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Are you considering taking up Spanish?

Or planning a trip to a Spanish-speaking country?

In order to get started and have your first basic conversations in Spanish, you're going to need to learn some words!

In this post, you'll learn about 71 common Spanish phrases. And to make it easier for you, I've divided the phrases up into the main sections that form the building blocks of conversation:

1. Greetings

2. Small Talk

3. Being Polite

4. Dealing with Problems

5. Questions Words

6. Important Answers

7. Special Occasions

8. Saying Goodbye

Whether you are going to orchances are you'll find some of the locals can speak a bit of English. But if you speak some Spanish, you'll be able to have much more enjoyable and authentic experiences when you travel.

Having a few common Spanish phrases up your sleeve when you are travelling or starting out in the language allows you to experience local culture and hospitality in a completely different way.

You never know, maybe learning these phrases will motivate you to learn to speak Spanish fluently!
To make it as easy as possible for you to practice these phrases in your Spanish conversations, I've created a special PDF version of this article with all the phrases that you can print off or save on your phone to use read it anywhere, anytime, when you encounter Spanish speakers.
Spanish Greetings

Understanding what you should say when you meet and greet people is the least you can do if you want to make a good impression.

After all, you're going to be using greetings every time you have a conversation in Spanish!

These phrases are simple, easy to remember and will go a long way to help you make friends and have your first conversations in the language.

I've included tips for pronouncing each phrase in brackets, but it's always best to listen how native speakers talk if you really want to master pronunciation.

If you're confused about how to pronounce any of these phrases, you can look them up on Forvo (an online pronunciation dictionary) and hear them spoken by native speakers.

Keeping The Conversation Going: Small Talk

Making small talk is something you're going to do a lot of, so there's every reason to know how to do it properly.

Besides, small talk is the gateway to real communication; you need to be able to do it in order to really speak to a person.

Making small talk is not something most of us enjoy in our own language, so doing it in Spanish can be a bit daunting. But trust me, being able to engage in

But trust me, being able to engage in small talk will allow you to get a conversation started.

Making conversation in whatever way you can as a beginner will allow you to grow in confidence and figure out what you need to learn next.

Here are some phrases you can use to get the conversation going:

Did you notice anything strange about the pronunciation of the phrase ¿Cómo te va?

The 'v' in va is pronounced almost like a 'b'.

In English, the letter's 'b' and 'v' represent different sounds, but in Spanish, they represent the same sound.

This sound is different from anything we have in English. It's like a B, but softer. Listen to how I pronounce the word ¡Vale! ('ok') in this recording to see how it sounds:

Being Polite In Spanish

Of course, no matter what language you're speaking, politeness goes a long way. Whether you need to make an apology or just want to thank someone, you're going to use these phrases a lot!:

Dealing With Problems

Of course, not every conversation or language exchange will go smoothly.

What should you do when you don't understand something? Or if you need to ask someone for help?

It's important to know some basic phrases you can use for dealing with problems when they arise.If you need someone to speak more slowly or to repeat something, the best thing to do is just ask them!

After all, if you need someone to speak more slowly or to repeat something, the best thing to do is just ask them!

The word despacio in the last phrase is interesting.Notice that the 'c' is pronounced like '

Notice that the 'c' is pronounced like 'th' in this context.This is the traditional Spanish pronunciation used in Spain. However, in Latin America, people pronounced a 'c' like this as

This is the traditional Spanish pronunciation used in Spain. However, in Latin America, people pronounced the 'c' as a 's' sound (e.g. des-PAS-ee-o).

Question Words In Spanish

Conversation is a two-way street. So if you want to really connect with people, you need to be able to ask questions. Here the Spanish question words you need to know:

It's a good idea to just memorise these words right away. You're going to come across them again and again so it's important you're comfortable with them.

Pro tip: Question words are always written with an accent and with opening/closing question marks.

There are lots of questions which we use regularly in everyday conversation but we often don't realise how important they are.

Not having them in your repertoire will leave you tongue-tied and at a loss in many situations.Here are some examples:

Here are some examples of questions that are useful to know:

Talking About Yourself And Answering Questions

Learning how to ask questions in Spanish is all good and well, but if you are dealing with questions, you need to be able to deal with answers too!

Here's how you can respond to some of the questions above:

Expressions For Special Occasions

There are a number of common expressions that are used regularly to denote special circumstances or for special occasions.

These phrases are ideal for events like birthdays, meals with friends or even for ending the conversation:

Saying Goodbye In Spanish

Saying goodbye is never easy to do, especially when you don't know how to do it!Whether you are bidding farewell to friends you are going to see later or to somebody you will never see again, make sure you know how to say your goodbyes appropriately.

Whether you are bidding farewell to friends you are going to see later or saying goodbye to people you will never see again, Spanish has lots of different options:

Your Next Steps In Spanish

So there you have it: everyday common Spanish phrases to help you get started on your Spanish journey.

With these phrases in your back pocket, you will soon find yourself having your first basic conversations and getting excited about continuing to improve your Spanish.

So now that you've learned the basics, are you ready to take the next step on your Spanish journey?

I'm a big believer in the power of story to enable you to learn a language. That's why I've created an entire beginner course dedicated to learning Spanish by immersing yourself in an engaging story.

It's my Spanish Uncovered course, and it's designed to take you from beginner to B1 Intermediate level.

Click here for more information on the course and how it'll help you.

I've created a special PDF version of these phrases which you can download and refer to any time you need it! And if you download the PDF, I'll send you even more tips to help you as you continue learning Spanish.
Click here to download the PDF version of the article and receive more great language learning tips for free. How many of these phrases did you know already? Which new phrases do you think will be most useful for you in your conversations? Let me know in the comments below.

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71 Common Spanish Phrases to Survive Any Conversation!

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Are you considering taking up Spanish? Or planning a trip to a Spanish-speaking country? In order to get started and have your first basic conversations in Spanish , you're going to need to learn some words! In this post, you'll learn about 71 common Spanish phrases.

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“For young children, the language of the home is the language they have used since birth, the language they use to make and establish meaningful communicative relationships, and the language they use to begin to construct their knowledge and test their learning...Each child’s way of learning a new language should be viewed as acceptable, logical, and part of the ongoing development and learning of any new language.”

--NAEYC Position Statement on Linguistic and Cultural Diversity, 1995

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Supporting English Language Learners in the Preschool Classroom

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Supporting English Language Learners in the Preschool Classroom

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CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U.

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Supporting English Language Learners in the Preschool Classroom

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The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli

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The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli

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The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli

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Teaching Strategies for Working with Dual Language Learners | Kaplan Early Learning Company

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Discover helpful strategies for working with dual language learners in diverse classrooms with this free resource article from Kaplan Early Learning Company.

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Supporting cultural and linguistic diversity in early childhood

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Supporting cultural and linguistic diversity in early childhood

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Supporting cultural and linguistic diversity in early childhood

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5 Tips for Parents of Dual Language Learners

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5 Tips for Parents of Dual Language Learners

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NAEYC article

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It's important for teachers to create a welcoming environment for children and families from all cultures and who speak different languages. Here are a few quick tips.

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Many Languages, One Classroom: Supporting Children in Superdiverse Settings

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Many Languages, One Classroom: Supporting Children in Superdiverse Settings

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NAEYC article

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This is the first of two articles offering strategies for teaching children in classrooms where a variety of home languages are spoken.

Matthew, a monolingual English speaker, and two assistants who speak Spanish and Tagalog, teach in a classroom with children who speak five different home languages. The classroom buzzes with new songs and phrases in English and sometimes words of comfort in each language. Carefully placed pictures and labels help children see and interact with key words and items from all their cultures. In one corner of the classroom, Matthew welcomes a new parent and arranges a family language and cultural background interview.

Are you one of the many teachers today with children in their classrooms who speak a number of different languages and are just beginning to learn English? Teaching in a classroom like this is a challenge! How in the world do you go about it?

You need concrete strategies you can use to support children's language development in both English and their home languages. Of course, it's ideal when teachers speak the children's languages. But in superdiverse classrooms, that's unlikely to be the case.

Here, we offer strategies from an approach we call personalized oral language learning (POLL). Teachers who have tried them find these strategies especially useful for supporting the learning and development of children in classrooms with a range of languages.

Personalized oral language learning

As centers and schools serve more and more children who speak little or no English at home-and as we recognize the many benefits of children retaining their home languages and cultures-teachers often ask us, "What are the specific strategies I should use to support my dual language learners?" POLL answers this question with three types of assistance: (1) family engagement, (2) environmental supports, and (3) conversation and interaction. In this issue of TYC, we address the first two strategies. In the February/March 2019 issue, we'll explore strategies for fostering conversations and interactions with children who are dual language learners.

Family engagement

Start by gathering information about each child's experience in the home language and in English. This is a critical step. We highly recommend that you meet with families in a personal, face-to-face interview to collect this information-along with information about the family's background and their shared interests and activities. (For a sample interview about family languages and interests, see below.) A personal meeting is much more effective than sending home a questionnaire or having an informal conversation. This is not the only time for the teaching team to meet with families, but it's the beginning of a relationship and dialogue focused on the importance of both home language and English language development.

Through this type of teacher-family collaboration, you can plan together how to weave linguistic and cultural information into activities at school and at home. For example, families can have conversations with their children in their home languages on the topics/themes and new words shared by the teachers each week. Interviews and ongoing communication also provide perfect opportunities for you to invite parents and other family members to volunteer in the classroom!

As the school year progresses, be sure to keep families involved in the classroom's storybooks, themes, and learning concepts. Communicate with them in the languages they are most comfortable speaking (you may need to use an interpreter). Try reaching out in different ways, such as frequently sending home two-way journals for families to read, write in, and return; having regular small-group coffee chats with parents before the school day; emailing, texting, and holding frequent casual conversations at pick up and drop-off; and scheduling oneon- one conversations. Your reminders will reinforce families' awareness of the importance and benefits of their using the home language in everyday activities, having rich conversations with their children, reading, telling stories, and playing.

The home languages of the children in Ding's family child care program include Spanish, English, and Vietnamese. Ding's home language is Vietnamese, and she speaks English fluently.

Ding knows that one child's family owns a food truck. She has invited the family to park the truck outside her home one morning to share food items with the children and show them steps the family takes in preparing and selling food. Ding plans vocabulary activities based on food prices and menus from each child's culture. She chooses related books in all three languages and prepares materials for the children to use in creating a food truck in the dramatic play area.

Environmental supports

When you create a warm, nurturing environment, one that welcomes children and families, you send the message that you value and respect them, their language, and their culture. When your classroom includes the home languages and cultural backgrounds of all the children and families, they see and feel that they are natural and important parts of classroom activities. You'll soon notice positive results: young dual language learners will develop confidence, communicate their thoughts and feelings more readily, concentrate better, and learn more.

Transform your classroom into a rich setting with areas for children to talk and play, and with spaces for both quiet and active learning and small group interactions.

Here are some supports to use:

Label in each of the home languages of the children, with one color for each language used consistently throughout the classroom for schedules and topic displays. (Use an online translation tool, like Google Translate, and ask parents to help with specific words.) ŸŸ

Place environmental print in all the children's home languages-everyday objects like magazines, food packaging, commercial products, etc.-throughout play areas and the classroom. ŸŸ

Display family photos, books, artifacts, and posters and other visuals from all the children's cultural backgrounds throughout the classroom at child's-eye level and in learning centers. Families are often eager to help supply the classroom with items from their home that represent family and cultural traditions, such as examples of artwork, empty food boxes, pictures, etc.

Teachers can work with librarians to select books in the children's languages that relate to curricular themes and can adapt puzzles to include writing in all the children's languages. Families can share songs, rhymes, and dichos (playful sayings) in all the languages of the children; they can also help stock the dramatic play area and art center with clothing and cultural artifacts from each child's background.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, fostering young dual language learners' development of English and also of their home languages is a major challenge. But if you use the strategies outlined in this article, you can partner with families and create a responsive environment that supports each child and encourages learning.

In the February/March 2019 issue of TYC, we'll share even more strategies for linguistically appropriate instruction.

Two Classroom Language Models

In schools across the United States, many teachers who try to help children become bilingual use one of these two language models. Both work well with our POLL strategies. This article elaborates on the second one.

The fifty-fifty dual language model

Teachers make sure children experience (hear, speak, see in print, etc.) both English and their home language in all content areas (literacy, math, outdoor play, etc.). With careful planning, teachers ensure that children experience equal exposure to both languages and also provide a clear structure for language separation.

This is a great model for supporting emergent bilingual children, but it is most feasible when all of the children speak the same home language (e.g., Spanish). Two different home languages can also be supported in this model through careful allocation of time and other instructional resources. (For an example of a classroom that embraces English, Spanish, and Arabic, see " Conversations with Children," by Janis Strasser.)

The English language development with home language support model

Teachers most often use this model when they are not proficient in the children's home languages. It gives them a clear and consistent plan for when and how to use English and when and how to use the children's languages. Children learn mainly in English during instructional time, but benefit from home language and multicultural supports that teachers intentionally interweave throughout the daily routine. For a description of specific supports to use, see the POLL strategies described in this article.

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Many Languages, One Classroom: Supporting Children in Superdiverse Settings

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This is the first of two articles offering strategies for teaching children in classrooms where a variety of home languages are spoken.

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NAEYC article

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It's circle time on a Monday morning in a South Texas Head Start classroom. The children have noticed that la paleteria (food stand selling frozen fruit popsicles and ice creams), the most recent dramatic play center theme, has been taken down and put away, and they are wondering what kind of center should replace it.

Mrs. Ramos invites them to talk about their weekend activities. Rodrigo says he and his grandmother went to the panaderia (bakery). Two children ask, "What is that?" Juanita explains, "That's a bakery where you buy bread and cake." Mrs. Ramos says she and her mother used to go to the panaderia when she was a child. The children smile.

The conversation turns to pan dulce (sweet bread). Some children say they buy it at the local grocery store or corner store. Others say their families buy it at their nearby panaderia. Mrs. Ramos says that could be the theme of the new dramatic play center. The children enthusiastically begin naming baked goods that their panaderia will sell, and Mrs. Ramos writes their suggestions down.

Culturally responsive centers

To identify culturally relevant themes, listen to children's everyday talk. In Mrs. Ramos's classroom, the children's conversations about their family activities led them to create a panaderia in the dramatic play center. Culturally relevant dramatic play centers let young children draw from their experiences to enhance their play. Children reenact activities and observations from family life and share common events in their cultures. Authentic dramatic play leads to children's meaningful learning-especially in language and vocabulary.

Here are some ideas for planning language-rich environments that help dual language learners (in this case, emergent Spanish/English bilinguals) develop communication skills. When you intentionally create interesting experiences for children, their play becomes deeper and more interactive.

Spark conversations through verbal mapping

To expose children to new vocabulary, practice verbal mapping -that is, describe to children what they are doing (or what you are doing) to introduce new words in a meaningful context. Remember to use new vocabulary words in conversations over and over again, because children need to hear and practice unfamiliar words many times to truly understand them. Teachers describe actions and objects that are important to children while in a familiar and meaningful setting. The setting for the classroom might be a bodega, a paleteria, or a panaderia.

Jorge explains that in his neighborhood bakery, you use pinzas para pan, or tongs, to pick up bread. Mrs. Ramos sees this as an opportunity to reinforce the word tongs. She hands two wooden blocks to Jorge and says, "Good morning, sir. I'm delivering the two tongs the manager ordered for the bakery." Although tongs is a new word for the children, they immediately integrate it into their speech and play. The cashier tells the next customer, "Please give me your tray so I can ring up your bread. Leave the tongs over there." Teachers also engage in verbal mapping when they talk about the types of bread customers buy. Without disrupting play, Mrs. Ramos asks questions, supplies vocabulary, and extends the conversation to support children's language development.

Provide new props to extend children's play

Props can be added in phases to build on children's knowledge and hold their interest. Here's how Mrs. Ramos set up the panaderia.

Provide basic bakery props. Offer-or invite families to contribute-common objects and tools, such as photos/pictures of familiar breads, aprons, spice and extract bottles, plastic mixing bowls, wooden spoons, rolling pins, and other kitchen products or tools.

Add more props based on careful observation of children's interactions. After Mrs. Ramos observed children talking about delivering cakes for weddings and quinceañeras (girls' 15th birthday celebrations), she introduced a calendar. The children marked the dates when cakes had to be delivered to or picked up by customers. Other items provided included cookie cutters and a receipt booklet.

