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Enseñando en español: The need to support dual language bilingual education teachers' pedagogical language knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2022

Katherine Barko-Alva*
Affiliation:
William & Mary, School of Education
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].

Abstract

Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) teachers, depending on the modality of the program, teach content areas (i.e., language arts, science, math, social studies) in a language other than English (LOTE) and English. DLBE teachers, who teach in Spanish, should be supported by school districts in meaningful ways. These districts should be equipped to provide the necessary academic and professional development for the DLBE teachers. This paper explores the increasing need to support DLBE teachers’ metalinguistic awareness as well as pedagogical language knowledge (see Bunch, 2013) in Spanish. Guided by Charmaz’ (2006) constructivist grounded theory, this paper analyzed ten transcribed audio interviews with a single DLBE teacher. Interview data included video-taped classroom observations (i.e., preplanning and postlesson implementation), robust field memos, and student artifacts. Data analysis suggested the need for further clarification as far as the teacher's own pedagogical language knowledge (PLK; Bunch, 2013) in Spanish. However, data also indicated that this particular educator was able to negotiate the linguistic and content demands of teaching language arts in Spanish by seeking multifaceted resources and using the full extent of her linguistic repertoire.

Abstracto

Abstracto

Los maestros hispanohablantes que enseñan en programas bilingües de inmersión recíproca dentro del contexto de los Estados Unidos deberían recibir capacitación profesional de sus distritos escolares de una manera eficaz y efectiva. Por lo tanto, los distritos escolares deberían de poseer los recursos necesarios para administrar este tipo de capacitación. Este estudio de investigación explora la necesidad de capacitar y afianzar la conciencia metalingüística y el conocimiento pedagógico y lingüístico de maestros hispanohablantes que enseñan en programas bilingües de inmersión recíproca (ver Bunch, 2013). Este estudio de investigación basado en la teoría fundamentada constructivista (Charmaz, 2006) analizó y transcribió diez entrevistas con una sola maestra. Entre los datos de investigación también se incluyen observaciones de enseñanza filmadas (ej., planeamiento e implementación de la lección), notas de estudio de campo y artefactos creados por los alumnos. El análisis de estos datos indicó que la maestra necesitaba más capacitación y afianzamiento de su conocimiento pedagógico y lingüístico cuando enseñaba en español (Bunch, 2013). Sin embargo, el análisis también demostró que ella era capaz de afrontar las demandas académicas y lingüísticas dentro del contexto de la clase de lenguaje, dictada en español, y pudo usar todos sus recursos (ej., lingüísticos y académicos) para afianzar su pedagogía.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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