Aims: We investigate the relationship between narrative macrostructure, current language exposure, and microstructure in second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States. Macrostructure knowledge has been claimed to be shared across languages in multilingual individuals. We examine the role of current language exposure and…

To date, little attention has been paid to the impact of immersion programs on learning interests in a second language (L2). The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of Hakka-Chinese bilingual programs (immersion vs. non-immersion) on L2 learning interests. Four kindergarten teachers (two in each program)…

The study examined 37 language samples of 37 Spanish-English kindergartners and first graders from a larger sample of the Multitudes Project in California. The focus was on investigating how these young English language learners produced narratives in English, what language elements they included, and whether these elements correlated or related…

This study employed a discourse analysis methodology to compare Korean bilingual students in first and third grades by examining different functions and forms of translanguaging in Korean heritage language classrooms in the U.S. By identifying linguistic functions and forms of each translanguaging occurrence, the study presents that the bilingual…

Most bilingual children often display greater proficiency and preference for one of their two languages. Researchers refer to this asymmetry as language dominance. However, despite being possible to determine the overall language dominance in bilinguals, there may be substantial flexibility in their language use. In particular, the relative ease…

This article investigates how young multilingual children's mathematics learning is connected to their language use, lived experiences, contexts, and emotions. To this end, we consider the experiences of children who used both Spanish and English to learn mathematics. We center on two instances of kindergarten children counting and use Systemic…

Dual language immersion (DLI) programs have emerged in the U.S. as effective ways to bring together language minority and language majority speakers in school settings with the goal of bilingualism and bi-literacy for all. However, the proliferation of these programs has raised concerns regarding issues of inequity and dissimilar power dynamics in…

Under dominant, autonomous views of literacy, students' humorous language use during literacy events is often dismissed as 'off task' behaviour. Taking a languaging perspective, this paper considers how third-grade, emergent bilingual students' humorous language use functioned in both 'official' and 'peer' worlds during eBook composing events…

This mixed-methods study was designed to examine how different home literacy environments shape gender differences in Chinese-Canadian first graders' (N = 76) bilingual lexical attainment and literacy engagement. Quantitative analyses indicated that girls outperform boys in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2) vocabulary. Gender differences were not…

This study sets out to explore the effect of proficiency and modality of interaction on code-switching (CS) amongst two groups of Spanish-Catalan learners acquiring English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Primary school (grade 3, n = 24 and grade 6, n = 21). Data was retrieved from audio-taped oral activities (peer interaction and learner-teacher…

While translingual and translanguaging orientations have been posited as supportive for emergent bilingual children in schools, limited research explores how children in English-medium spaces enact translingual composing practices. Drawing on theorizations of translingual composing as an interactional process, this paper analyzes data from a…

Monolingual oriented practices that largely dominated reading instruction in most multilingual African contexts in the twentieth century are increasingly being challenged in this century. Despite this, there remains a dearth of research on the concurrent use of more than one language during reading instruction in these contexts. In this…

This paper examines two language practices of students in a predominantly African American bilingual second grade class: language play and identity formation. Prevalent notions about legitimate language knowledge are visible in the school's curriculum, language goals, and assessment requirements. Additionally, discussions about bilingual…

In this article, I share two critical incidents from the vocabulary lessons in an instructional cycle on immigration with third-grade bilingual students. In sharing these critical incidents, I seek to raise awareness of how colonial legacies of cultural and linguistic domination permeate translanguaging pedagogy. I use critical reflection,…

Research has investigated how lexical-semantic and participant factors impact word learning in young children and adults. However, limited information pertaining to expressive vocabulary development exists for school-aged bilinguals--particularly those with developmental language disorder (DLD). Cross-linguistic differences in the semantic…