[Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher

[anne marie devlin]

Miriam
Current research is coming out strongly in favour of 'translanguaging' where code switching is seen as a benefit to learners rather than a sign of lack of acquisition.I'm not at my desk and don't have access to references at the moment, but a google search should bring up some interesting findings to support your colleagues approach.
Hope that helps
Anne Marie

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 07:29:35 -0500
From: mee1 at nyu.edu
To: francis.hult at englund.lu.se; edling at bunner.geol.lu.se
Subject: [Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher

Dear Colleagues,

A
 grad of one of our programs is a bilingual (Spanish) social studies 
teacher in New York City, with 11 years of teaching experience.

The
 teacher received a super-critical review of a class observation from 
somebody outside the school who observed a single lesson. The observer 
knew nothing in advance about the teacher's curriculum or approach; 
there had been no communication with the teacher in advance of the 
observation.  After having written a scathing observation report, the 
observer refused to have a conversation with the teacher, who sought 
politely to explain their perspective and try to understand better the 
nature of the critique.

The teacher has requested input on one issue in particular:
At the top of the lesson, the teacher had written a guiding question in English with the Spanish version directly underneath.

The
 teacher, as I understand it, sought to have the students first try to 
understand the text in English, then read it in Spanish, and using all 
linguistic resources make meaning out of the question. (And ultimately, 
the students will be tested in English.)

One of the many 
criticisms in the observation report was that the English and Spanish 
versions should have appeared side by side rather than one above the 
other. The teacher is perplexed.

While the teacher's 
explanation makes sense to me, I have been asked whether there is any 
objective guidance available from the research on best practices to 
advocate for EITHER of the 2 approaches (2 languages side by side versus
 one above the other). 

Thank you in advance for sharing your perspective. I'll pass it on.

Sincerely,
Miriam

Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, PhD
Dir. of PhD & Post-MA Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
NYU Steinhardt, 316 East Building
New York, NY 10003

Research Editor: Journal of Writing and Pedagogy
Chair, NABE Research SIG Advisory BoardCo-chair, ELL Think Tank

office phone: (212) 998-5195
office fax: (212) 995-3636 






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