses recent information about DLLs’ cognitive and social-emotional development in the context of bilingualism. Finally, this chapter considers recent mandates from federal agencies and national organizations for working with DLLs in early childhood settings.

REFLECT

As you read this chapter, consider:

• • Who are the DLL children in your programs or classrooms?
• • What characteristics do they share?
• • How are these children diverse with regard to their home, school, and community contexts?
• • What developmental areas and skills are important for DLL children?
• • What federal and/or state mandates influence your program or teaching?

DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW OF DLLs

Across the nation, there has been an increase in the number of children who speak a language other than English at home and are learning a second language. Since 2000, the DLL population in the United States has grown by 24% (Park, O’Toole, & Katsiaficas, 2017). The term dual language learner (DLL) is used to describe young children who are exposed to and learning through two distinct languages (Castro, Garcia, & Markos, 2013). DLLs have also been defined as children learning two (or more) languages at the same time, as well as those learning a second language while continuing to develop their first (or home) language (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services & U.S. Department of Education, 2017).

Demographic data for this group are difficult to obtain given that student data are usually collected starting in kindergarten. A 2017 report by Park and colleagues defined DLLs as children between the ages of birth and 8 years who have at least one parent who speaks a language other than English at home. These statistics describe DLL children age 8 and younger based on an analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) and surveys conducted by the Migration Policy Institute with state early childhood education and care (ECEC) agencies. According to this analysis, DLLs make up nearly one third (more than 11 million children) of all young children in the United States.

The demographic profile of DLLs and their families is complex because they come from different backgrounds and ethnic groups, representing a diversity of values, beliefs, and practices, as well as resources. There are more than 350 languages represented within the DLL population, but Spanish predominates, with 59% of DLLs speaking Spanish in the home. Other prevalent home languages include Chinese (3.3%), Tagalog (1.9%), Vietnamese (1.9%), and Arabic (1.9%). These languages reflect trends showing a decrease in the immigrant population from Latin America and an increase in the immigrant population from Asia and the Pacific Islands, which will eventually become the largest immigrant group in the United States (Park et al., 2017). The two largest immigrant groups are Latinos and Asians; recent figures indicate that of the foreign-born individuals residing in the United States, approximately 50% were born in Latin America and 30% were born in Asia (Smith, 2018). Participation in early childhood programs also varies by ethnic group, with 3- to 5-year-old black and Latino children enrolling at lower rates compared to Asian and white children (McFarland et al., 2018).

Even though there is unquestionable variation within the DLL child population, certain general characteristics have been noted:

• • The majority are born in the United States.
• • Fifty-eight percent of DLLs are from low-income families.
• • Twenty-six percent of parents of DLL children have less than a high school education.
• • DLLs enroll in preschool programs at lower rates (42%) than their non-DLL peers (48%) (Park et al., 2017).

As noted by Castro, Espinosa, and Páez (2011), some of the demographic characteristics of DLLs support children’s healthy development and learning, such as living in two-parent households and community contexts that place a high value on education. However, these families and their children face many challenges, primarily driven by poverty and consequences of life with limited economic resources. Special attention has been given to DLLs from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and research in this population has shown that these at-risk children can greatly benefit from participation in early childhood programs (Yoshikawa et al., 2013).

The increasing prevalence of DLLs has intensified the need for educators, researchers, and policy makers to provide effective programs that promote school readiness for these children. This book supports these efforts by presenting the latest research on early childhood programs and describing teaching practices that support learning and development among DLLs.

THE MANY CULTURES AND EXPERIENCES OF DLLs

Immigration is a natural process as individuals and groups migrate from one region to another seeking out education, job opportunities, political or economic refuge, or a new life for themselves or their children. The United States was once known as “the nation of immigrants” due to its history of inviting immigrants into the country and supporting their goal of attaining the “American Dream.” This history of immigration has led to the large diversity seen across communities throughout the United States (Pew Research Center, 2015). Although the diversity is more apparent in border states, every state within the country has seen a rise in diverse populations since the early 2000s (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2017). Education and community agencies must quickly obtain knowledge of best practices for working with immigrant children and families of diverse backgrounds. There is a critical need for early childhood educators and leaders to seek out additional resources and professional development due to the heterogeneity of immigrant groups.