Add props that enhance the theme. Mrs. Ramos placed a pretend fire extinguisher in the bakery. This extended children's imaginations (and vocabulary) as they role-played burning bread and putting out a fire in the oven. She also supplied objects like a bakery timer, cake photo album, and pictures of celebrations.

Try placing new props in the center for children to discover first, then explain how to use them. Or teachers might introduce the new props through role-playing, as Mrs. Ramos did with the tongs.

This dramatic play center reflected the Spanish-speaking children in the class. But classes have all sorts of cultural mixes. Regularly assess the materials and props in the dramatic play center to make sure they accurately reflect all of the children and families in your class and accommodate the children with disabilities. Add props that encourage children to talk to each other and to their teacher. When the excitement over a certain dramatic play center fades, offer new props or change the theme.

Make it a print-rich setting

Create a welcoming print-rich dramatic play center. Add functional labels, pictures, books, and other materials reflective of children's cultures, such as familiar recipes, photos of cultural sweet breads, and spice or extract bottles (for example, vanilla, cinnamon, or piloncillo-unrefined brown sugar). Mrs. Ramos labeled the panaderia shelves with the names of different breads and other baked goods that children had heard their families talk about, such as empanadas, conchas, and orejas. Now, they could see how those words were spelled. This encouraged them to write the words as they were ordering or selling sweet bread or creating new bread recipes.

An interesting space encourages children to stay engaged. Children notice the print and learn that it symbolizes language. Using the props, they learn the everyday functions of writing and literacy. When Mrs. Ramos placed an Open/Abierto sign on the panaderia counter, some children said, "Ya esta abierta la panaderia!" ("The bakery is open!").

Place useful labels so that children can touch them-even copy and trace them-and help organize the materials. Mrs. Ramos made labels in Spanish and English for the names and prices of specific baked goods. The "Open/Abierto" sign and the different labels helped children organize their thought process as they created sequenced role-playing episodes. The labels also worked as resources to scaffold the children's language and help with reading.

Conclusion

Children's language development is enhanced by intentional support from teachers, interaction with peers, and opportunities to practice their new communication skills. We hope our examples inspire you to create dramatic play centers that reflect your children's communities, cultures, and experiences outside of school. Center themes encourage children to play together and talk about what is personally meaningful to them. They can have fun using new words in a safe, comfortable setting.

Prop Suggestions for the Panaderia

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Supporting Language: Culturally Rich Dramatic Play

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In Mrs. Ramos's classroom, the children's conversations about their family activities led them to create a panaderia in the dramatic play center.

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Specific Strategies to Support Dual Language Learners 

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Specific Strategies to Support Dual Language Learners 

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From Head Start Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center

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Specific Strategies to Support Dual Language Learners (DLLs) When Adults Do Not Speak Their Language | ECLKC

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Find tips classroom staff and home visitors can use when they do not speak the languages of the children in their care.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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6 Key Insights about Dual Language Learning for Schools

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6 Key Insights about Dual Language Learning for Schools

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Article from educationweek.org

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For decades, two factors drove the demand for dual-language education: a desire to preserve native languages and recognition that dual-language learning can boost overall achievement for English-language learners. Now, a growing number of states also see bilingualism as key to accessing the global economy, as evidenced by the surging popularity of the "seal of biliteracy"-a special recognition for graduates who demonstrate fluency in two or more languages. The popularity of the seal is spurring even more demand for dual-language-education programs.

There is no definitive count of the number of schools that provide dual-language instruction, but new programs are cropping up each year in districts of all sizes. The New York City schools alone have more than 100 dual-language programs, but schools in at least 40 states and the District of Columbia also operate programs. With more new programs undoubtedly in the works, Education Week talked with several regional and national dual-language education experts, who offered insights into what it takes to launch dual-language programs and strengthen existing ones. Here are some excerpts from those conversations, edited for clarity and length:
What resources do you need to start a dual-language program?
"Once a program is well designed and implemented and it has all of its systems of support in place, the additional costs for a dual-language program is not much higher than any other monolingual English program. The issue, though, up front is going to be ... it's a very different design, a very different approach to education. You have training costs, you have leadership-development costs, you have resource costs because, of course, now you need materials in the non-English language. That takes a while for districts to reach that capacity where now their budget is going to be able to ... ensure sufficient materials to support instruction in both languages. That takes some time. It depends on where you are in the country as to how much that startup cost will be. Here in New Mexico, we would say that the cost could be ... somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000 per school for the first three years of design and implementation. That would be a starting point."

- David Rogers
Executive director, Dual Language Education of New Mexico
Spanish is the most dominant target, or non-English, language offered in dual programs, but districts now offer a broader array of languages to learn. What are some of the challenges districts may encounter with those lesser-taught languages?
"There is a level of investment that a district has to make to be able to provide the core materials in those languages, because you just can't go to Vietnam and buy the standard curriculum that's used in schools there, nor could you do that for [Chinese] or any other languages, because it has to be really aligned with [Common Core State Standards]. First of all for us is to figure out, what is our content allocation? What are we going to be teaching in the partner language, versus what are we going to be teaching in English? And then our goal is to try to provide those materials in an equivalent and rigorous way. Sometimes that involves buying materials that are out in the field and adapting those. Sometimes that means developing them ourselves. Sometimes that means translating the English material. Just like any good educational program, you have to invest in the curriculum, the professional development, to make it work well for kids."

- Michael Bacon
Director, department of dual language, Portland, Ore., schools
How can schools with dual-language programs emphasize the importance of both languages?
"Sometimes what we see is that the [target] language is only represented in the classroom, and that doesn't give the appropriate idea about the dual-language program. When one decides to adopt a dual-language program, both languages should be integral throughout the school, should be present throughout the school. Both in the corridors but also in the meetings, in staff development, etc. Both languages should be present, and it should be obvious. Signs are in both languages, things are happening in both languages, because that also gives students the idea that both languages are valuable. Sometimes school districts don't. It's one of the things that is first noticeable. So, English is typically all over the place and the other language, well, it's within the classroom, but hardly anywhere else."

- David Nieto
Executive director, BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, University of Colorado, Boulder

When helping districts establish dual-language programs, is there a big misconception that you have to work to dispel early on?
"One of the big myths about implementing these programs has to do with the mindset that little children are just open to a second language, that it's just easy for them. It's schooling, and so schooling, after a certain point, gets difficult and so we have to have people understand that this is not just an enrichment program or a foreign-language option. This is a complete shift of the child's core program, and it's developed so that kids really do become literate in both languages. So it's not business as usual with this little overlay called a second language. It has to be redefined so that everyone understands that we're going to teach language arts in English, but we also are going to teach language arts in Spanish. So it's not 45 minutes a week, it's a minimum of half a day, every single day."

- Rosa Molina
Executive director, the Association for Two-Way & Dual Language Education, based in Santa Cruz County, Calif.
How can educators, even those working outside of classrooms, support dual-language education?
"My push right now, big time, is principals, making sure that our principals, our assistant principals, central-office leaders, all are aware of what dual language is because everybody plays a role in the rollout of dual language. Budget, curriculum, evaluation, policy. You need a leader that understands the whole background on dual language, not just learning in Spanish. Not just learning to read in Spanish. No, everything that it encompasses, what dual language encompasses, which is bilingualism, biliteracy, cultural competence, high academic achievement, through, not in, but through both languages. So you need the leadership. They need to know what to look for when they go into a classroom and do an observation in a room that is dual, which is very rich. What should they be looking at, what should they be paying attention to? How should they be guiding their teachers?"

- Elena Izquierdo
Associate professor, University of Texas, El Paso
What are some growing pains that schools can expect to encounter after launching dual-language programs?
"The number of [language] immersion programs continues to grow across the country, and so the demand [for] having a quality teacher workforce is growing, too. That's been one of our biggest challenges, to find a pipeline of teachers, qualified teachers. We've been finding an alternate way to help certify teachers that we need."

- Gregory Fulkerson
Director of language-acquisition workgroup, world languages, and dual-language immersion, Delaware Department of Education
Are there other examples of growing pains that schools may not anticipate?
"Another perhaps growing pain is districts kind of struggling to realize when they need to add additional people to their staff that they may not have had in place before. We're finding that right around the transition from 2nd grade into 3rd grade, we're starting to see districts now start to look for special [education] teachers who have bilingual ability. We want to make sure that every child is successful in an immersion environment, and should that child need special education services, et cetera, we want them to be able to receive those services in the immersion language."

- Lynn Fulton-Archer
Education specialist, dual-language immersion, Delaware Department of Education

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Dual-Language Learning: 6 Key Insights for Schools

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For decades, two factors drove the demand for dual-language education: a desire to preserve native languages and recognition that dual-language learning can boost overall achievement for English-language learners. Now, a growing number of states also see bilingualism as key to accessing the global economy, as evidenced by the surging popularity of the "seal of biliteracy"-a special recognition for graduates who demonstrate fluency in two or more languages.

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The benefits of promoting cultural diversity, tolerance, and empathy in curriculum to foster global awareness.

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Overview

Teaching Global Competence

Founded with a vision to prepare students for a globalized future, Seattle's John Stanford International School (JSIS) is an internationally themed, model public elementary school.

JSIS seeks to teach students to be global citizens while raising academic performance. This is done through language immersion in Spanish or Japanese for half the day -- teachers conduct the other half of the day in English. In addition, the focus of the global curriculum is not just to talk about social issues, like a lack of potable water, but to do something about these problems.

It takes special teachers to work at JSIS. Teachers must be experienced in international education; have language skills; participate in professional-learning-communities (PLCs); and, most important, be lifelong learners.

Resources and Downloads for Global Competence

How It's Done

How to Encourage Global Perspectives in Your Students

Build On What You Care About

"You can take any unit and change it a little so that students really start to see the world globally," explains fourth-grade teacher Nicole Silver. She described one of her units called Festivals of Light (PDF). "A more traditional unit might have been: Learn about three holidays. Instead, I wanted students to think about the need for tolerance in the world," Silver explains. She has students choose a winter festival from anywhere in the world, then raise questions through the inquiry process, conduct research, and think critically about issues of religious tolerance. During the unit, Silver encourages students to consider their own feelings and think about whether they have ever felt like an outsider. She takes the discussion deeper by asking students, "What was it like to not fit in?" And, as an action step, "How do we welcome everyone?"

Hiromi Pingry, who has been at JSIS for ten years and teaches Japanese, math, science, and social studies, constantly challenges herself to connect language lessons to global issues. "How can I expand from teaching about the culture of Japan to a more globalized view?" she wonders. In the past, for instance, a unit about the rainforest might have focused on animals and habitats. "Now, we dig into a global issue like deforestation," she says. To infuse language study into science, she has connected her students with people from Japan who are working on environmental issues in Africa. For teachers new to global education, she advises, "Start with something that you find interesting, something you have a passion for. Build global perspective from that."

Harness Parent Power

At the start of each year, kindergarten and first-grade teacher Julie Colando surveys parents about their careers. If their work takes them outside the United States, she invites them to share their experiences with students. "These bring to mind mini-TED talks," Colando says, but geared for audiences of five- and six-year-olds. Parents have given classroom presentations and hands-on demonstrations about everything from oceanography research to vaccines to sanitation in the developing world. One parent, working on clean-water issues, opened his chat by showing photos of homes around the world. He simply asked students what they noticed. Next, they compared images of food from around the world. Then, toys. Then, toilets. "The way he did it was not guilt-inducing," the teacher observed. "It got students thinking about, 'What if you couldn't wash your hands? What if there were no bathrooms? What might happen to your drinking water?'"

Keep It Fresh

Silver changes her curriculum every year. "That keeps it fresh for me," she says, and also allows her to connect with students' experiences. She starts each school year by taking time to find out, "Where are my students from? What are their prior experiences?" If students are immigrants or English-language learners, what can they teach their American-born classmates about other cultures? Keeping it fresh also allows Silver to respond to global events. During last year's election season, for instance, her students took part in their own mock election. They also investigated voting rights around the world and evaluated information sources for reliability. Regardless of topic, Silver asks thought-provoking prompts such as: "What's the world like outside my experience? How could I find out? How can we listen to and learn from others?"

For more suggestions about teaching students to become citizens of the world, download a free copy of Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World (PDF) by Veronica Boix Mansilla and Anthony Jackson. After JSIS teachers discussed the book as a staff, they were better prepared to plan units that emphasize principles such as teaching students to recognize and express their own perspectives, examine the perspectives of others, and act in ethical and creative ways to improve the world.

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Founded with a vision to prepare students for a globalized future, Seattle's John Stanford International School (JSIS) is an internationally themed, model public elementary school. JSIS seeks to teach students to be global citizens while raising academic performance.

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A story of a 1st grade teacher's process in learning to listen to the needs of Dual Language Learners in her classroom

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Thoughts on the Article | Mary Jane Moran, Voices Executive Editor

Through her yearlong action research study in a first grade classroom, Laura Latta learned much more than how to guide dual language learners' efforts to learn to read and write. As she changed her practice, Laura began to hear the children's expressed needs and contributions to their own learning. She learned to listen. For Laura, this meant giving up some control as the decisionmaker while acknowledging the children's ideas and their rights to describe and define the learning experiences that were most useful to them. This classroom research is about a teacher who embarked on a pedagogical journey and ended up engaged in coinquiry with her students. In teacher research, such a shift is common.

When teachers set out to study their practice and devote attention to the ways their practice affects children's learning, it establishes a new dynamic, one that focuses on the relationship between teachers' and students' learning. Teachers who document, reflect, and make changes to their practice create a kind of classroom workshop for their own professional development. This outcome is one reason teacher research helps sustain us as teachers as we continually reconsider our practice in relation to our students' learning.

This article is both a story and an invitation. The story reveals how one teacher learned alongside her students and changed as a result. It also shows how young children were given the space, time, and opportunity to take charge of their learning and, in so doing, developed literacy skills and confidence as learners. The invitation is to you, the reader, to take up a question that matters to you and the children in your classroom and to begin to listen through your documentation, reflection, and actions to what you hear, see, and wonder about. As Laura reminds us, when we listen to the children in our classrooms, we discover that they have many things to teach us.

As a monolingual early childhood educator working in a diverse public school in the Midwest, I am constantly in search of strategies for supporting my young learners. A majority of the children in my classroom (14 out of 24) are dual language learners (DLLs); as they learn English at school and their home languages (Spanish [12], Vietnamese [1], and Hmong [1]) with their families, they are on a path to becoming bilingual. Admittedly, there are moments when I feel humbled and intimidated by the task of supporting these children effectively as they grow and learn.

When I accepted this position-teaching a kindergarten/first grade loop in a Title I public elementary school where two-thirds of the children speak Spanish-I felt that it was important to understand second language development. To strengthen my teaching approaches, I began grasping at every piece of research I could find related to dual language instruction. As I immersed myself in the literature about dual language acquisition and effective instructional strategies, I realized there was a limited amount of research that included the firsthand perspectives of DLLs as they reflected on their own language acquisition process. I began to conduct a pilot study focused on gaining a more comprehensive understanding of how the children in my classroom were acquiring language and how I could most effectively support them in this process. It was important to me to consider the lived experiences of DLLs in my study. I decided to take a qualitative approach, beginning with interviewing two of my colleagues.

Insights from colleagues

Two of my teaching colleagues, Taty and Jenny, had experienced firsthand what it was like to immigrate to the US as preschool-age children. Both were willing to share their experiences with me over the course of three individual interview sessions each.

Taty migrated with her family to California from San Juan, Puerto Rico, just before entering kindergarten. Her first school experiences were largely negative. She felt alone, scared, and intimidated. The culture (specifically food, language, and clothing) felt so different from her experiences in Puerto Rico that it made her transition very difficult and uncomfortable.

Taty went to kindergarten knowing Spanish and very little English; she felt excluded from the group. She explained that not knowing what others were saying "put her in a really dark place." In order to see the "light at the end of the tunnel," she knew that she had to speak English. However, this felt risky- she was not willing to experience embarrassment by making mistakes in front of her peers. Over time, she began to feel comfortable in the classroom as her teacher listened to her, had patience with her, and was willing to meet her linguistic needs.

