Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

SPANISH/ENGLISH

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion
Co-Official/Regional Language Immersion
Two-Way Bilingual Immersion
One-Way Developmental Bilingual Education

Elementary (K-5)

Session will showcase how a backwards-planning model and curriculum maps allow teachers to collaborate across languages to promote biliteracy development. Presenters will illustrate best practices in implementing explicit language instruction in a  content-based classroom and provide examples of assessment practices that were effective with their population.

This session illustrates a collaborative inquiry that explores ways to plan for purposeful language instruction and assessment in an 80/20 dual language immersion (DLI) program. The session will showcase how a backwards-planning model (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) and curriculum maps allow teachers to collaborate across languages to promote biliteracy development. In order for students to reach higher performance standards for language and literacy required by the Common Core State Standards, they need to “bridge” what they know across languages (Beeman & Urow, 2012). By developing specific instructional activities to increase awareness (Lyster, 2007) about language, students will be more likely to develop academic language in a content-based classroom.

A fifth grade teacher and intervention specialist planned and documented a thematic unit in a fifth grade DLI classroom. Their inquiry process seeks to discover how the teachers plan for instruction and assessment in order to increase student engagement and access to grade level curriculum. This session will illustrate best practices in implementing explicit language instruction in the content-based classroom and provide examples of formative and summative assessment practices that were effective with their school population. The data for the inquiry process is generated through planning meetings and post lesson reflections, videotaped classroom observations, teacher interviews, as well as collaboratively designed curriculum maps and lesson plans.

Presenters will share their planning process, engage the audience in specific activities designed to draw the learner’s attention to language that is critical to the literacy and content standards, and show student assessment data through video-clips, photographs and student work samples.