[lg policy] Reports Highlight Mother-Language Use and ‘Superdiverse’ Classrooms

[Harold Schiffman]

 Reports Highlight Mother-Language Use and ‘Superdiverse’ Classrooms
March 26, 2018
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Two reports released by the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on
Immigrant Integration Policy point to promising approaches being undertaken
to work effectively in multilingual, multicultural classrooms—an increasing
reality with nearly one-third of the U.S. child population age eight and
under growing up with one or more parents speaking a language other than
English at home. The reports were commissioned as part of a larger research
project sponsored by the center that is focused on understanding the needs
of early-childhood education and care (ECEC) programs that operate in
“superdiverse” contexts.

More U.S. communities are experiencing superdiversity in early education
and care settings as young dual-language learners (DLLs) arrive with
greater variation in origin, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and
language spoken at home. This superdiversity challenges ECEC providers to
develop instructional strategies and program designs that will better
ensure the healthy development and future academic success of DLLs, rather
than relying on approaches used in more homogeneous or bilingual settings.

In The Language of the Classroom: Dual Language Learners in Head Start,
Public Pre-K, and Private Preschool Programs, researchers Megina Baker and
Mariela Páez examine teachers’ use of language across different contexts to
highlight effective practices and provide examples of exemplary teaching in
diverse classrooms. The report focuses on patterns of home language use
across different ECEC program types, drawing upon insights from educators,
caregivers, and parents and classroom observations in six preschool
classrooms in Boston to identify exemplary practices. The second report
examines the potential of a well-regarded pre-K–3 professional development
model developed in California in recent years to improve instruction and
outcomes for DLLs in superdiverse settings through intensive focus on young
children’s academic language and literacy development, both in school and
at home.

In Supporting Dual Language Learner Success in Superdiverse Pre-K–3
Classrooms: The Sobrato Early Academic Language Model, authors Anya Hurwitz
and Laurie Olsen focus on the pre-K–3 SEAL model being used in more than
100 programs and schools in California. Piloted in 2008 in
bilingual/dual-language and English-instructed settings, the SEAL model is
designed to provide young English learners with language-intensive support
integrated throughout the curriculum, in and through academic content.

“With so many children in the U.S. now being taught in superdiverse
settings, it is critical that teachers—particularly those in pre-K–3
programs—are supported in understanding and using strategies that assist
young children in developing the academic language skills they need to read
on grade level and be positioned for future school success,” said Margie
McHugh, the center’s director. “Though the reports we release today provide
important insights and practices, research, policy, and practice are
generally lagging in this critical area, while the number of
early-childhood programs and elementary schools operating in superdiverse
contexts continues to grow.”

The report argues that the teaching models that prevail in education today
are inadequate to deal with superdiverse classrooms. “In a field that has
largely focused on either bilingual/dual-language program settings or
English-taught settings without distinguishing the superdiverse context or
its implications, teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse
classrooms have been left without the explicit tools and support to
leverage children’s home languages and create classrooms that embrace the
cultural realities of student lives beyond the classroom,’’ the authors
write. “To focus solely on English misses an important leverage point in
language/literacy development for the DLL child.”

The two reports conclude a three-part series on superdiversity. The first
report draws from MPI analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data to provide a
demographic profile of DLLs.
To download the SEAL model report, visit
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/supporting-dual-language-learner-success-superdiverse-prek-3-classrooms-sobrato.
To download the Language of the Classroom report, visit
www.migrationpolicy.org/research/language-classroom-dual-language-learners-head-start-public-pre-k-and-private-preschool
.


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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