Like Taty, Jenny immigrated to the US with her Cantonese family just before she started kindergarten. When Jenny reflected on her first experiences as a DLL, she described herself as fearless. She was ready to "do school" because the importance of school was emphasized in her home. However, once she realized that her kindergarten peers did not share her language or culture, she became hesitant and self-conscious about communicating with others.

Jenny went through a silent period during which she spoke very little Cantonese or English; this silence lasted from kindergarten through second grade. Jenny reminisced, "It was my second-grade teacher who recognized that I was not doing well at anything [in school], so every day she started working with me just a little bit. It was just oneon- one with me-simple words and stuff. She also sent me to a reading specialist, and I worked daily in a small group. Every day she would work to support me."

Interviewing my two colleagues gave me key insights into the direction of my research. Both Taty and Jenny credit their supportive teachers with playing important roles in their decisions to become teachers of DLLs. I recognized that the process of language acquisition is deeply relational, requiring the development of trust between child and teacher. Additionally, one of the most powerful qualities of both Taty's and Jenny's teachers was that they took the time to listen to the children and met them where they were. This reminded me about the concept of competent listening: "Learning how to listen is a difficult undertaking; you have to open yourself to others. . . . Competent listening creates a deep opening and predisposition toward change" (Rinaldi 2006, 130).

Documenting my reflections on the interviews in my field notebook, I wrote, "Listening to my children and letting their voices guide my instruction is where I should begin my work." And so I began my journey with a step back from my usual ways of teaching, replacing "listening-as-usual" (Davies 2014, 34) with a more deliberate, engaged positioning that gave room to my students to help chart the course of their own learning.

Review of the literature

Vygotsky's sociocultural theory served as the foundation for my study. Vygotsky (1978) stated that as children develop language (both first and additional languages), they use private speech to organize their actions. Private speech is self-directed and supports thinking; it is a precursor to the voice inside the mind (inner speech) that develops later in childhood. During play, a child might describe aloud what he is doing, even when he is playing alone. For DLLs, participating in both play and private speech aids in developing knowledge of social and experiential vocabulary.

I observed this phenomenon as two of my DLL students, Alison and Sophia, played dress up with figurines. Alison, speaking aloud to herself, quietly labeled the parts of her doll's outfit in Spanish: collar, falda, and zapatos. Overhearing Alison, Sophia pointed to each of the items, stated the English words-necklace, skirt, and shoes- and then refocused her attention on her own doll.

Applying Vygotsky's (1978) lens, it seems that Sophia, Alison's trusted friend, was operating as a more knowledgeable other, listening in and then building Alison's understanding of the English versions of the Spanish labels she used to describe the doll's clothing. Vygotsky noted that for learning and development to occur, a more knowledgeable person-like Sophia-should engage with the learner in her zone of proximal development (the area of dissonance between what a child knows and can do on her own and what she still needs guidance from another to do). Mentors and more knowledgeable peers guide participation in the learning process through scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross 1976; Rogoff 1993). As this shared participation unfolds among DLLs, children develop new understandings and gain access to words that can be used to describe their everyday experiences.

Language acquisition

One helpful model of second language acquisition sets forth five progressive stages: preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency (Krashen & Terrell 1983). Children move at their own pace, largely depending on the support they receive in their first and second languages and the availability of contextualized instruction (Lake & Pappamihiel 2003; Buyse et al. 2014).

Contextualized instruction includes using visuals when teaching new vocabulary, providing hands-on learning activities, designing a print-rich environment (with an assortment of engaging texts and labels), singing songs, acting out finger plays, fostering peer support through play, role-playing, and using gestures to accompany speech.

Deepening my knowledge of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, second language acquisition, and competent listening helped guide me toward the realization that I should invest time building relationships with each of my students individually. My instruction should be child centered, tailored to each child's expressed or observed needs. To do this effectively, I had to create opportunities to form trust-filled relationships. I also had to build time into the schedule to observe the children, to ask them to share their thoughts about their learning, to listen intently to their responses, and to provide supports based on their feedback.

I wanted to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how the children in my classroom were acquiring language and how I could most effectively support them in this process.

Methodology

For this yearlong action research study, I worked closely with a small group of eight DLLs in my first-grade classroom who speak Spanish at home. On an English language assessment, each of these children qualified as emergent DLLs. My research was guided by the following question: How could I most effectively support the language development of emergent dual language learners in my classroom?

I teach in a community school, a traditional public school that has been expanded to include a medical clinic and other amenities to make it a community hub. Family engagement is considered a top priority by the administration and teaching staff and is reflected in the school's vision statement. Before the start of each school year, my colleagues and I conduct home visits to get to know children and their families in a comfortable setting. Additionally, teachers are able to establish close connections with the children and their families as they teach in two-year looping cycles. The children in this study were in first grade, the second year of their loop with me as their teacher.

Procedures

Throughout the study, I met with eight focus children-Andrew, Aaliyah, Niko, Alison, Alexa, Edgar, Sebastian, and Sophia (their self-selected pseudonyms)-at least three times a week, either individually or in small groups of two or three. At the beginning of the school year, these meetings were instructional mini-sessions during which I taught vocabulary, reading strategies, or foundational reading skills (such as letters, sounds, and sight words). During this time, I saw myself primarily as an interventionist, teaching what was needed to help the children learn. However, I quickly realized that this role was not highly effective; the children quickly grew disengaged when not given a voice in their own learning processes.

Feeling somewhat disappointed that my approaches were not as fruitful as I had hoped, I went back to the literature. The concept of pedagogy of listening resonated strongly with me (Rinaldi 2006). Listening requires openness, sensitivity, suspension of judgment and assumption, willingness to change, and flexibility. As a listener, "the teacher is not removed from her role as an adult, but instead revises it to become a cocreator, rather than merely a transmitter, of knowledge and culture" (Rinaldi 2006, 141). I realized that truly listening to the children was far more complex than I initially thought. In order to develop my own pedagogy of listening, I would have to approach my teaching encounters as more than an interventionist. I decided to adopt a more inquisitive instructional approach, observing the children and listening to their needs and preferences as learners.

Transformation of teaching roles

My instructional roles evolved throughout the school year because of my research. As the year progressed, my pedagogy as a competent listener developed (Rinaldi 2006), and I added new layers to my identity as a teacher. I felt myself becoming more flexible and multidimensional in my practices. Additionally, the way I thought about teaching and the questions I asked myself about the children changed; I focused less on my role as a teacher and more on the students' roles as capable constructors of knowledge.

The process of language acquisition is deeply relational, requiring the development of trust between child and teacher.

During the first quarter of the school year, I confidently approached my work as an interventionist, armed with research and ready to implement all of the effective instructional strategies I found in the literature. However, I quickly realized that even though I knew a lot about child development and language acquisition, I needed to do more than just provide instruction. I had to consider each child's specific perspectives, preferences, and abilities. During the second quarter, I began to understand what it really meant to listen to the children. My role shifted to that of an inquirer as I set aside time to pause and regularly interview the eight DLLs in my study to see how they felt their learning was going, what was working best for them, and what they enjoyed most. During the third quarter, my ability to engage in competent listening deepened, and my role expanded to include being a responder. I was then able to pair my knowledge of pedagogy with the children's responses to generate more meaningful child-centered activities and lessons. By the fourth quarter, I embraced opportunities to be a facilitator, helping the children create learning resources for themselves that made them feel most successful.

Instructional supports

When I interviewed the children about their learning, many of them referred to specific cues posted in the classroom that they used as learning tools. One day, after the children settled into their reading spots, I noticed that Niko had positioned himself on the floor right next to our "Reading Super Powers" anchor chart (inspired by Calkins et al. 2015). He kept glancing up at the anchor chart and then pointing to his book. I sat down next to Niko, quietly watching as he pointed and looked. Eventually, I asked him what he was doing. He explained that he was practicing his pointing as he read his book:

"Point to the pictures. Point to the words. This [anchor chart] helps me remember." Niko was using the visual reference to remind himself of a strategy that I had taught in a whole group lesson a few weeks before. I had developed this chart in advance, used it during the lesson, and then placed it where the children could easily refer to it.

While I created some charts ahead of time, many charts were cocreated with the children during community circle or small group time. The children helped make decisions about what sorts of pictures and words would be displayed on the charts and where we would hang them in our classroom. As we discussed ideas to support us as learners, such as having a growth mindset (Dweck 2015), I encouraged the children to add their own writing to the charts.

I realized I needed to invest time building relationships with each of my students individually so my instruction could be tailored to each child's expressed or observed needs.

In addition to the charts, the children mentioned during interviews that they used the following cues to help themselves in reading, writing, and math: the word wall, their individual lists of high-frequency words, a number line, their memories of our class read alouds, the alphabet, number grids, and flash cards.

It was interesting to note how the children described their use of anchor charts and other cues. Andrew mentioned that he used anchor charts to remind him "how to do things like stretch out the words" as a strategy for decoding challenging words. Niko stated that he used the number line to remind him of numbers he did not know how to write. Sebastian referred to anchor charts and books read aloud in class to give him ideas for writing stories. Alison used the word wall to jog her memory about how to read and write frequently used words.

Social supports

Another important finding regarding the children's perceptions of learning was the social quality of the learning experiences. Each of the children recognized several individuals who supported them in their learning, many of whom were classmates. When asked about the people that helped him in his learning, Edgar replied by listing off the names of five of his friends; then he added, "If I forget [how to do something], I just ask somebody to help me." Additionally, the children eagerly chose classmate reading partners to practice reading aloud with daily. After the children practiced in pairs, I was amazed when they began asking me if they could assume the role of the teacher and read to the entire class, showing off their new reading skills. The children cheered for one another when their classmates read aloud. Highlighting these new reading skills became a regular occurrence in our class during reading time each day. The children also mentioned family members who spoke with them and read to them in English or Spanish. Edgar stated, "My dad, he sits next to me. He shows me [how] to read." Family members, classmates, and teachers all served as more knowledgeable others who scaffolded the children's learning (Vygotsky 1978).

Responsive teaching, internalized learning

Through our standing weekly check-ins, the children realized that I valued their insights. I listened closely and used their feedback to incorporate more of the instructional supports that they found enjoyable, engaging, and helpful. In interviews, it was clear that all eight children participated in the process of building their identities as readers, writers, and mathematicians. Having been granted autonomy, choice, and voice in this process, the children were highly motivated to continue developing their identities as learners (Reeve 2006). As I met with the children during the course of the year, I observed an increase in their confidence and in their openness to sharing their learning preferences with me. Alison explained to me that she liked to "show me how to read" and added, "I am good at reading." The children took control of their learning because they felt joy in the process, experienced competence in their identities as learners, and felt amply supported by their teacher and peers.

Overall, analyzing data over the course of the study yielded some important findings:

When I became more aware of the children's abilities to develop their identities as learners, my identity as a teacher also developed. Initially, I perceived myself as an interventionist until I realized the importance of adding the new layers of inquirer, responder, and facilitator to my identity as an educator.

As I changed my teaching strategies to make more time to listen and to include approaches that the children found to be supportive (one-on- one instruction, peer learning time, and increased anchor charts and cues), the children not only demonstrated increased academic progress, but also became more expressive and articulate about their learning preferences and identities as learners.

Every child referred to specific social supports (friends, family members, and teachers) as helpers in their language-learning process. Children enjoy learning with their friends and family members. By encouraging these social supports to emerge and develop, I was able to foster a culture of learning in the classroom and help the children see new opportunities for learning with family members at home.

The children internalized the strategies depicted on the charts in the classroom, especially when they cocreated the charts. With time, Niko, for example, no longer needed the "Super Reading Powers" chart to remember the strategy of pointing to pictures and words as he read. Similarly, Sebastian found that he used the chart on solving math problems so much that he could "add in [his] brain now." Eventually not only were all of the DLLs in my study able to pull the strategies from memory, but they also knew the appropriate situations in which to apply the strategies.

Language acquisition is a complex process and is experienced differently by every learner. All children bring to the classroom unique sets of cultural backgrounds that shape the way they feel about their school environment, learning, and interactions with their peers. Spending time thinking about Taty's and Jenny's experiences made it clear to me that setting aside individualized time and space dedicated to each of my DLLs is a critical aspect of supporting their learning.

As my study progressed, I focused less on my role as a teacher and more on the students' roles as capable constructors of knowledge.

At first, these weekly touchpoints fell flat as I attempted to teach at the children instead of learning from and with them. Once I realized this, I approached the check-ins without preconceptions and asked the children to share what they enjoyed most about learning. I then incorporated more of those things (i.e., cocreated anchor charts, cues, and social experiences) in my daily instruction. With each meeting, my students took increased ownership of their learning and realized that their voices were powerful in shaping their learning process.

With each weekly meeting, my students took increased ownership of their learning and realized that their voices were powerful in shaping their learning process.

My new understanding about children's capabilities to communicate their needs, preferences, and identities changed the way I approach my instruction with all of my students, especially my DLLs. When given the opportunity to talk about how they constructed knowledge, the children were eager to share the strategies they liked and found most helpful. However, I had to approach these conversations as a competent listener. This meant avoiding preconceived ideas about what the children might tell me. I endeavored to "suspend my judgment and prejudices" to make room for the children to share their most successful moments of learning (Rinaldi 2006, 81). My learners challenged me to be flexible and responsive.

They showed me that building a learning environment inclusive of all learners requires me to pay close attention to their needs and facilitate experiences in which they can claim their own learning. My first-graders helped me realize the importance of listening fully and intentionally in order to seek vital information about who they are and what they need as learners, for they are quite capable of giving it.

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Learning to Listen: Supporting Dual Language Learners' Language Acquisition and Learning Identities (Voices)

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Thoughts on the Article | Mary Jane Moran, Voices Executive Editor Through her yearlong action research study in a first grade classroom, Laura Latta learned much more than how to guide dual language learners' efforts to learn to read and write.

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Interactions and Strategies to Support DLL in Building Reading Skills

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Interactions and Strategies to Support DLL in Building Reading Skills

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This is the offical section for the metadata!

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30 CHILDREN’S BOOKS ABOUT DIVERSITY THAT CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES

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30 CHILDREN’S BOOKS ABOUT DIVERSITY THAT CELEBRATE OUR DIFFERENCES

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20 Wonderful Children's Books That Celebrate Diversity

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20 Wonderful Children's Books That Celebrate Diversity

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THESE DELIGHTFUL CHILDREN’S BOOKS WEAVE IN MEANINGFUL MESSAGES ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF UNIQUENESS AND INCLUSION.

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Teaching kids to appreciate and celebrate diversity is a top priority in today's global landscape-but how do you impart valuable lessons in an age-appropriate way? Books, of course! They're a fun way to introduce little ones to important concepts early on and a great conversation-starter for parents as you talk to your kids about difference, privilege, respect, empathy and inclusivity. And there are boatloads of beautiful children's books about diversity to choose from.

Whether you're looking for stories with characters your child can easily relate to or ones that encourage your kids to empathize with those who are different, we've put together a list of some of the top children's books that feature characters of all different ethnicities, races, religions and gender identities.
Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances. Plus, more from The Bump:

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25 Best Children's Books About Diversity

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Teaching kids to appreciate and celebrate diversity is a top priority in today's global landscape-but how do you impart valuable lessons in an age-appropriate way? Books, of course! They're a fun way to introduce little ones to important concepts early on and a great conversation-starter for parents as you talk to your kids about difference, privilege, respect, empathy and inclusivity.

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Hispanic/Latino Heritage Book lists by Category

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Hispanic/Latino Heritage Book lists by Category

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The following children's booklists feature titles about Hispanic Heritage organized by topic that can be used all year long! Many books on our recommended lists are bilingual or are available in Spanish.

Also, don't miss our Hispanic Heritage titles for young adults or the recommended resources below.

Elementary School

Recommended Resources

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The following children's booklists feature titles about Hispanic Heritage organized by topic that can be used all year long! Many books on our recommended lists are bilingual or are available in Spanish. Also, don't miss our Hispanic Heritage titles for young adults or the recommended resources below. Recommended Resources

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Great Books To Inspire English Language Learners

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Great Books To Inspire English Language Learners

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Great Books To Inspire English Language Learners

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Way too many students who are English language learners are reading below grade level. Here are five culturally relevant books that might spark their curiosity.

