“A Lot of Students Are Already There”: Repositioning Language-Minoritized Students as “Writers in Residence” in English Classrooms

This article centers on Faith, a Latinx bilingual student who, because of her failure to pass a standardized exam in English language arts, had to repeat 11th-grade English. Despite this stigma of being a “repeater,” during the year-long ethnographic study I conducted in her classroom, Faith proved to be an insightful and critical reader and self-described poet who shared her writing with her peers as well as with other poets in online forums. Drawing from that more expansive classroom study, this article features Faith’s metacommentary on language and her own writing process and explores how her insights (1) disrupt monoglossic, raciolinguistic ideologies by highlighting the disconnect between her sophisticated understandings of language and the writing process and her status as a “struggling” student; (2) draw attention her wayfinding, which chronicles her navigation of those ideologies that complicate her search for a writerly identity and obscure the translingual nature of all texts and all writers; and (3) can move teachers and researchers of writing to reimagine the writing classroom so that it (re)positions students like Faith as “writers in residence,” whose existing translingual writing practices and wayfinding can serve as mentors and guides for others.

The Three Robbers in Three Languages: Exploring a Multilingual Picturebook with Bilingual Student Teachers

This study investigates translingual and multimodal teaching strategies in the context of multilingual literacy acquisition within a bilingual education program in France. It is based on a research project carried out at the Graduate School of Education of the University of Strasbourg, during the academic year 2017-2018. The purpose of our research is to analyze the student teachers’ representations and attitudes towards multilingual picturebooks, and to lead them to explore the pedagogical affordances of interlingual and intersemiotic mediation in the context of a multilingual reading project, built around the trilingual edition of Tomi Ungerer’s The Three Robbers. The qualitative analysis of the student teachers’ discourses allows us to discuss how translingual and multimodal activities give rise to a new pedagogical approach to literacy with young readers, specifically in a bilingual education context, and explain how picturebooks can foster integrated, multimodal, and translingual learning, as well as the development of biliteracy and metalinguistic awareness.

Bilingual outcomes for a student with down syndrome in French immersion

This study investigated the French and English outcomes and experiences of one student with Down syndrome enrolled in a Canadian French Immersion (FI) program. Testing in Grades 6 and 8 revealed development in both languages, higher English than French skills, and progress across the two years in English only. English language and reading comparisons in Grade 8 showed the bilingual student had similar or better English abilities than age-matched monolinguals with Down syndrome (DS) schooled in English only. Interviews revealed that the parents were strong advocates for their son and worked closely with the school to ensure accommodations were in place in FI that fostered his success. The interviews also offered some explanation for the lack of French progress at second testing. This study provides the first evidence that FI can provide a path to bilingualism for students with DS. The findings have implications for inclusive education.

Struggling to-be or not-to-be a bilingual teacher: Identity formation in a Change Laboratory intervention

While the methodology of formative intervention research has long been established, the aspect of new instrumentality of Change Laboratory is fragmentally documented. Therefore, in this study, we modified two major Change Laboratory mediating tools used in bilingual student-teaching seminars, namely the disturbance diary and four-field model. These two empirically investigated Change Laboratory tools have mediated transformative agency within the collective movement toward identity formation as the Change Laboratory participants (bilingual preservice teachers) conveyed their dilemma of to-be or not-to-be a bilingual teacher. We provide evidence on the relationship between the bilingual preservice teachers’ identity formation and their participation in the Change Laboratory intervention. The analysis made salient the role of two new Change Laboratory mediating tools, the adapted disturbance diary and individually generated four-field models, for the bilingual preservice teachers’ collective transformation in bilingual teaching. It also crystallized the importance of deepening the bilingual preservice teachers’ analysis of multiple languages and pedagogy as understood in the new bilingual teaching model in the Change Laboratory intervention.

Обучение чтению как культурному событию в смешанной аудитории при изучении русского как второго иностранного в школах Чехии

В учебных учреждениях появился новый тип обучаемого ученик-билингв. В связи с этим необходимо менять современную образовательную модель, особо обращая внимание на чтение как вид речевой деятельности и принципы отбора дидактического материала при обучении чтению в смешанной аудитории на уроках РКИ в школах Чехии. В качестве примера приводится один из авторских текстов, которому отводится ролькультурного событияпри чтении в семейном кругу, в классе или во внеурочное время. Авторы обосновывают необходимость и особенность целенаправленной и систематической методической работы с текстами, чтение которых может стать культурным событием. Предложена авторская методика работы с подобными текстами.The concept of this article is based on the following three principal points. The first one is connected with the advent of a new type of student in schools, a bilingual student, and, due to this, the necessity to introduce changes to the modern educational model. The second one is related to the role of reading as a species of speech activity and is concerning the principles of selection of didactic materials when teaching reading to a diverse audience (including bilingual students) in classes of Russian as a Foreign Language in schools of the Czech Republic. As an example, there is provided one of the authors texts which plays the role of a cultural event for school students and primary school students who are mono- and bilinguals, when reading in the family circle, in class or out-of-class. The third one substantiates the necessity and specialty of a purposeful and systematic methodological work with texts, the reading of which could become a cultural event. The authors methodology of work with such texts is proposed.

Standardized Entrance/Aptitude Testing in the Era of Foucault’s Panopticon: The Bilingual Student and the Minority Student

Standardized testing is an applauded system of testing due to the uniformity that it offers. The idea is that in standardized testing, because every student is being asked exactly the same question and each question has only one specific answer, standardized examinations are neutral, value free, and exonerated from the subjectivity that an examiner or teacher may inhibit. The reality is far from it. Using a Foucauldian panoptic perspective and focusing on what is known as the aptitude or entrance examination, I argue that standardized examinations are designed in such a way that bilingual and minority students shall not score on par with their monolingual majority counterparts. The questions are designed in such a way that those students who code switch (due to bilingualism) are placed at a disadvantage. Similarly, the culture represented in the examination is White middle class, hence making the examination relatively more difficult for minority students.

Ethics-Based Computer Science in Bilingual and Multicultural Schools

For decades, schools have adapted to a technologically-dependent world—developing courses, faculty positions and curricula to begin explicitly teaching with and about technology. Recognizing the need for deepening education in this area, the Lycée Français de New York, a bilingual and multicultural school, developed the digital learning department to lead the school’s thinking and practice around technology and computer science education. Over time, the department shifted its focus from first only the use of computer applications, to an emphasis on computer programming, to a more recent era which includes technology ethics as an equally important area of study. In serving a bilingual school, the Lycée’s digital learning team adapted teaching methods for a bilingual student body. The multiculturalism of the school presents the opportunity for fertile ethics discussions, since cultural values often impact values regarding technology use.

An Honest Discussion About Learning as a Bilingual Student in American Schools

Bilingual students are a distinctive portion of the population of American schools. While encountering these students is not a rare occurrence, the type of instruction and assistance that is provided varies greatly from district to district. This professional memo highlights a series of open conversations with an adult bilingual learner. One is able to see the impact of school-related responses (or lack thereof) from his youth upon his later life.