Indigenous educators desire to use culturally restorative and decolonized pedagogies reflective of their own cultural values and beliefs in their science programs but have lacked models for how to start. They also often lack confidence in their ability to teach the sciences. This three-year qualitative case study used grounded theory methodology…

Researchers have argued for an orientation to language as a resource that values bilingualism in mathematics classrooms. However, little is known about what mathematics teachers can do to translate a language-as-resource orientation into productive classroom practice. In this study, I analyze video data from two language immersion classrooms to…

This paper is about implementing a translanguaging approach to teach reading skills in English with simultaneous bilinguals who speak substantial amounts of Malay and Chinese at home. This new pedagogical approach was tried out with 2nd graders in 3 schools in Singapore: instead of the typical immersion approach to teaching reading skills in…

Framed within the discussions of the knowledge base for language immersion teachers, this article presents a qualitative case study of a first-year Grade 2 French immersion teacher's enactment of his systemic functional linguistic (SFL) knowledge to position his students in a culturally sustaining genre pedagogy. We examined interactive events and…

Spanish-English emergent bilingual children's range of sociocultural and linguistic knowledge have typically gone devalued in relation to school literacy curricula. This case study examines how emergent bilingual children in a second grade one-way immersion dual language classroom draw on their prior cultural-experiential knowledge and dynamic…

We focus here on the obstacles students face when learning to read in their second language, specifically in contexts where the second language is taught as a school subject or used as a medium of instruction (immersion). Qualitative studies in these areas have highlighted strategy deployment and approaches to constructing meaning as key variables…

This classroom-based case study examines how Spanish-English emergent bilingual children in a second grade one-way immersion classroom draw on prior knowledge and experiences and use comprehension strategies to discuss and comprehend three texts with different levels of cultural relevance. Through an examination of the rich range of cognitive,…

Prior research has shown that EL classification is consequential for students, however, less is known about how EL classification impacts students' outcomes. In this study, we examine one hypothesized mechanism: teacher perceptions. Using nationally-representative data (ECLS-K:2011), we use coarsened exact matching to estimate the effect of EL…

Welcome to the classroom of Jill Sontag and her 19 young bilingual collaborators. Join them as they simultaneously explore the world of insects and the world of language. These curious and energetic second graders are easily drawn into the realm of bugs. Encouraging them to speak in Spanish, however, is a bit more complicated. Jill uses her…

A study compared the effect of reading aloud to grade two French immersion students with that of participation in the normal language arts curriculum during a three-month period. Reading aloud was found to be a simple but effective adjunct to formal teaching methods for accelerating second language acquisition. (29 references) (Author/MSE)

In this article, I--a White, French-immersion teacher-researcher--engage in a reflective examination of my research and teaching practices involving African American students. My critical reflection of my research examines the instruments used in my comparative study of African American students' experiences in the French-immersion context and the…

This study examined how the experiences of African-American and white students in a partial French immersion second grade classroom in Louisiana differed from the experiences of students in a regular education classroom. It focused on students' perceptions of themselves and others, students' interactions with their teacher and peers, parental…

This paper examines the special challenges that English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students face in succeeding in science classrooms in U.S. schools. Particular focus is on how students in one experimental classroom (a Grade 2 and Grade 3 two-way bilingual English-Spanish class in a small western city) learned to apprehend scientific meaning with…