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General Description of the Samples in the Articles Reviewed

The studies included in the present review varied greatly in terms of socioeconomic status, languages spoken by children, and children's proficiency in the two languages. There were 38 studies conducted in the United States and 64 international studies. Research conducted in the United States focused predominantly on Spanish-speaking children learners of English ( n = 30) who came from relatively low socioeconomic background and in many cases attended a Head Start program. Other languages spoken by children from the United States samples were Urdu, Chinese, Cherokee, Korean, and Hmong, for a total of eight studies.

The greatest source of variability among the studies was related to how bilingualism was defined, measured, categorized, and labeled. A variety of terms have been used such as English language learners, dual language users, learners of English as a second language, Spanish-speaking children learners of English, sequential bilinguals, L1 Spanish speakers with minimal L2 English skills, native Chinese and English as a second language, non-native language exposure, early bilingualism, early childhood bilingualism, and early sequential bilingualism. These were considered equivalent for the purpose of the present review and subsumed under the general label of dual language learners. In addition to the variety of definitions and labels used to identify bilingual groups, there was a variety of bilingualism assessments. In order to categorize children as belonging to different language groups, information about children's production and comprehension of language(s) was collected in various ways that included questionnaires filled out by parents and teachers, confirmation from teachers about children's language experience at school and at home, amount of instruction in each language offered to children at school, the language specifications of the school curriculum, and bilingual assessors. Thus, the amount of detail on children's language experience that was gathered by researchers varied from a confirmation from teachers and parents that either English or a non-English language was being used by children at school or at home ( Berguno & Bowler, 2004) to elaborate questionnaires that asked for extensive information about quality and quantity of children's language use as a function of context, speaker, age, parents' country of origin, engagement in extra-curricular activities, and language dominance ( Rosselli, Ardila, Navarrete, & Matute, 2010). Some studies included specific criteria for children to be categorized as bilinguals: for instance, for children to have a) parents of different mother tongues who each address the child in their native language, and b) daily exposure to both languages ( Kovacs, 2009).

Most measures used to assess bilingualism were developed by the researchers to serve the needs of their specific studies: The Virtual Linguistics Lab (VLL) Child Multilingualism Questionnaire ( Yang, Blumé, & Lust, 2007), Language and Social Background Questionnaire ( Luk & Bialystok, 2013), and other brief questionnaires that included a few questions assessing language competence, typically with a 5-point scale for instance (1 = no proficiency to 5 = native-like proficiency). On rare occasions, researchers also included existing measures for examining bilingualism, such as the Language Dominance Survey, EOWPVT-SBE ( Brownell, 2001 in Foy & Mann, 2013). Importantly, in the cases where information about children's language use and competence was collected from independent sources such as teachers, parents and bilingual assessors, it was largely consistent across these sources ( Dickinson, McCabe, Clark-Chiarelli, & Wolf, 2004).

Information about socio-economic background was not always reported; when socio-economic status was included it was measured by using parents' education and/or income as a proxy ( Yoshida, Tran, Benitez, & Kuwabara, 2011), based on student eligibility for free or reduced price lunch ( Betts et al., 2008; Lindsey, Manis, & Bailey, 2003), children's attendance of a Head Start program ( Atwill, Blanchard, Gorin, & Burstein, 2007; López & Greenfield, 2010) or characteristics of the home neighborhood ( Bialystok, Barac, Blaye, & Poulin-Dubois, 2010). In some cases, parents' education level and income were combined to provide a composite estimate of the socio-economic status ( Morton & Harper, 2007). In the majority of studies including information about socio-economic status, bilinguals and monolinguals were either matched on this variable or came from similarly high or low socio-economic backgrounds ( Bialystok et al., 2010; Foy & Mann, 2013). In these studies, socio-economic status was not further considered in the statistical analyses because groups were equivalent on this variable. More rarely, when bilingual and monolingual children differed significantly in terms of socioeconomic background ( Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), this effect was accounted for in the statistical analyses by covarying out differences in socio-economic status between the groups.

Findings about Development

Children's executive function development

An active area of bilingualism research over the last decade has been the study of a set of processes known as the executive function or executive control. These processes include attention, selection, inhibition, monitoring, and flexibility and they develop in parallel with the maturation of the prefrontal cortex. Three main abilities are typically proposed to constitute its core ( Diamond, 2006; Miyake et al., 2000): inhibitory control (ability to resist a habitual response or information that is not relevant), working memory or updating (ability to hold information in mind and mentally manipulate it), and cognitive flexibility (ability to adjust to changes in demands or priorities and switch between goals).

About one-quarter of the studies included in the present review ( n = 26) examined executive function development in children as a function of dual language experience. The majority of studies were conducted in the United States ( n = 9) and Canada ( n = 10), with the remaining seven studies being run in Italy ( n = 2), Israel, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan (for each, n = 1). For the studies conducted in the United States, Spanish and English were typically the languages spoken by the DLLs ( n = 7). With very few exceptions ( Foy & Mann, 2013; Jia, Kohnert, Collado, & Aquino-Garcia, 2006; Kohnert & Bates, 2002), research on executive function development in children younger than six years of age has focused on non-verbal tasks using mostly visual stimuli.

These studies on the development of the executive function typically employ a between-subject design and compare performance by monolinguals and bilinguals on tasks that are superficially similar but include one condition that additionally requires some aspect of executive control. An example of a task that illustrates these processes in children's cognitive performance is the dimensional change card sort task (DCCS) developed by Zelazo, Frye, and Rapus (1996). The task is presented as a game in which images that vary on two dimensions, usually shape and color, need to be sorted according to one of them. For example, cards containing either red circles or blue squares are sorted into containers marked by an image of either a red square or a blue circle. Children are asked to first sort the cards by one dimension - blues in this box and reds in this box - and then to switch to the other - circles in this box and squares in this box. Thus, this problem places two types of rules in conflict because the same images need to be reinterpreted for the second run and children need to pay attention to the relevant dimension and ignore the previously relevant one. The ability to do this involves several aspects of the executive function - inhibit attending to the irrelevant rule, shift between rules when the game changes, and hold the current rule in mind. The dramatic finding is that young children can easily state the new rule when it changes but continue to sort by the first rule; they have great difficulty overriding the habit set up in the first phase. When this experiment was repeated with bilingual and monolingual children aged between 4 and 5 years, the bilingual children were markedly better at switching to the new rule ( Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Okanda, Moriguchi, & Itakura, 2010). Importantly, this result was obtained despite there being no difference in pre-switch performance.

What executive control abilities are altered by bilingualism?

From all the executive function abilities, inhibition has been most extensively studied, typically using the child Attention Network Test (ANT). The child ANT is a child-friendly version of the classic flanker task designed by Rueda and colleagues to measure attentional processes in children ( Rueda et al., 2004). In the classic flanker paradigm, the target is an arrow pointing to the left or to the right and is surrounded by flankers, stimuli that point in the same (congruent trials) or opposite direction (incongruent trials) as the target ( Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). The typical finding is that participants are slowed down in incongruent trials, when the flankers and the target indicate different responses compared to congruent trials in which both the flankers and the target require the same response. Rueda and colleagues adapted this task and replaced the arrows by colored fish that pointed either to the left or to the right ( Rueda et al., 2004). Comparisons of monolingual and bilingual children's performance on this task has shown smaller costs ( Mezzacappa, 2004; Yoshida et al., 2011) or more accurate and faster performance ( Yang, Yang, & Lust, 2011) for bilinguals on the incongruent trials.

In an important refinement to the research showing a bilingual advantage in executive function, Carlson and Meltzoff (2008) administered nine different executive function tasks to 50 kindergarten children who were English-speaking monolinguals, English-Spanish bilinguals, or children who were in a language immersion elementary school. The major finding was that the English-Spanish bilingual children performed better on the executive function battery than both other groups, once differences in age, vocabulary, and parents' education and income levels were statistically controlled. The effects were specific to only some aspects of control: there were no bilingual advantages in the control of impulses (response inhibition) but significant advantages on conditions requiring memory and inhibition of attention to a prepotent response (interference suppression). In other words, on tasks that required children to refrain from peeking at or opening a nicely wrapped gift, bilingual children did not differ from monolinguals. However, on tasks that required children to focus on selected information such as the middle fish in an array of five fish, and ignore the distractors (i.e., the four fish flanking the middle fish), bilingual children surpassed monolinguals. Therefore, the bilingual advantage in executive functioning tasks reflects precocious development in only specific components of executive control. Similarly, Martin-Rhee and Bialystok (2008) found that bilingual children (speakers of English plus French, Chinese or Spanish) showed an advantage over English-speaking monolinguals, but only on the Simon task that measured interference suppression; in contrast, on a response inhibition task, monolinguals and bilinguals performed equivalently. However, the equivalent performance on response inhibition tasks is not a consistent finding. For instance, a recent study showed that the bilingual enhancement of executive control was found in a nonverbal auditory response inhibition task ( Foy & Mann, 2013). In the study by Foy and Mann (2013), 5-year-old Spanish-English bilingual and monolingual children performed two auditory tasks: verbal and nonverbal. The nonverbal task used a go/no-go experimental design and children were asked to respond to a target sound (barking dog) and ignore a distractor (ringing bell). The verbal task had a similar design but the target and distractor verbal stimuli were the syllables /ba/ and /pa/. As hypothesized and consistent with previous research, bilingual children had higher accuracy and shorter reaction times than monolinguals only on the non-verbal task. The authors argue that the findings provide indirect support for a domain-general processing advantage in bilinguals.

Although early research on executive control focused predominantly on inhibitory tasks, it is important to note that bilingual enhancements in executive function are not limited to inhibition. In one study, Bialystok (2010) found a bilingual advantage in processing complex stimuli in tasks that require executive processing components for conflict resolution, including switching and updating, even when no inhibition appears to be involved. Additionally, other evidence has shown that these effects of bilingualism extend to working memory tasks ( Morales, Calvo & Bialystok, 2013), and cognitive flexibility ( Adi-Japha, Berberich-Artzi, & Libnawi, 2010). However, in the area of working memory, the bilingual advantage has not been consistently found. For instance, Engel de Abreu (2011) compared the performance of 6-year-old monolingual and bilingual children in Luxembourg on simple and complex working memory tasks and found no difference between the two language groups after controlling for verbal abilities. In contrast, in the study by Morales and colleagues ( Morales et al., 2013), 5-year-old bilingual children in Canada outperformed monolinguals on tasks of working memory that posed additional executive control demands. Although, at present, there is too little research on working memory in bilingual children to draw firm conclusions, the existing evidence suggests that a bilingual advantage in working memory is especially evident when the task contains high levels of executive function demands ( Morales et al., 2013).

In addition to the research investigating bilingual effects on non-verbal executive function tasks, a minority of studies has examined cognitive control involved in verbal processing ( Foy & Mann, 2013; Jia et al., 2006; Kohnert & Bates, 2002). In one of these studies, early sequential Spanish-English bilingual children had to name action pictures in two experimental conditions: single-language (Spanish or English) and mixed-language (alternating between Spanish and English). In the mixed-language condition, children showed slower reaction times and lower accuracy than in the single-language condition ( Jia et al., 2006). Similarly, in the study by Kohnert and Bates (2002), there were differences between mixed and single-language conditions in language production tasks, suggesting potential inter-language interference. These findings from experimental tasks with bilinguals parallel the switch cost previously documented in non-linguistic tasks in studies comparing monolinguals and bilinguals ( Barac & Bialystok, 2012). Interestingly, in the Jia et al. study (2006) this switch cost was found in bilingual children between 5 and 13 years of age, but not in the oldest group (14-16 years). The authors attributed the better management of competition in the mixed language condition in the oldest bilinguals to a combination of typical cognitive development and a boost of executive control processing associated with the prolonged and systematic experience of speaking two languages.

How early can the bilingual advantage be detected?

The benefits of the bilingual experience on children's cognitive development have been documented at various ages ranging from 2 to 6 years. Recently, Kovacs and Mehler (2009a) extended this pattern to infants. They presented 7-month-old infants with a verbal cue followed by a visual reward. The verbal cue consisted of a meaningless trisyllabic auditory stimulus and the visual reward was a toy that always appeared on the same side of the screen. Infants quickly learned that the verbal cue predicted the location of the toy reward and made anticipatory looks toward the location where the reward was going to appear when they heard the auditory cue. Monolingual and bilingual infants were equally good at learning this relation. However, in the second part of the task, the rule was changed so that the toy reward appeared on the opposite side of the screen. Thus, again, infants had to learn that the cues predicted the location of the toy, but to do so they needed to overcome the old response, the tendency to look to the side of the screen that was previously rewarded. In this sense, infants needed to rely on executive functions in order to be able to switch to the new location. Kovacs and Mehler (2009a) found that 7-month-old infants raised in bilingual households were better able to switch responses after a rule shift than were their peers raised in monolingual households. These results suggest that the experience with two languages changes the cognitive system from very early on.

Related to the question of how early the bilingual advantage can be documented is the question of how much dual language experience is necessary to distinguish the performance of monolingual and bilingual children. In the study by Carlson and Meltzoff (2008), three groups of kindergarten children performed a set of executive function tasks: English-speaking monolinguals, native Spanish-English bilinguals and children attending a second language immersion program in which half of the instruction in English and the other half in Japanese or Spanish. At the time of testing, children in the immersion group had received about six months of exposure to a second language. After controlling for verbal abilities, age and parental socio-economic status, the native bilingual children outperformed the other two language groups which did not differ from each other. These findings suggest that early, systematic dual language exposure leads to enhancements of executive control processing and six months of second language immersion for half of the instruction day might not be sufficient to confer such an advantage in executive control.

But is it really bilingualism that is responsible for this advantage in executive function performance or it is something else?

Bilingualism is often correlated with other types of experience that may themselves influence performance, so it is difficult to be sure that the performance differences between monolinguals and bilinguals are caused by bilingualism per se. For example, Morton and Harper (2007) claimed that the reported bilingual advantage was due to socio-economic differences between monolingual and bilingual children that favor the bilingual children. There is no doubt that socioeconomic status is a powerful influence on executive control, but it does not undermine the body of literature for which bilingual advantages have been recorded ( Bialystok, 2009). Similarly, claims for cultural effects favoring Asian children on tests of executive control ( Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006) must be separated from the role of bilingualism in shaping this performance. Several studies have addressed this issue and demonstrated that bilingualism affects cognitive performance independent of other factors. For instance, Bialystok et al. (2010) examined the role of culture and immigration history on the cognitive outcomes of bilingualism. Bialystok and colleagues (2010) compared a group of bilinguals to two monolingual groups - an English-speaking group in Canada and a French-speaking group in France. Results showed no difference between the two monolingual groups and better performance by the bilinguals on all the executive control tasks that involved conflict resolution. Similarly, Yang et al. (2011) examined bilingualism and cultural effects on executive function performance by comparing 4-year-old U.S. Korean-English bilingual children to three monolingual groups - English and Korean monolinguals in the U.S. and another Korean monolingual group, in Korea. Bilingual children had the fastest and most accurate performance compared to all three monolingual groups demonstrating that bilingualism is advantageous to executive attention development. Finally, in the study by Barac and Bialystok (2012), three groups of bilingual children (Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals) who differed from each other in terms of the relationship between the two languages, cultural background, and language of schooling, all showed better executive control than English monolinguals. In this study, all children were 6-years-old and all except the French bilingual children were being educated in English. This is in line with findings of studies with slightly older children (i.e., 8-year-old children; Bialystok & Viswanathan, 2009) showing that bilingualism acts independently of variables such as cultural background and immigration history in influencing nonverbal executive function outcomes. Thus, these studies endorse the conclusion that bilingualism itself is responsible for the increased levels of executive control reported in the literature.

To sum up, these findings demonstrate a robust bilingual advantage in executive control that is apparent as early as the first year of life, holds across various language pairs, and is distinct from the effects of culture, immigration history, and language of instruction. Although bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on a variety of executive control tasks assessing different executive function components, this advantage is relatively more robust for inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, and less so for working memory, which has been explored to a lesser extent.

DLLs' metalinguistic development

Another important aspect of metacognitive development during the preschool years is metalinguistic awareness. Metalinguistic ability allows children to see through the meaning of language to its underlying structure. With metalinguistic ability, children can analyze linguistic representations to extract general grammatical rules and state them explicitly, and control attention to different aspects of a sentence or a word such as its form or its meaning. Tests of metalinguistic awareness, therefore, typically include conflicting information about form and meaning to determine children's understanding that they are separate and their ability to attend to them individually.

