[Edling] Urgent question from bilingual teacher

Mon Apr 18 14:38:43 UTC 2016

Dear Miriam

I would suggest contacting Antonella Sorace, for an authoritative view.

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~antonell/

Best regards

Amanda Murphy
---------------------------
Amanda Murphy
Full Professor of English Language and Translation
Director Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Via Carducci 28/30, Milan 20123.
Tel. 02 7234 2745
Email: amanda.murphy at unicatt.it<mailto:amanda.murphy at unicatt.it>

On 18 Apr 2016, at 14:29, Miriam E Ebsworth <mee1 at nyu.edu<mailto:mee1 at nyu.edu>> wrote:

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 Board
Co-chair, ELL Think Tank

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

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