Research indicates that one-size-fits-all approaches will not work as best practices across diverse groups (Castro, Páez, Dickinson, & Frede, 2011). There is heterogeneity both within and across immigrant groups (Gonzalez et al., 2016). Notably, culture and language play a large role in defining the experiences of different groups with regard to language acquisition, assimilation, and acculturation. These ideas are also supported within ethnic and racial identity research conducted by sociologists, psychologists, and education researchers (Umaña-Taylor, 2011).

To represent the diversity and heterogeneity of the DLL population, the section that follows presents five case studies of children that highlight different cultural and linguistic backgrounds across multiple contexts. The cases were selected to reflect particular language profiles and different ethnic communities across the United States. They are a sample of the DLL children whom teachers might encounter in their early childhood classrooms. The cases include the following DLLs: 1) Javier, an immigrant Mexican child who is an emergent bilingual learner living in Chicago, Illinois; 2) Wang, a first-generation Chinese child who is an emergent English learner with foreign-born parents living in San Francisco, California; 3) Lucía, an English-dominant second-generation Puerto Rican child attending a two-way, or dual language program, in Boston, Massachusetts; 4) Roseline, a Haitian-born child whose parents immigrated in 2010 after the earthquake and who speaks Haitian Creole at home while learning English at school in Miami, Florida; and 5) Ko, a Burmese refugee who is a recent arrival and lives in New York, New York, with his family. We will return to each of these children’s cases throughout the book to provide analysis and concrete examples of factors that affect their development and learning and to highlight best instructional practices for both teaching and assessment.

DLL CASE STUDIES

Javier

Javier is a 4-year-old student who lives in the lower west side of Chicago with his parents, two older siblings, grandparents, and uncle in a three-bedroom apartment. Javier immigrated to Chicago from rural Mexico 2 years ago with his parents and siblings. His grandparents and uncle had already been living in Chicago for the previous 5 years. They joined an established Mexican community within the Pilsen area of Chicago, known for its history of Mexican immigrants. In fact, Chicago has the second largest population of Mexican-born immigrants in the United States. Although this area is becoming more gentrified, there are still many bodegas, panaderias, and taquerias, along with the National Museum of Mexican Art. The area is also home to beautiful murals representing Aztec history.

Javier is a quiet and shy boy. He does not speak unless spoken to and often struggles to verbalize his thoughts. Javier enjoys spending time with his two older brothers playing in the neighborhood with the other children. Most of the children in the neighborhood are also Mexican. Although Javier’s parents and grandparents speak only Spanish, Javier’s uncle and two older brothers have started learning English and enjoy speaking it with Javier. The children in the neighborhood also speak some English and often switch back and forth between English and Spanish. Even though this type of bilingual environment is common in some enclaves of the United States, it is not the norm in the majority of the country. Unlike Javier, many children are exposed only to English in their neighborhood and community. Javier is at an advantage because he is exposed to both languages on a daily basis. Javier’s family attends church in Spanish, shops at the local bodegas, and is active in the local Mexican community. Javier’s family moved to this area of the United States because of its established community. Javier’s parents wanted to take advantage of the opportunities for their children in the United States as well as the increased availability of employment in good-paying jobs as compared to Mexico; however, they worried about their children losing their Mexican identity. This identity is a big part of who they are, so they intentionally make sure to engage their children in cultural activities throughout the city.

During the week, Javier attends a Head Start nonprofit community program. The community program serves children from birth to 12 years in the neighborhood. It is a full-day, full-year program that offers bilingual education. Javier has been attending the program since he moved to Chicago. The curriculum is play based, and most of the teachers and staff in the program speak Spanish. The majority of the children who attend the program are also of Mexican heritage. The program stresses the importance of bilingual language development and early childhood education as a means for social and cognitive development. The staff does a lot of community outreach to enroll families who otherwise might use family care. Although Javier is quiet and...