Compared to the other cognitive abilities, metalinguistic awareness has a longer history and has been more extensively researched in the bilingual population. About half of the studies included in the present review focused on metalinguistic abilities. The majority of studies were conducted in the United States ( n = 21), Canada ( n = 8), Hong Kong ( n = 6), Singapore ( n = 5) and China ( n = 4), with the remaining coming from Israel, India, Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Finland, and Holland. For the United States samples, Spanish and English were typically the languages spoken by children, with a few exceptions that included Cherokee ( Hirata-Edds, 2011), Urdu ( Davidson, Raschke, & Pervez, 2010), Korean ( Kim, 2009), and Hmong ( Roberts, 2005). In addition, children from the United States samples typically came from families with a low socioeconomic status.

Of the different metalinguistic abilities, phonological awareness has received most attention. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate linguistic sounds separate from their meanings and has been shown to have a significant contribution to children learning to read. Standard phonological awareness tasks include rhyming, blending, and sound deletion ("Say mat without the /t/"). Far less studied in this 0 to 6 age group within the last 13 years were syntactic awareness ( Davidson et al., 2010) and morphological awareness ( Cheung, Chung, et al., 2010; Deacon, Wade-Woolley, & Kirby, 2007; Hirata-Edds, 2011). In syntactic awareness tests, children are usually required to identify correct and incorrect grammatical constructions (i.e., grammatical judgment measures). Morphological awareness is the recognition of and ability to manipulate the meaning structure of language such as identification of variations in the form of the word that are related to plural formation, grammatical gender or verb tense ( Cheung, Chung, et al., 2010). The research on the sub-components of metalinguistic abilities is reviewed below, beginning with morphological and syntactic awareness followed by phonological awareness.

Morphological and syntactic awareness

Research on metalinguistic awareness has used both between-subject designs to compare monolingual and bilingual children's abilities and within-subjects designs to examine cross-linguistic transfer in dual language learners. In terms of morphological and syntactic awareness, research comparing monolingual and bilingual children has typically reported a bilingual advantage ( Davidson et al., 2010; Hirata-Edds, 2011). For instance, in the study by Davidson and colleagues (2010), Urdu-English bilingual children and English-speaking monolinguals in two age groups - three to four years of age in experiment 2 and five to six years of age in experiment 1 - were asked to identify grammatically correct and incorrect sentences. The older children were tested in English only, whereas the younger children performed the syntactic awareness test in both English and Urdu. Bilingual children of both ages were better at identifying grammatically incorrect sentences than monolinguals and had equivalent performance in judging the grammatically correct sentences. Younger children, who were tested in both languages, showed this advantage in processing grammatically incorrect sentences only in Urdu and not in English. This pattern of results was found despite the fact that bilingual children showed similar receptive vocabulary in the two languages. The authors proposed that this selective advantage in Urdu might be related to Urdu being the first language and the language of the home for this group of bilingual children. In addition, consistent with previous research, children's receptive vocabulary was correlated with their ability to identify grammatically incorrect sentences in the same language (experiment 2), thus showing no evidence for cross-linguistic transfer.

A study by Hirata-Edds (2011) produced similar results. In that study, 4.5- to 6-year-old children attending a Cherokee immersion program showed better or comparable performance to English monolinguals on measures of morphological awareness that required identifying correct past tense forms for various categories of English verbs. It is important to note that children learning Cherokee in this study had attended the immersion program for only one year and so they had limited exposure to a second language. The author attributed the lack of a generalized advantage across all types of morphological awareness tasks in the immersion group to children being in process of acquiring a second language and thus perhaps not having reached a threshold of fluency that translates into metalinguistic advantages, as well as the limited nature of the L2 experience (i.e., possibly L2 needs to be used not just in conversation but also in more complex activities such as literacy). Additionally, this study showed that learning a second language is not detrimental to performance in the first language. Notably, children in this study were speakers of a majority language and learned another language after the first one was relatively consolidated.

A different study by Barac and Bialystok (2012, described above) highlighted additional variables that influence morphological awareness performance. In this study, three groups of bilinguals (Spanish-English, French-English, Chinese-English) and a group of English monolingual children were given the Wugs test, which is a measure of morphological awareness, in addition to a non-verbal executive control task. In the Wugs test ( Berko, 1958), children are presented with pictures of novel objects, animals, plants, or actions, and hear a text that introduces a pseudo-word such as "wug" and "kazh." Children need to complete the sentence using the target word by applying English morphology rules for noun plural, past tense and other aspects of grammar to the new words. The Chinese-English bilingual and the French-English bilinguals did not differ from each other (or from the monolinguals), and the best performance, significantly different from the former, was achieved by the Spanish-English bilingual children. For the latter, two factors combined to produce their superior performance: the language of instruction was the same as the language of testing and their two languages had considerable structural overlap. It is interesting to note that cultural background, language pairs, and language of instruction did not matter for executive function performance (i.e., the three bilingual groups were not different from each other and outperformed monolinguals), but they shaped performance on a language task.

Although many questions still remain, the small body of research investigating syntactic and morphological awareness in children learning a second language has shown no costs for bilingual children relative to monolinguals and, in fact, better or equivalent performance by dual language learners. This conclusion is consistent with research conducted prior to 2000 ( Cromdal, 1999; Galambos & Goldin-Meadow, 1990). This research also highlighted variables associated with bilingualism that possibly contribute to or condition this pattern of findings: status of the language, namely if it is the first or second language, or if it is the language of the majority or not, where, when how much the language is being used, fluency and experience with the language.

Phonological awareness

Most of the research on metalinguistic awareness has targeted phonological awareness skills in dual language learners, presumably because it is one of the key components of emergent literacy. Similar to the studies on syntactic and morphological awareness, research on phonological awareness uses both between- and within-subject designs. Results generally show that multiple variables related to the bilingual experience come into play and shape the development of phonological awareness skills in each language and demonstrate how these skills further relate to other literacy developments. As a consequence of multiple variables influencing phonological awareness performance, research investigating phonological awareness skills in DLLs has shown mixed results, with bilingual children performing better, the same or even worse than monolingual peers. For instance, in two studies, Bialystok, Majumder, and Martin (2003) found no differences between monolinguals and French-English bilinguals on a phoneme substitution task ("Take away the first sound from the word cat, and put in the first sound from the word mop") and language of instruction effects (i.e., performance on the phonological awareness task was higher if testing was done in the language of school instruction). In addition, a third study conducted with 6- and 7-year-olds showed a boost in performance on a phoneme segmentation task in Spanish-English bilinguals and a decrease in performance in Chinese-English bilinguals relative to monolingual children. The phoneme segmentation task required children to "spread out" and count the sounds of a given word using poker chips. The authors attributed the Spanish-English advantage to the increased similarity between Spanish and English relative to Chinese and English and to the regularity of the phonetic structure of Spanish which facilitates access to phonological awareness in children. Similarly, Dodd, So, and Lam (2008) found evidence for a specific language effect on phonological awareness as demonstrated by their finding that Cantonese-Putonghua bilingual children had better syllable awareness than monolingual Cantonese-speaking control group whereas the Cantonese-English bilinguals showed no overall advantage over the monolingual Cantonese-speaking children.

Other research comparing monolingual and bilingual children's phonological awareness skills has also reported mixed results. Specifically, there is evidence for a bilingual advantage in Russian-Hebrew bilinguals relative to Hebrew monolinguals ( Eviatar & Ibrahim, 2000; Ibrahim, Eviatar, & Aharon-Peretz, 2007), Korean-English bilinguals relative to Korean monolinguals ( Kang, 2012), English-Greek bilinguals relative to English monolinguals ( Loizou & Stuart, 2003) and Putonghua-Cantonese bilinguals relative to speakers of Putonghua and Cantonese ( Dodd et al., 2008). Similarly, Chen and colleagues showed that English instruction enhanced the development of phonological awareness skills in Chinese as revealed by performance of Chinese speakers who received English instruction or not ( Chen, Xu, Nguyen, Hong, & Wang, 2010). However, there is also evidence for equivalent performance on phonological awareness tasks in Greek-English bilinguals and Greek monolinguals ( Loizou & Stuart, 2003), in Russian-Finnish bilinguals and Finnish monolinguals ( Silvén & Rubinov, 2010), and in Cantonese-English bilinguals and Cantonese monolinguals ( Dodd et al., 2008). Furthermore, in one of the studies by Dodd and colleagues, monolingual Putonghua speakers outperformed bilinguals on the phoneme detection task (2008). Thus, overall, these studies have shown an inconsistent profile of findings in which bilingualism facilitates, hinders, or does not make any difference to the development of phonological awareness skills in preschool children.

In terms of the factors contributing to this mixed profile of results, as noted earlier, specific language pairs and language-specific characteristics have been found to shape metalinguistic skills in bilingual children. Interestingly, in the study by Loizou and Stuart (2003) comparing two groups of bilinguals who had either English or Greek as a first language (i.e., English-Greek and Greek-English bilinguals) and two groups of monolinguals (Greek- and English-speaking), the bilingual advantage was observed only in the English-Greek bilinguals. The authors proposed that bilingualism is facilitative of the development of phonological awareness skills as a function of the relative phonological complexity of the child's first and second language and typically a bilingual advantage is documented when the second language is phonologically simpler than the first. In the case of the Greek-speaking children learning English as a second language, the opposite pattern is found where the second language is phonologically more complex than the first and so there is no boost in the development of phonological awareness.

In the study by Ibrahim and colleagues ( Ibrahim et al., 2007), the authors tested phonological awareness skills and reading performance in three groups of children (Arabic speakers, Hebrew speakers, and Hebrew-Russian bilinguals) and found that both Arabic speakers and Hebrew-Russian bilinguals showed greater phonological awareness skills than Hebrew monolinguals. These results were interpreted to suggest that language experience - including both the experience of speaking two languages and specific language characteristics - shape metalinguistic performance. Moreover, orthography was shown to play an important role as well: Hebrew speakers, regardless of whether they were monolinguals or bilinguals, showed better text reading abilities than Arabic speakers and this performance was correlated with phonological abilities, whereas for Arabic speakers, the correlation between reading performance and phonological abilities was very weak. Ibrahim and colleagues argue that the visual complexity of the Arabic language is responsible for the finding that Arabic speakers have more difficulty processing Arabic orthography compared to Hebrew monolinguals and bilinguals processing Hebrew orthography.

Cross-linguistic transfer

Many studies examining phonological awareness in DLLs have used a within-subject design and compared skills in the two languages in order to explore the notion of cross-linguistic transfer. Results typically show correlation between performance on phonological awareness measures in the two languages, consistent with the idea of cross-linguistic transfer ( Anthony et al., 2009; Atwill et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2010; López & Greenfield, 2010; Verhoeven, 2007). For instance, Dickinson and colleagues ( Dickinson et al., 2004) found transfer of phonological skills from L1 to L2 in a group of 4-year-old low-income Spanish-English bilingual children. Similarly, Atwill and colleagues (2007) found evidence for cross-linguistic transfer as illustrated by the correlation between English and Spanish measures - in a sample of low socio-economic status Spanish-speaking children with limited English abilities in the United States. However, when the sample of kindergarteners was divided into two subgroups based on Spanish receptive vocabulary (i.e., children with vocabulary smaller or larger than average), the correlation in the group with low Spanish vocabulary disappeared. These results suggest that cross-linguistic transfer is conditional on proficiency in the L1, an interpretation that is in line with Cummins' theory (1979) that the degree of competency in L1 influences the competency achieved in L2. Furthermore, Anthony et al. (2009) found that, in a group of low socio-economic status Spanish-speaking English language learners in the United States, children's competence with phonological awareness in one language transferred to their competence in phonological awareness in the other language, but these cross-linguistic influences were smaller than previously reported in other studies. This difference in the size of the cross-linguistic influence was possibly due to the fact that the researchers controlled for the effects of the classroom, in other words took into account the nesting structure of the data. When the same analyses were performed without controlling for classroom effects, the size of the cross-linguistic transfer was as large was previously documented. Thus, together these studies have shown that there is cross-linguistic of phonological awareness, but it is influenced by variables such as proficiency in the first language and requires separating the classroom effects from children effects.

In conclusion, the findings of the research on metalinguistic awareness in bilingual children paint a relatively inconsistent picture that include advantages in performance related to dual language learning, equivalent performance for monolingual and bilingual children, and sometimes bilingual costs. These inconsistencies have been found to be related to features of the languages, typological distance between languages, instructional context in which children learn and use the two languages involved, language proficiency, and task demands. In addition, the results demonstrated that metalinguistic skills transfer from one language to another, but the size of the cross-linguistic transfer is constrained by language proficiency and nesting structure of the data. Thus these results point to the importance of evaluating these variables in the investigation of the development of metalinguistic awareness in DLLs.

Children's brain development

Only 10 of the studies reviewed examined brain development in children as a function of dual language experience. Four of these studies were conducted in United States with infants between 6 and 20 months, all being exposed to Spanish and English ( Conboy & Mills, 2006; Conboy & Kuhl, 2011; Garcia-Sierra et al., 2011; Shafer, Yu, & Garrido-Nag, 2012). The remaining six studies were conducted in Japan (Japanese and English; Hidaka et al., 2012; Takahashi et al., 2011), United Kingdom (Welsh and English; Kuipers & Thierry, 2012), Canada (English in addition to French, Spanish, Chinese; Petitto et al., 2012), Germany (German and Turkish; Rinker, Alku, Brosch, & Kiefer, 2010) and Finland (Finnish and French; Shestakova, Huotilainen, Ceponiene, & Cheour, 2003).

These 10 studies included for the present review used two different brain measurement technologies: event-related potentials (ERPs; n = 8) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS; n = 2). ERPs have excellent temporal resolution and so this method provides an online measure of brain activity with a precision of milliseconds. Despite the excellent temporal resolution, ERPs have very poor spatial resolution, so it is difficult to establish the exact neural source of the voltage recorded at the scalp level. In contrast, fNIRS provides good anatomical localization and excellent temporal resolution ( Petitto et al., 2012). All studies focused on how dual language experience changes brain responses to processing verbal tasks; none of the studies included measures of nonverbal cognition.

Overall, the findings from all 10 studies are consistent in demonstrating that the task of building up linguistic knowledge in two languages, in other words creating and accessing phonological, lexical, and semantic representations, induced functional brain changes in children. For instance, in one study, 19- to 22-month-old Spanish-English bilingual children were tested by recording ERPs to known and unknown words in both languages ( Conboy & Mills, 2006). The results demonstrated that language experience altered the organization of language in the brain as indicated by differences in ERP responses between infants with low and high vocabularies in each language and between the patterns elicited by infants' dominant and non-dominant languages. Latency analyses showed that processing of known and unknown words occurred earlier in the dominant language than in the non-dominant language. Similarly, Rinker and colleagues found that language experience influenced the electrophysiological brain responses of 5- to 6-year-old German monolinguals and Turkish-German bilinguals in their study comparing ERPs to vowel contrasts unique to German or common to both German and Turkish ( Rinker et al., 2010). The study focused on one ERP component, the mismatch negativity, which is particularly sensitive to differences in processing between native and non-native phonemes. The bilingual children showed a less pronounced brain response for the German-specific contrast compared to the German-speaking monolinguals, but did not differ from the monolingual children on the contrast that exists in both Turkish and German. The authors interpreted these findings to show that the Turkish-German bilingual children have not fully acquired the German phonetic system, but they have adequately acquired the phonetic contrasts that are common to both languages.

The studies summarized so far used ERPs and so their conclusions are limited to differences in timing, and not localization or topography of brain responses as a function of dual language experience. As mentioned, fNIRS has the advantage of offering a window into the spatial characteristics of brain responses. In their fNIRS study, Petitto and colleagues (2012) found that phonetic processing in bilingual and monolingual babies recruited the same language-specific brain areas as typically documented in adults, including the left superior temporal gyrus (involved in phonetic processing) and the left inferior frontal cortex (involved in meaning retrieval and processing of syntactic and phonological patterns). Monolingual and bilingual infants in this study belonged to two different age groups (4-6 months and 10-12 months) and were exposed to linguistic phonetic (native and non-native) units and non-linguistic tones. The finding that both bilingual and monolingual babies activate similar areas as adults when they process linguistic phonetic stimuli is important and suggests that this early specialization for language is likely biologically determined. However, experience matters as well: the 10-12 month-old infants exposed to two languages showed robust activation in the left inferior frontal cortex to both native and non-native contrasts, whereas the monolingual infants activated the same area in response to native contrasts only. Thus, being exposed to two languages changes the way in which the brain processes linguistic stimuli from any language. Petitto and colleagues interpreted these findings to show that receiving input from two languages serves as a kind of "perceptual wedge" that increases plasticity and opens the linguistic processing across language systems.

Two studies also examined the functional brain changes in children processing linguistic tasks after short-term exposure to a second language ( Conboy & Kuhl, 2011; Takahashi et al., 2011). Thus, these studies did not look directly at the impact of bilingualism on linguistic processing but rather at the neural signature of short-term exposure to a second language. These studies investigated phonological or semantic performance in infants or pre-school children. Both studies showed that having limited experience with a second language changed the brain responses to verbal tasks. These results are important because they demonstrate that even very limited exposure to a second language shapes brain responses in young children.

In the first study, Conboy and Kuhl (2011) tested English monolingual infants at 9 and 11 months, before and after a month of naturalistic exposure to Spanish. The authors collected ERPs from infants who were presented with contrasts that were phonemic either in English or in Spanish. At 9 months, before exposure to a second language, infants showed the typical mismatch negativity in response to English contrasts, but no discrimination of the Spanish contrasts. However, after only one month of exposure to Spanish, infants showed the neural signature of a second-language phonetic learning illustrated by the presence of a mismatch negativity response to the Spanish contrast. Importantly, this second language phonetic learning did not come at the cost of native language phonetic learning - in fact, post-exposure to Spanish, infants showed improved processing of the native contrast as indicated by earlier latency of the brain responses to the English phonemes.

In the other study, Takahashi and colleagues focused on semantic processing indexed by the N400 component to Japanese sentences that had congruous ("My father eats an apple") and incongruous ("My father eats a bathtub") endings. The authors tested four groups of Japanese-speaking children: 4- and 5-year-old children who were never exposed to English, 4-year-olds with about 30 hours of English exposure and 5-year-olds with about 290 hours of English exposure in a kindergarten setting. The results indicated that in children with longer exposure to a second language, the N400 showed an earlier onset and more distributed brain topography, suggesting again that systematic exposure to a second language alters the brain processing of the native language.

Together, these studies demonstrate that experience with two linguistic systems, no matter how short and regardless of the language pairs involved, changes the way in which language is organized in the brain. Furthermore, these functional brain changes are present very early on, after only limited bilingual experience, suggesting that setting up representations in two linguistic systems through exposure to two languages, and not only language production, drives functional plasticity in bilingual children.

It is important to emphasize that this research has focused exclusively on brain function in response to linguistic tasks. Thus, to date, no studies have investigated the neural correlates of non-verbal executive processing in bilingual children. Similarly, no studies have examined structural brain changes in preschool bilingual children, although the topic has been recently investigated with older children ( Mohades et al., 2012). In their study, Mohades and colleagues (2012) reported changes in white matter microstructure in simultaneous and sequential bilingual children between 8 and 11 years of age in two of the four white matter tracts investigated (i.e., left inferior occipitofrontal fasciculus and the anterior part of the corpus callosum projecting to the orbital lobe than monolingual children). Notably, the strongest effect was found in bilingual children who learned the second language at an earlier age, that is, simultaneous bilinguals, with sequential bilinguals showing a neural profile intermediate to that of monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals.

Children's theory of mind development

Theory of mind is a key metacognitive development during the preschool years and refers to children's ability to ascribe mental states to other people. Of the studies reviewed, seven examined development of theory of mind in dual language learners and only one of these studies was conducted in United States with Chinese-English bilinguals and English monolinguals ( Goetz, 2003). The remaining six studies were conducted in United Kingdom (L1 English, L2 unspecified; Berguno & Bowler, 2004), Canada (heterogeneous language group; Bialystok & Senman, 2004), Hong Kong (English and Cantonese; Cheung, Mak, Luo, & Xiao, 2010), Romania (Romanian and Hungarian; Kovacs, 2009), India (English and Marathi; Tare & Gelman, 2010) and Iran (Kurdish and Persian; Farhadian et al., 2010).

Typically in these studies, children were given a false belief task - unexpected location, unexpected content, or appearance-reality conflict. Successful performance in all these tasks requires an understanding of the distinction between the state of the world and the child's or other person's belief about this state. In the case of the appearance-reality task, children are shown a sponge/rock, for instance, in which the appearance is consistent with the visual features of a rock but its compositional structure is actually a sponge ( Bialystok & Senman, 2004). Children are shown the object and given the opportunity to interact with it to discover its properties. Importantly, this presentation is followed by two types of questions: what children thought the object looked like before its true identity was revealed (appearance question) and what it actually is (reality question). Performance on the reality question only was predicted by performance on inhibitory control tasks and Bialystok and Senman (2004) argue that these questions test different kinds of abilities: representational ability in the case of appearance questions and inhibitory control in the case of the reality question (i.e., the correct answer requires successfully inhibiting the perceptual characteristics of the object, for instance its "rocky" appearance to acknowledge a less apparent reality, that the object is a sponge).

Most studies used a between-subject design and compared the performance of bilingual and monolingual children. A couple of studies, however, did not include a monolingual group and instead examined the links between DLLs' pragmatic abilities to switch between languages to accommodate for the listener's needs on the one hand and theory of mind performance on the other hand. For the between-subjects studies, the results comparing monolinguals and bilinguals showed a remarkable consistency in that, across various language pairs, bilingual children outperformed monolinguals, demonstrating enhanced understanding of mental representations and false beliefs. These findings show that the experience of speaking two languages does not only impact linguistic processing, but also extends to children's understanding of other people, their mental and knowledge states.

Why would bilingualism have consequences for theory of mind development and what is the possible mechanism for this effect? Some of the studies included in the present review employed a design that allowed an exploration of possible mechanisms underlying enhanced theory of mind performance in bilingual children. In the study by Bialystok and Senman (2004), bilingual children performed better than monolinguals on the reality question after controlling for vocabulary (bilingual children typically have smaller monolingual vocabulary than monolingual children, all else being equal; Bialystok et al., 2010), but both groups performed equivalently on the appearance question. The difference between these questions is that executive control, in particular inhibition, is required for the reality question but not for the appearance question which relies on simple short-term memory. This pattern of findings supports the notion that bilingual children's advanced inhibitory processing may be responsible for superior theory of mind abilities. In a different study, Kovacs (2009) reached a similar conclusion. Kovacs (2009) included a modified theory of mind task in addition to a standard theory of mind task and a control task involving physical reasoning. The modified task mimicked a language-switch situation and included two puppets, one monolingual and one bilingual, who approach an ice-cream stand interested in buying ice-cream. As they approach, the vendor announces in the language unknown to the monolingual puppet that the stand has no more ice-cream but they can find ice-cream at the sandwich stand. The experimenter emphasized that the monolingual character does not understand the language spoken by the vendor and then asked the child participant 'Where will the monolingual puppet go to buy ice-cream?' The inclusion of this task, in addition to the standard theory of mind task, allows distinguishing between two explanations for the performance of the bilingual children: general advantage in inhibitory control or a specific advantage in understanding other people's mental states related to language knowledge. If the inhibitory account is correct, bilingual children should outperform monolinguals on both theory of mind tasks, as they have similar inhibitory demands. Alternatively, if bilingual children's performance on theory of mind tasks is boosted by their understanding that people differ in their language knowledge, then bilingual children should outperform monolinguals only in the modified theory of mind task. Results from Kovacs (2009) study supported the inhibitory control account as the 3-year-old bilingual children performed better than monolinguals on both theory of mind tasks, but not on the control task.

In addition to the evidence that differences in inhibitory processing account for superior theory of mind in bilingual children, other research has explored the links between sociolinguistic awareness and theory of mind in bilingual children. In a study conducted by Cheung and colleagues ( Cheung, Mak, et al., 2010), sociolinguistic awareness was operationalized as the child's ability to adjust his or her language use as a function of the experimenter's language knowledge. Their sociolinguistic awareness task captured the child's ability to switch between Cantonese and English in order to match the language spoken by the experimenter. In addition, children received a standard theory of mind task. The results showed second-language learners and bilingual children differed from each other in terms of sociolinguistic awareness and theory of mind, with bilingual children having superior performance on both tasks. However, for both second-language learners and more balanced bilingual children, sociolinguistic awareness predicted performance on the false-belief task. The authors argued that the more precocious understanding of other people's mental representations in dual language learners is related to children's practice and adjustments required in the process of communicating with speakers of different languages, in other words by their sociolinguistic awareness. It is important to note that since inhibitory control was not examined in this study, it cannot be ruled out as a contributor to children's performance on the false belief tasks and in fact it is possible that it is responsible for the better theory of mind performance in the balanced bilingual group. Similarly, Tare and Gelman (2010) showed that bilingual children's pragmatic abilities to differentiate and use Marathi and English across different contexts were correlated with children's theory of mind.

In sum, although there is relatively little research examining development of theory of mind in DLLs, the findings consistently demonstrate more advanced theory of mind understanding in bilingual children. This precocious development in bilingual children has been documented regardless of the languages spoken by children and has been linked to both enhanced inhibitory processing and better sociolinguistic awareness in bilingual children.

Children's memory development

In contrast to executive function and metalinguistic awareness, little research has investigated memory development in dual language learners. Some of the research has focused on working memory and these findings have been reviewed in the previous section, as part of the executive control system. In some cases, memory tasks have been used as control measures - and not as main experimental tasks - to ensure that different language groups are comparable in terms of different aspects of cognitive development ( Bialystok, 2010; Bialystok & Senman, 2004; Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Foy & Mann, 2013). Typically these studies used simple digit span measures and found no differences between monolingual and bilingual children.

Studies that set out to specifically investigate memory abilities in bilingual children have been conducted in the United States ( Brito & Barr, 2012; Lanfranchi & Swanson, 2005) and the Netherlands ( Messer, Leseman, Boom, & Mayo, 2010). Lanfranchi and Swanson examined short-term memory (i.e., passive storage of information) and working memory (i.e., storage plus active processing of information) capacity in English and Spanish in 6-year-old children who received formal instruction in English at school and typically spoke either Spanish or a combination of Spanish and English at home. No monolinguals were assessed and all tasks were administered in both Spanish and English. The purpose of the study was to examine whether or not short-term memory and working memory are language dependent in dual language learners. The main finding was that short-term memory is language dependent whereas working memory is language independent. In other words, children with higher English vocabulary had better performance on English short-term memory measures than those with lower vocabulary and children with higher Spanish vocabulary had better performance on Spanish short-term memory measures than those with low Spanish vocabulary. In contrast, for working memory tasks, having a high vocabulary in English or Spanish did not improve performance when testing was conducted in that specific language. The authors proposed several explanations for the difference in the language effects found for short-term memory and working memory that are possibly related to the language of instruction, control processes in the dominant language, and inhibition in English.

The study by Brito and Barr (2012) used a between-subject design and compared 18-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants. Infants were assigned to one of two conditions: the generalization condition in which the experimenter performed three target actions with a duck puppet (pull off mitten, shake mitten to ring the bell, replace mitten) and a baseline condition in which no action was demonstrated. After a 30-minute delay, infants were shown a novel puppet and encouraged to interact with it. Bilingual infants outperformed monolinguals in their ability to generalize the observed actions to a new puppet. Interestingly, performance on the memory generalization task was predicted by infants' exposure to the second language and not by their vocabulary. This finding with infants is consistent with results from Bialystok and Barac's (2012) study with 8-year-old children in immersion programs showing that the length of time in the immersion program was related to performance on non-verbal executive control tasks and level of proficiency in the language of testing was related to performance on metalinguistic tasks. The authors attributed the bilinguals' advantage in memory generalization to enhanced selective attention, more precocious development of the ability to form relational representations, and enhanced links between frontal lobe and hippocampus.

Given that the research on the relation between memory and bilingualism during the preschool years is limited, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about the specifics of this interaction. The existing evidence, however, points to the interpretation that dual language learning influences the development of domain-general abilities, such as memory, even early in development, and that language effects differ for short-term memory and working memory.

DLLs' performance on neuropsychological assessments

Although the last decades of bilingualism research have demonstrated consistent differences between monolingual and bilingual children in cognitive, language and brain development, it is still common procedure to use normative data from monolingual children to provide neuropsychological assessment for bilingual children. Given that neuropsychological tests can be used for the purposes of classifying children, providing diagnosis or treatment, it is important to get the measurement right and consider the factors that might impact performance, such as the experience of speaking two languages. To address this issue, three of the studies included in the present review examined bilingual children's performance on neuropsychological assessments in the United States ( Rosselli et al., 2010), United Kingdom ( Garratt & Kelly, 2008) and Finland ( Westman, Korkman, Mickos, & Byring, 2008).

Garratt and Kelly (2008) used the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY), a neuropsychological assessment tool designed for children between 3 and 12 years of age, to examine differences between English-speaking monolinguals and a heterogeneous group of bilinguals. NEPSY includes 14 areas of performance falling under five main domains: attention and executive functioning, language, sensorimotor, visuospatial and memory. Monolingual children outperformed bilinguals in the domain of language, but had comparable performance on the other four broad developmental domains. However, for some of the subtests, the two language groups differed from each other: for instance, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on the Design Copying subtest of the visuospatial domain, whereas monolinguals performed better on the visual attention subtest of the attention/executive functioning domain. In addition, monolingual and bilingual children showed similar academic achievement scores for mathematics and reading, as measured by Performance Indicators in Primary Schools. For both monolinguals and bilinguals, the NEPSY performance correlated with academic achievement scores, indicating the external validity of the NEPSY battery. This study provides preliminary evidence that NEPSY is generally not sensitive to the effects of bilingualism, with the exception of the language domain in which bilinguals are at disadvantage because they are generally tested in one of their two languages.

In the study conducted in the United States, Roselli et al. (2010) set out to collect preliminary normative data for a bilingual population with ages between 5 and 14 years on a neuropsychological battery, Evaluación Neuropsicológica Infantil (ENI), developed for Spanish-speaking children because of the large number of Spanish speakers in United States. ENI assesses multiple cognitive domains including visuo-spatial processing, memory, perceptual abilities, oral language, metalinguistic awareness, spatial skills, attention, concept formation, and executive functions. The language of school instruction was English for all participants in the study and Spanish was predominantly the home language. Testing was conducted exclusively in Spanish. Scores were converted in percentiles in order to compare the performance of Spanish-English bilingual children to that of Spanish-speaking monolinguals. The results showed dissociation between performance on tests relying on verbal processing, in which bilinguals obtained scores below the 50 th percentile (category fluency, verbal spatial abilities, verbal expressive abilities, verbal memory, story recall) and tests that contained high executive demands (letter fluency, digits backward, concept formation, metalinguistic awareness) in which bilinguals excelled. In fact, on some of the metalinguistic awareness tests bilinguals scored above the 90 th percentile (i.e., phonemic blending and spelling). Thus, although bilinguals had a similar performance to the ENI normative group, the results also point to the fact that bilingualism is an important variable that needs to be considered when in doing neuropsychological assessments. Similar results were found in the Westman et al. (2008) study, in which 6-year-old Finnish-speaking monolinguals and Finnish-Swedish bilinguals were administered subtests from the Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence-Revised and the NEPSY battery. Again, the findings highlighted a verbal cost for bilinguals on measures of (single-language) vocabulary and sentence repetition, with no other significant differences.

Research in the area of neuropsychological assessment is scarce but the existing evidence parallels the previously documented pattern of bilingual effects on cognitive development, with enhancements on tests that are nonverbal and contain high executive demands and costs in verbal processing.

DLLs' intelligence, processing speed, and academic performance

There is minimal research examining intelligence and processing speed in preschool bilingual children. Most studies identified in the present review did not focus specifically on intelligence or processing speed but rather assessed these abilities to ensure that the different language groups show similar cognitive development (i.e., background measures). In these studies, overall, the findings were that there were no differences between monolinguals and DLLs on measures on intelligence, such as Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices which measures non-verbal reasoning ( Bialystok & Martin, 2004; Cheung, Mak, et al., 2010; Engel de Abreu, 2011), C-TONI (Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence; Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008), Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT; Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Morales et al., 2013) and Matrix Analogies Test (MAT; Morton & Harper, 2007). Similarly, there were no differences in processing speed between monolingual and bilingual children ( Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Bialystok, 2010). In these studies ( Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Bialystok, 2010), processing speed was measured by the box completion task that captures the time children take to complete a set of three-sided boxes by adding the fourth side.

In terms of school readiness and academic achievement, some research has focused predominantly on metalinguistic awareness, but in addition examined aspects of school readiness such as early literacy skills including letter, syllable and word identification, reading, and arithmetic skills ( Dixon, 2010; Kang, 2012; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Lesaux, Rupp, & Siegel, 2007; Lindsey et al., 2003; Macaruso & Rodman, 2011; Manis, Lindsey, & Bailey, 2004; Nakamoto, Lindsey, & Manis, 2010; Paéz, Tabors, & López, 2007; Yeong & Liow, 2011). Results from metalinguistic tasks are reported in more detail in the previous section on phonological awareness. Letter and word identification are typically standardized tasks in which children are shown a series of letters and words that increase in difficulty and are asked to name them (see Woodcock battery for testing in English or Woodcock-Muñoz-Sandoval battery for testing in Spanish; Woodcock & Johnson, 1989; Woodcock & Muñoz-Sandoval, 1995). Overall, research examining these emergent literacy skills has shown mixed results. In some cases, bilingual children performed similarly to monolinguals on tasks such as letter identification and word reading in Korean ( Kang, 2012), letter identification, word reading and reading comprehension in English ( Lesaux & Siegel, 2003), and word identification and reading comprehension in Spanish and English ( Manis et al., 2004). In other studies, bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on Korean pseudo-word reading ( Kang, 2012), arithmetic, English spelling of words and non-words ( Lesaux & Siegel, 2003), and reading in English ( Dixon, 2010). Finally, other results from the letter-word identification and dictation tasks show that Spanish-English bilingual children obtained scores below average at the beginning of the pre-kindergarten year when compared to the monolingual norms for English- and Spanish-speaking children ( Paéz et al., 2007). Similar to findings on metalinguistic awareness, variables such as language proficiency and language of instruction come into play to influence performance on emerging literacy tasks.

Two more studies can be included in the school readiness and academic achievement category: one that looked at academic achievement as a function of socio-emotional development ( Oades-Sese, Esquivel, Kaliski, & Maniatis, 2011) and one that examined counting abilities in bilingual children ( Rasmussen, Ho, Nicoladis, Leung, & Bisanz, 2006). Oades-Sese and colleagues (2011) used a longitudinal design and found that low socio-economic Spanish-English bilingual children who were identified as socially competent at age 4 had significantly better academic outcomes than bilingual children who were identified as socially vulnerable. Social competence meant that children had developed socio-emotional and linguistic skills that supported their academic success, as measured by performance in math and reading two years later. This has educational implications as bilingual children who were not proficient in any language at age 4 showed lower academic outcomes as well as relatively low English skills 2 years later.

The study by Rasmussen and colleagues (2006) set out to answer a different question: whether the counting abilities of the Chinese-English bilingual children were influenced by the transparency of the Chinese number-naming system. Chinese number-naming is transparent in that number names clearly indicate the base-10 structure, for example, "13" is named "ten-three" in Chinese. This feature is opaque in English; the name "thirteen" does not help to understand the structure of that number concept. As a consequence, past research has demonstrated that Chinese-speaking children showed more precocious development in counting and math than English-speaking children. Rasmussen and colleagues asked Chinese-English bilingual children between 3 and 5 years of age to count as high as they could without providing any physical supports and to count objects in both languages. There was no evidence of transfer between the two languages in that language proficiency in each language influenced counting skills in that language; in other words there was no correlation between children's counting performance in one language and performance in the other language. Language proficiency in this study was measured by asking parents which language their children understood better on a 3-point scale (1 = Chinese, 2 = both languages, 3 = English). Thus, the transparency of the Chinese number-naming system did not confer an advantage to the bilingual children in this study, in contrast to the advantage found in Chinese-speaking monolingual children. This conclusion is based on the finding that Chinese-English bilingual children in this study had a lower counting performance in both languages than the Chinese-speaking monolinguals in a previous study by Miller and colleagues ( Miller, Smith, Zhu, & Zhang, 1995). It is possible that bilingual children have less experience counting in Chinese than Chinese monolinguals and that perhaps learning to count in English cancels out the transparency of the Chinese number-naming system.

In sum, research on intelligence and processing speed, although scarce, showed no differences between monolingual and bilingual children. Research on school readiness and academic achievement showed mixed findings, with variables such as language of instruction and language proficiency influencing performance.

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The Cognitive Development of Young Dual Language Learners: A Critical Review

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The studies included in the present review varied greatly in terms of socioeconomic status, languages spoken by children, and children's proficiency in the two languages. There were 38 studies conducted in the United States and 64 international studies.

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Abstract

The promise of dual language education has spurred a movement in the field of bilingual education to shift from remedial programs to enrichment forms of bilingual education. Although research supports the effectiveness of such programs, many programs do not maintain their level of implementation and quickly revert to their original remedial form. This research looks at one elementary campus that has implemented a 2-way dual language program for more than a decade. Findings indicate that pedagogical equity, qualified bilingual teachers, active parent-home collaboration, and knowledgeable leadership contributed to the program's success.

Introduction

The continued growth in the number of speakers of languages other than English is reflected in the rapidly increasing number of students in U.S. schools for whom English is a second language. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (2005) show that the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English reached almost 10 million in 2004. Such a dramatic increase continually challenges educators to provide effective language programs with quality instruction for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse. Some educators choose to view these challenges as opportunities by offering a two-way bilingual program as an educational option for meeting the needs of both monolingual Spanish speakers and monolingual English speakers.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

In dual language education, two languages are used in the classroom for instruction and learning. Biliteracy is as much an aim as full bilingualism, with literacy being acquired in both languages either simultaneously or with an initial emphasis on native language literacy ( Baker, C. 1996. Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V. 1997a. Baker, 1996 Thomas & Collier, 1997a School effectiveness for language minority students., Washington, DC: George Washington University, National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education (NCBE)-Resource Collection Series. ). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism , 2nd ed., Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. ). Only a small number of bilingual programs in the country have the continued maintenance of the first language as an explicit goal (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2005). Hence, many English learners (ELs) receive instructional programs that are too short term in focus and are not cognitively or academically challenging (

With respect to the ultimate goal for ELs, the policy of transitional bilingual education, or ESL programs whose aims are English language proficiency and assimilation, is explicitly non-bilingual. Because the focus is on learning English without a strong effort to retain the native language, these programs incorporate a minimalist form of bilingualism for the period of time that students are in them (; ). Dual language bilingual programs are an attempt to eliminate this minimalist form of bilingualism and to promote academic achievement for ELs as well as foreign language immersion for English-dominant students (; ). The opportunity for students to become bilingual is increased by the dual language bilingual approach. ELs benefit from retention and development of their native language while acquiring English, and English speakers enjoy exposure to real speakers of the foreign language. The program provides an atmosphere that allows students to acquire a second language and learn about another culture without sacrificing their individual identities. In so doing, the dual language program is responsive to the needs of children, the school, and the community.

For many ELs, improved access to quality bilingual education programs (; J. D. Ramirez, Yuen, & Ramey, 1991) can facilitate success in school. ELs who have failed in various types of ESL and transitional bilingual education programs have made phenomenal gains in dual language programs ( Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V.P. 2002. Thomas & Collier, 2002 A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement, Santa Cruz, and Washington, CA, DC: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from www.crede.ucsc. edu/research/llaa/l.l_final.html ). In addition, native English speakers in these programs, despite learning through two languages, excel in their native English, scoring higher than peers studying only in English ().

The dual language bilingual program represents a pluralistic view of language (). Administrators and teachers assume that bilingualism is cognitively, socially, and affectively beneficial both for students learning English and for those who are English dominant. Several reviews have been conducted of research and evaluation studies concerning bilingual and immersion education that identify certain pedagogical and social factors that contribute to successful language education programs (; Skutnabb-Kangas, T. and Cummins, J. 1988. Skutnabb-Kangas & Cummins, 1988 Minority education: From shame to struggle., Clevendon, , England: Multilingual Matters. ; ; ). These factors form the core criteria of successful language education, particularly dual language education programs, and serve as a framework for effective implementation and successful outcomes (). These criteria include (a) administrative and home support, (b) school environment, (c) high-quality instructional personnel, (d) professional development, and (e) instructional design and features. Because variations in program design and delivery occur within a particular sociopolitical context, it is necessary to look at individual programs to identify factors that may contribute to the effectiveness of this model (). In particular, it is imperative to examine the factors that contribute to program sustainability in an era of increasing hostility toward bilingual programs.

MODES OF INQUIRY

Purpose

The purpose of this research was to explore the factors that may have contributed to the success and sustainability of one dual language program in an inner city, urban-diverse campus. The aforementioned critical features of successful dual language education programs were used as a foundation from which to begin the research.

Research Questions

1. To what extent has participation in the program contributed to students' academic outcomes?

2. What factors contributed to the sustainability of the dual language program at City Elementary?

Procedures

To address the central questions set forth in this paper, we used three sources of data: (a) site visits and non-participant observations; (b) taped and transcribed key personnel interviews; and (c) data from the fifth-grade English Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) in reading, mathematics, and science.

We utilized purposeful sampling within a case study methodology to identify key personnel for focus group and individual interviews. Informants included 10 dual language teachers and 1 campus principal involved in dual language program implementation at the K-5 grade levels. The campus principal and 2 of the 10 teachers had participated in the original discussions and decisions regarding implementation of the dual language program more than a decade ago. All were female native Spanish speakers of Mexican American descent with various years of teaching experience ranging from 1 to 19 years in bilingual education.

Data Analysis

Teacher focus groups and individual interviews were audiotaped and transcribed for analysis. Transcripts of informant interviews, field notes, and documents were manually coded to generate meaning for analysis. As delineated by Miles, M.B. and Huberman, A.M. 1984. Drawing valid meaning from qualitative data: Toward a shared craft. Miles and Huberman (1984)Educational Researcher, 13(5): 20-30. , the data analysis proceeded from noting patterns and themes to arriving at comparisons and contrasts to determining conceptual explanations. Triangulations of multiple data sources (e.g., district- and state-level documents) were built into data collection and analysis for the purpose of achieving trustworthiness.

To determine if students enrolled in the dual language bilingual program were meeting minimum state expectation standards, we examined standard scores on the English TAKS reading and mathematics for the fifth grade. According to state accountability guidelines, minimum expectations were equivalent to approximately 70% of the items being correct on each subject area test. Qualitative data were analyzed along descriptive methods.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

City Elementary School, a K-5 school with 321 students, is located in the heart of an urban city in south central Texas. In all, 85% of the student body is classified as economically disadvantaged by state and federal guidelines; 87.8% of the student population is Mexican American, and 29.4% speak Spanish as a home language. Located in a historic area of the inner city, City Elementary is in the middle of a thriving retail community and many single family homes, including a large community-based homeless shelter. The dual language program has been educating children in English and Spanish since 1995 and serves as the bilingual program for the campus. English-speaking parents have the option of placing their students in the two-way program or in an all-English classroom. Based on state accountability ratings, City Elementary has achieved a rating of Exemplary or Recognized for the past 5 years.

FINDINGS

City Elementary School implements the 90/10 model. The program begins in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, although some children enter the program in first grade. During the first few years, the goal is to present 90% of the content instruction in Spanish and 10% in English. The percentage of instruction provided in English and Spanish per grade level is as follows: kindergarten and first (90% Spanish and 10% English), second (80% Spanish and 20% English), third (70% Spanish and 30% English), and fourth and fifth (50% Spanish and 50% English). The 90/10 model requires an initial emphasis on the minority language because this language is less supported by the broader society and, thus, academic uses of this language are less easily acquired outside of school (). Research studies on this model have indicated high academic achievement for both groups of students (; Lindholm-Leary, 2004).

According to the campus brochure, the dual language program at City has three main goals:

1. To promote high levels of oral language proficiency and literacy in both Spanish and English.

2. To achieve proficiency in all academic subjects, meeting or exceeding district and state standards.

3. To cultivate an understanding and appreciation of other cultures and to develop positive attitudes toward fellow students, their families, and the community.

Like all dual language programs, teachers attempt to achieve balanced numbers of language-majority students and ELs in the classroom so that each group can serve as a linguistic resource and peer model for the other. Exposure to the second language is important because learners can hear the language being used in different contexts and have extensive opportunities to use the target language (de Jong, 2002; Mora, J. , Wink, J. and Wink, D. 2001. Dueling models of dual language instruction: A critical review of the literature and program implementation guide. Mora, Wink, & Wink, 2001 Bilingual Research Journal, 25: 417-442. ). Heterogeneous classes address the concern that some transitional bilingual programs isolate ELs from other students. Native English speakers may enter the program at the pre-K, kindergarten, or first-grade levels. Spanish speakers, however, may be admitted at any grade level. Although the most desirable student ratio in the classroom is 50% English speakers and 50% Spanish speakers, the program can operate successfully as long as neither language group falls below 30% of the classroom population.

Student Outcomes: Academic Data

The length of time spent in a dual language bilingual program is positively correlated with student academic achievement. Thomas, Collier, and Abbott (1993) found the most powerful predictor for EL achievement to be the amount of formal schooling in the native language (L1). Significant differences in program effects become cumulatively larger as students continue past the third grade when the curriculum becomes cognitively more complex. Therefore, only scores for the fifth grade were examined. Analyses began with the 1999-2000 school year (the year the first cohort of kindergarten students entered fifth grade). The three figures reflect scores for City Elementary in the areas of English reading, mathematics, and science.

Scores for the fifth-grade TAKS test in English reading indicated that students at City Elementary consistently outscored students across the district and, with the exception of 2001, around the state (see Figure 1). Students exhibited high scores in the 80 to 100 range. This finding is impressive given that students were tested in English even though students in the dual language program did not receive formal English reading until the third grade. Consequently, Spanish did not hinder the development of English for either the English-dominant or Spanish-dominant group.

TAKS scores for English mathematics indicated that students consistently outscored their peers across the district and across the state, with an impressive 100% passing rate for the 2000-2002 academic years (see Figure 2). Similarly, the use of Spanish for instruction did not hinder the development of English for either the English-dominant or Spanish-dominant group in the dual language program.

Science scores for students at City Elementary paralleled those of mathematics and reading, reflecting a high degree of achievement (see Figure 3). This is significant given the context of science achievement in the state of Texas. During this 3-year period, the pattern of achievement levels across the state reflected little progress in science, as students' scores reflected 50% passing rates.

DISCUSSION

TAKS results for reading, mathematics, and science indicate that students at City Elementary progressed in academic areas better than other students in the district and across the state based on state accountability standards. It appears that the dual language program's use of Spanish did not retard or impede children's acquisition of English or their English academic achievement. Given the gains in student achievement, our question was, what factors contributed to the success and sustainability of the dual language program at City Elementary?

Critical Features of the City Elementary Dual Language Program

Based on the dual language literature, we identified four factors that may have contributed to the success and sustainability of the dual language program at City Elementary. These are (a) pedagogical equity, (b) effective bilingual teachers, (c) active parent participation, (d) knowledgeable leadership and continuity.

Pedagogical Equity

The academic and linguistic success of Spanish-dominant children in dual language programs can be attributed to the use of the curricular mainstream taught in the child's native language as well as rigorous content standards regardless of the language of instruction. In contrast to remedial bilingual programs that offer "watered down" instruction, dual language enrichment models offer the curricular mainstream taught through two languages with rigorous content standards and high expectations. Such an environment is empowering, addressing issues of equity as well as test scores ( Baker, C. 1996. Baker, 1996 Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism , 2nd ed., Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. ).

The dual language program at City Elementary remained true to research in second language acquisition, ensuring that students gained cognitive academic language proficiency and learning strategies in the native language before transfer to the second language was expected of them ( Cummins, J. 1996. Cummins, 1996 Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society., Ontario: California Association for Bilingual Education. ). For example, all students were expected to read grade-level Spanish text as early as kindergarten, and math instruction, often cooperative in nature, required students to engage with one another as they worked through the learning process. In their desire to facilitate language acquisition and content area understanding, teachers made use of heterogeneously structured language pairing and peer-mediated instruction. Small student pairings allowed for the requirement of academic conversations that were important for cognitive as well as linguistic development. Thus, the potential for the cognitive benefits associated with full bilingualism were considerable.

In addition to rigorous content standards, the staff at City Elementary supported the notion of equal status of languages, as they were careful not to promote one language over the other, as suggested by one first-grade teacher: "It is hard to elevate the Spanish language given the English influence, but we try everything we can to make students feel excited about knowing two languages." Teachers at City incorporated all forms of Spanish literature into their curriculum and lesson designs in their efforts not only to promote Spanish but also to increase the level of Spanish literacy.

The use of the first language promoted a stronger learning environment for native Spanish speakers and allowed for students to engage in the curriculum through active learning. Equally, native English speakers appreciated the value of acquiring a second language as they engaged in interactions with their Spanish-speaking classmates. According to another first-grade teacher, "English-speaking students feel proud about knowing and speaking Spanish." The positive attitude toward bilingualism was evident in teachers' classrooms as well as in the print along the hallways. Much of this print included representations of collaborative student work related to a variety of content areas and in both languages.

Effective Bilingual Teachers

According to Cloud, Genesee, and Hamayan (2000) complete understanding of the goals and philosophy of the bilingual program is crucial for teachers. Through this understanding, teachers at City Elementary believed in the value of the dual language program and displayed confidence in their instruction, as evidenced by the level of Spanish vocabulary introduced in every content area. Faculty at City Elementary believed that students must be actively engaged to learn and must take responsibility for their own learning. Consequently, teachers gathered regularly to discuss vertical alignment and were given the "green light" by their administrator to adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of their students. Teachers were constantly seeking to improve their teaching and worked together to promote a positive social and academic environment for all children, as evidenced by the following comment: "We make sure our curriculum is aligned to each grade level. If we don't have vertical alignment, that makes it much harder for us as teachers and for our students." In addition, the goal was balanced development in all three areas; the dual language teachers did not emphasize language development over academic and social development.

The dual language program followed the curriculum expectations as outlined for each grade level for the independent school district, yet teachers enhanced the curriculum via integrated instruction and project-based learning. Instructional approaches observed throughout the school to facilitate this process included hands-on mathematics and science, literature-based reading, and cooperative learning. Teachers made extensive use of heterogeneously structured groups to increase opportunities for language acquisition and understanding of content. Teachers asked children to work together on assignments that required active negotiation of meaning. Additionally, the use of manipulatives and experiential learning not only encouraged active engagement and higher order thinking skills but also provided a supportive context for integrating students of different levels of English/Spanish proficiency for content instruction.

To facilitate the academic process, teachers employed effective second language acquisition strategies to ensure comprehensible input for second language learners. Language was taught both formally and informally, and instruction was student centered. Partnering and the use of cooperative learning strategies both served as important stimuli to meet this cognitive and linguistic challenge. Teachers at City Elementary viewed all of these strategies as opportunities for meaningful language use and avenues for providing comprehensible content.

Based on our observations, the teachers at City Elementary were similar to those studied by , who identified attributes of effective teachers serving ELs. García characterized the following practices as exemplary: (a) a focus on instruction that is meaningful to the children with the use of themes as vehicles for language and literacy development, (b) opportunities for active learning through hands-on learning in collaborative groups, and (c) collaborative and cooperative interactions among the students that are heterogeneously organized. García also found that successful teachers held high expectations for their students and were receptive to suggestions and committed to culturally relevant pedagogy. All of these features were found to varying degrees at City. A quote by one second-grade teacher summed it up: "At this school, if you are not ready to work beyond your classroom, don't even come and apply." The teachers at City were committed to their students and to building partnerships with their students' parents.

Active Parent Participation

Although some parents have a limited awareness of the scope of their children's bilingual education program (; ), parents whose children are enrolled in an immersion program tend to have high levels of involvement ( Cloud, N. , Genesee, F. and Hamayan, E. 2000. Cloud et al., 2000 Dual language instruction: A handbook for enrichment education., Boston: Heinle & Heinle. ). Parents at City Elementary played a critical role in program planning and sustainability. Based on parent meeting attendance, parents of students in the dual language program were committed to the bilingual and bicultural benefits afforded to their children. Parents were encouraged to volunteer in classrooms and to extend the learning process from school to home. Teachers' comments indicated that parents understood that program participation was not limited to their children but included their own involvement in all aspects of the dual language education program (; ). Consequently, parents participated in semiannual parent meetings with the teaching staff to discuss issues and strategies for improving literacy and numeracy and agreed to meet with parents new to the program to offer support.

A final component of City Elementary's parent program was continuing education. Teachers at City Elementary offered parents classes for English and Spanish development. This allowed parents the "experience" of second language acquisition along with their children. Parents frequently approached the campus principal to discuss programmatic issues and anxiety over language development. One of the areas of concern for many parents was the decision regarding program placement. To offset this anxiety, the principal invited parents and children to observe classrooms as they made their decision regarding classroom placement. From our attendance at parent education meetings, it was clear that all key stakeholders were committed to the success of the program.

Knowledgeable Leadership and Continuity

Recent research has determined that the principal's level of commitment to a program is essential to implementing and maintaining enriched education programs such as dual language education. Principals who were well informed about the program (; ) fostered a proactive school climate that maintained high academic goals for all students ( Lessow-Hurley, J. 2005. Montecel, M.R. and Cortez, J.D. 2002. Successful bilingual education programs: Development and the dissemination of criteria to identify promising and exemplary practices in bilingual education at the national level. Lessow-Hurley, 2005 Montecel & Cortez, 2002 Bilingual Research Journal, 26: 1-21. ). At City Elementary, the principal's level of knowledge about dual language programs and instructional practices for supporting ELs was evident through her discussions with parents and faculty. She remained current on dual language research, state law, and parent rights so that she could work with parents as she advocated for the program. She attended conferences with her teachers and read research articles during her own personal time. One teacher commented, "... She knows everything, and it's amazing to me how I might pick up a book and read it today, well, she already knows it. She already read it ... she is very informed." As a savvy instructional leader, she maintained close ties with central office personnel to support her teachers and students. Through continued resource allocation she supported program implementation and professional development as indicated in the following statement: "Sometimes you have to be creative. You only have so much money to use for professional development. You need to figure out how to structure that." In addition, the principal worked hard to hire a qualified bilingual faculty as she developed staffing plans. The foundations of dual language instruction , 4th ed., New York: Addison Wesley Longman. ;

A unique but critical aspect at City Elementary School was the continuity of leadership. This principal had been instrumental in program implementation more than a decade ago. She attended numerous trainings and visited other dual language programs across the state. She also enlisted the help of local university faculty for questions and staff development. Teachers and parents had a strong voice in the option of implementation. This was not a top-down decision but a democratic process in which all involved had a say in the matter. This allowed teachers and parents to have ownership of the program, a crucial factor in establishing democratic leadership.

The consensus among teachers was that the principal's support and knowledge regarding dual language instruction had been crucial in program sustainability, as evidenced by the following comment: "It is because of her that our program has lasted for so long and been so strong." Another teacher commented, "I think that the strength of the program lies in that she's been able to provide that leadership. She has taken it from the beginning and helped nurture it, and soften rough spots that we've had." As a result, teacher turnover was low, a factor that has also facilitated the longevity of the program. A kindergarten dual language teacher referred to City's principal as a motivating force: "She expects a lot from us, and then I think that sort of turns around on us, and then we expect a lot from our parents and our kids, too."

A crucial factor in the success of this campus was the principal's desire to build leadership capacity among her teachers by allowing them to implement creative strategies in the classroom and encouraging them to take on leadership roles. She shared a democratic view of leadership as she consistently engaged teachers in the decision-making process: "Well, I can't make the decision for them. They have to decide for themselves." Each of these aspects demonstrated a sincere belief in the program and its level of effectiveness for all students and contributed strongly to the sustainability of the dual language program.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The power of a dual language program is not just in its additive nature but in the pedagogical equity that exists for both language groups. It is not enough to merely adjust the language of instruction; teachers must adjust their philosophy, their teaching strategies, and their view of ELs. As teachers shift their belief about second language acquisition to one of enrichment versus one of remediation, the entire focus of the curriculum begins to shift as well. Teachers begin to evaluate how the curriculum best serves the needs of their students as they create the conditions under which children and parents can empower themselves. This cannot happen, however, without an administrator who understands the nature of bilingualism and the importance of advocacy for teachers, students, and biliteracy.

One common phrase among all interviewed was the continuing need to "fight" for the program with central office staff and some parents, as voiced by one teacher: "Although they do not inherently support the program, they do not block its implementation either." Administrators must be aware of the pitfalls and the need to support teachers at every step of the way. Otherwise, the influence of standardized testing and the desire for a quick transition to English overpowers teachers' best intentions and ultimately sabotages the program.

CONCLUSION

Dual language bilingual programs address several serious issues facing education in the United States. ELs are no longer segregated for any portion of the school day but are receiving the same core academic curriculum as their English-dominant peers. It is the kind of access ELs have to high-status knowledge and the quality of instructional interactions in dual language programs that defines educational quality and promotes greater equity. This is possible because effective dual language classrooms promote a high degree of student involvement (A. G. Ramirez & Stromquist, 1978; ), contextualize classroom discourse (), and value students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds (). This situation empowers native Spanish and native English speakers by promoting native Spanish and English language development as well as academic progress, and it nurtures a strong sense of self-identity ( Christian, D. 1999. Christian, 1999 Dual language bilingual education: Students learning through two languages . Educational Practice Report: 12. In National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://repositories.cdlib.org/crede/ncrcdslleducational/EPR12/ ; ).

Changes in policies, programs, and practices that positively address the changing demographics by bringing disparate groups together are not only necessary but inevitable. The most significant reform in educational opportunities for ELs occurs when teachers and administrators at individual school sites work together at the campus level. These changes are not possible, however, without committed administrators, parents, and teachers who understand the process of bilingualism and the nature of schooling for language-minority children.

REFERENCES

Baker, C. 1996. Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism , 2nd ed., Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.

Calderón, M. and Carreón, A. 2001. "A dual language bilingual program: Promise, practice and precautions". In Effective programs for Latino students, Edited by: Slavin, R. E. and Calderón, M. 125-170. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Carter, T. and Chatfield, M. 1986. Effective bilingual schools: Implications for policy and practice. American Journal of Education, 95: 200-232.

Center for Applied Linguistics. 2007. Directory of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Programs in the U.S. Retrieved July 23, 2007, from http://www.cal.org/twi/directory/

Christian, D. 1996. Two-way immersion education: Students learning through two languages. The Modern Language Journal, 80(1): 66-76.

Christian, D. 1999. Dual language bilingual education: Students learning through two languages . Educational Practice Report: 12. In National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://repositories.cdlib.org/crede/ncrcdslleducational/EPR12/

Cloud, N. , Genesee, F. and Hamayan, E. 2000. Dual language instruction: A handbook for enrichment education., Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Collier, V.P. and Thomas, W.P. 2004. The astounding effectiveness of dual language education for all. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1): 1-20.

Hakuta, K. and Gould, L. 1987. Synthesis of research on bilingual education. Educational Leadership, 44(6): 39-45.

Lessow-Hurley, J. 2005. The foundations of dual language instruction , 4th ed., New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Mora, J. , Wink, J. and Wink, D. 2001. Dueling models of dual language instruction: A critical review of the literature and program implementation guide. Bilingual Research Journal, 25: 417-442.

National Center for Education Statistics. 2005. The condition of education 2005, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. (NCES Publication No. 2005-094)

Ramirez, J.D. , Yuen, S.D. and Ramey, D.R. 1991. Final report: Longitudinal study of structured immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children., San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International.

Snow, C.E. and Hakuta, K. 1992. "The costs of monolingualism". In Language loyalties: A source book on the official English controversy, Edited by: Crawford, J. 384-394. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Thomas, W.P. and Collier, V.P. 2002. A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement, Santa Cruz, and Washington, CA, DC: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from www.crede.ucsc. edu/research/llaa/l.l_final.html

Thomas, W.P. , Collier, V.P. and Abbott, M. 1993. Academic achievement through Japanese, Spanish, or French: The first two years of partial immersion. Modern Languages Journal, 77(ii): 170-179.

Willig, A.C. 1985. A meta-analysis of selected studies on the effectiveness of bilingual education. Review of Educational Research, 55(3): 269-317.

Wong Fillmore, L. and Valadez, C. 1986. "Teaching bilingual learners". In Handbook of research on teaching , 3rd ed., Edited by: Wittrock, M.C. 648-685. New York: Macmillan.

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successful factors in bilingual education

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Sustaining a Dual Language Immersion Program: Features of Success

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Abstract The promise of dual language education has spurred a movement in the field of bilingual education to shift from remedial programs to enrichment forms of bilingual education. Although research supports the effectiveness of such programs, many programs do not maintain their level of implementation and quickly revert to their original remedial form.

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Challenging Common	Myths about Dual Language Learners

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Challenging Common	Myths about Dual Language Learners

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ESL Teaching Strategies: #1 TPR or Total Physical Response (VIPKID)

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Strategies for Supporting Dual Language Learners in an Early Childhood Classroom

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Strategies for Supporting Dual Language Learners in an Early Childhood Classroom

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CECE Early Childhood Videos at Eastern CT State U.

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Strategies for Supporting Dual Language Learners in an Early Childhood Classroom

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English Language Learners: Culture, Equity and Language

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English Language Learners: Culture, Equity and Language

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English Language Learners: Culture, Equity and Language

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I'm New Here: Welcoming Immigrant Students

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I'm New Here: Welcoming Immigrant Students

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I'm New Here: Welcoming Immigrant Students

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Japanese Phrases - Hear Japanese Words and Basic Phrases

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Japanese Vocabulary Phrases and more information about the culture and language in general. Visit Transparent Language and learn a language today!

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Home
Similarities between GER and ENG

Lektion 1
German Articles: der, die, das

Lektion 2
Indefinite Articles: ein, eine

Lektion 3
German Alphabet ABC

Lektion 4
The Word "is" in German

Lektion 5
I, you, he, she, it in German

Lektion 6
Colors in German

Lektion 7
Plural Article: die

Lektion 8
German Numbers

Lektion 9
We, you, they in German

Lektion 10
I love you in German

Lesson 11
You, She, They in German

Lesson 12
Er sie es Instead of the Noun

Lesson 13
Conjugation of sein and haben

Lesson 14
Accusative Case "den"

Lesson 15
Thank you, Hello and Yes in German

Lesson 16
I like in German

Lesson 17
German Opposites

Lesson 18
How old are you?

Lesson 19
Accusative Case "einen"

Lesson 20
Modal Verb können

Lesson 21
My name is... in German

Lesson 22
My, your, his, her in German

Lesson 23
Our, your, their in German

Lesson 24
Happy Birthday in German

Lesson 25
German Umlauts: ä, ö, ü

Lesson 26
Telling Time in German

Lesson 28
Excuse me in German

Lesson 29
German Adjectives
Counting in German to 999,999
Lesson 31
Cheers in German

Lesson 32
Funny Vocabulary Lesson

Lesson 34
Another TPRS Vocabulary Lesson

Lesson 35
Adjectives GER=ENG

Lesson 36
Countries and Capitals

Lesson 37
Punctuation Marks in German

Lesson 38
Days of the Week in German

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Contest:
Language Lovers (I won)
Online Store:
Audio Stories GER/ENG (PDF/MP3)

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Home Similarities between GER and ENG Lektion 1 German Articles: der, die, das Lektion 2 Indefinite Articles: ein, eine Lektion 3 German Alphabet ABC Lektion 4 The Word "is" in German Lektion 5 I, you, he, she, it in German Lektion 6 Colors in German Lektion 7 Plural Article: die

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Arabic Phrases - Hear Arabic Words and Basic Phrases

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Arabic Vocabulary Phrases and more information about the culture and language in general. Visit Transparent Language and learn a language today!

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Italian Phrases - Hear Italian Words and Basic Phrases

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Italian Vocabulary Phrases and more information about the culture and language in general. Visit Transparent Language and learn a language today!

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Basic French Phrases | Language for Travelers | Fodor's Travel Guides

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Learn basic French phrases by hearing them now, for free.