Heather Papandrea Teacher Leadership Program High Tech High Graduate School of Education What happens when native

English speakers are paired with native Spanish speakers in a Dual Language Immersion Kindergarten classroom? Introduction Fernandos mom showed up to our fourth grade parent teacher conference rushing in, still in her restaurant uniform. Shes a young single mom with threes kids less than nine years old. As I typically do, I asked her if she would prefer if I spoke in English or Spanish during our conference. Espaol, por favor maestra. Spanish, please teacher. So, I began going over the results of Fernandos assessments, starting with his third grade CST scores, which were far below grade level. I then shared with her the results of the beginning of the year benchmarks tests, also below grade level. She then said, No entiendo lo que pasa, hes always so low. I dont understand whats happening, hes always so low. I asked her if she also spoke English and she said, A little. I asked her where she went to school and she told me she went to an elementary school in our district since kindergarten and continued on to the high school across the street from my school! This was an eye-opening experience for me. I was sitting across from what could potentially be one of my current students fifteen years from now. She had gone through twelve years of public school and still only felt like she could speak a little English and clearly felt more proficient in Spanish. Fernando had been at Ocean Knoll since kindergarten. He had been receiving academic intervention since first grade. The school offered leveled literacy time four days a week for forty minutes. Fernando had consistently been 1

in the lowest group with a 6:1 ratio. He had also attended after school intervention since second grade. This class focused on improving reading comprehension and vocabulary development. However, in spite of these interventions, he continued to be one of the lowest performing students in my class. Hes not alone; I have had students similar to Fernando in my classes since my first year of teaching. Since I started teaching in 2000, I have grappled with how to address the inequities that exist between the academic progress of English Learners and English Dominant students. I have taught in an Alternative Bilingual program in the Vista Unified School District, a Mainstream English program in the school I mentioned earlier, and currently I teach Kindergarten in a Dual Language Immersion program. In all three instances, I have seen the same discrepancies amongst English Learners who come from seemingly similar backgrounds. Some students excel and progress, while a substantial group struggles despite interventions. I hope to really get at whats working for those that succeed and find a way to share these bright spots with all students. Its important to note that my district, the Encinitas Union School District, is considered high achieving. Our overall API has remained consistently high. In addition, the San Dieguito Union School District, the middle and high school district our schools feed into, has one of the highest overall APIs in the county amongst high schools. They must be doing something right. Even though conventional measures would indicate that the system is working, I worry that there is a large group of students that are slipping through the cracks. When I taught 4th grade, I noticed that by the time students came to me, it seemed that determinations had been made: high achieving students 2

continued to achieve and low performing students continued to struggle. Now, as a Kindergarten teacher in the Dual Language Immersion program at Capri Elementary, I have the opportunity to help both English Learners and English Dominant Students feel successful at the beginning of their school experience, and to create a classroom community where both groups are learning from each other. Last year in my fourth grade class at Ocean Knoll, with my dilemma of inequities in mind, I began to have students do more partner work. They enjoyed working this way and through guided protocols became more productive during partner work time. I tried different methods of paring students: allowing them to choose a partner, paring by ability level (low with high), and by gender. Honestly, I didnt put a lot of thought into the methods of pairing, I focused more on modeling good listening skills, and offering kind, specific and helpful feedback. Students reflected on partner work time through exit cards and commented they enjoyed hearing someone elses ideas and having someone listen to their ideas, without interrupting. After seeing and hearing such positive responses from my students, I decided this was something I should pursue further in a more systematic, researched-based way. As I made the change to Kindergarten, I knew I would need to begin by helping students build collaboration skills from the ground up. This brought me to my research question: How do native English speakers and native Spanish speakers interact and communicate in Dual Language Immersion Kindergarten Classroom, and how will this change as we grow together as a classroom community? I was hopeful this would help get at my ultimate goal: to ensure that all students feel successful in my class. 3

Understandings Why do some English language learners succeed while others struggle? This is a question many teachers with a high percentage of English learners ask themselves. We can all give reasons based on experience and assumptions. Some students lack motivation, some lack basic skills to move forward with more complicated concepts, some lack sufficient parent involvement; the list goes on and on. The moment I stepped into a bilingual classroom twelve years ago to earn hours for a service-learning project, I became determined to do what I could to help students learning English as a second language succeed. The number of English language learners in elementary schools has been growing steadily over the past 25 years. According to the National Center for Education Services the number of students who speak a language other than English at home or who spoke English with difficulty grew by 124 percent between 1979 and 2003 (Flynn and Hill, 2005). This number is expected to grow to over 40 percent of elementary and secondary students by 2030 (Thomas & Collier 2001). California has one of the highest ELL populations in the country. With the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) ELL students make up their own subgroup, thereby affecting the annual yearly progress of individual schools (Flynn and Hill, 2005). The high stakes attached to test results have forced many districts to reexamine their ELD (English Language Development) curriculum and the qualifications of their staff to address the needs of this population of students. Despite the increasing focus on how to support English language learners, the achievement gap between Hispanic and White students persists. In a report on achievement gaps titled How Hispanic and White Students in Public Schools 4

Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Hemphill and Vanneman found that, From 2007 to 2009, scores of Hispanic and White fourth graders in the nation did not change significantly, and there was also no significant change in the gap. (2011, p. iv) According to The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the national average for English Language Arts is a 35-point difference between White and Hispanic students (Hemphill and Vanneman, 2011). Statistics like these are what fuel my desire to change my current practice to one that allows all students to achieve. Clearly the traditional set-up of most elementary classrooms, with the teacher as the keeper of knowledge and the students as the receivers of that knowledge is not only outdated, but also flawed. Fuchs, Mathes, and Simmons in their article on peer-assisted learning strategies stated that, What is needed, we are told, is a decentering of the teaching and learning process: a restructuring, or a loosening of that straitjacketed nature of traditional classrooms (1997, p. 178). They go on to say that peer tutoring is one of the most effective and popular decentering strategies. Peer tutoring allows students to take greater responsibility for their learning instead of passively receiving information from the teacher. Students are allowed the opportunity to reconstruct knowledge and share what theyve learned with a partner. Advocates of this strategy report increased retention of material and improved reading comprehension. During my teaching career, in my own classroom practice and in observing peers, I have not seen this type of purposeful collaboration amongst students. Certainly students work with partners, but it doesnt appear to be a structured or reciprocal process.

Understanding Reciprocal Peer Tutoring Peer tutoring is not a new concept. Before public schools opened in the early 18th and 19th century, Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster, British educators, created similar methods of peer tutoring. What came to be known as the BellLancaster method or Monitorial System consisted of a more advanced student teaching a less advanced student. The outcome of this popular method was that class sizes could be increased since the students could share the burden of instruction. As public schools began to open, this method lost its popularity as teaching became more professionalized. Interest in peer tutoring returned in the late 1960s in the United States, due to concerns of underachieving poor and minority students. Several different methods of peer tutoring have emerged, however they all have decidedly similar structures. Class Wide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) was developed during the early 1980s at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project at the University of Kansas. Students work in pairs to practice concepts previously taught by the teacher. They take turns in roles of tutor and tutee. Students read a passage and ask each other questions based on predetermined skills to be practiced. They receive immediate feedback form their peer tutor and earn points for correct answers (What Works Clearinghouse, 2007). PALS (Peer Assisted Learning Strategies) is a structured peer-tutoring program. Dr. Lynn Fuchs and Dr. Doug Fuchs developed it in 1989. PALS is meant to work alongside adopted curriculum, not as a stand-alone reading program. Students work in pairs with one student as the player

and one student as the coach. They earn points and trade off positions. Student pairs are made up of a higher-achieving student and a lowerachieving student. Students take turns reading and predicting text and earn points for correct answers (What Works Clearinghouse, 2012). Reciprocal Peer Tutoring is an intervention strategy combining selfmanagement methods, group interdependent reward contingencies, and reciprocal peer teaching to promote academic and social competency" (Fantuzzo & Rohrbeck, 1992, p. 3). Similar to PALS, students work in pairs and alternate between roles of tutor and tutee. The tutoring session is very structured, with prompts and answers that the students use to guide each other. For example, the tutor will ask the tutee a question from the text and if the answer is correct, they will praise the tutee. If the answer is incorrect, the tutor will read from a script to offer structured help to the tutee. The students switch roles after 10 minutes and continue working for another 10 minutes. Initially, I thought peer-tutoring strategies were the answer to my question of how to help close the achievement gap amongst my students. Now Im not sure thats the case. If I were to follow the scripts and prompts that the previously mentioned methods used, would they really encourage students to internalize collaboration techniques and begin to offer meaningful feedback? I need something more authentic, something that creates a culture of students working together in a symbiotic way. In addition, when I began researching peer-tutoring strategies, I had my fourth graders in mind. I was hoping to find something that would help me

manage many levels of learners and encourage cooperative learning during literacy. However, now that I am teaching in a Kindergarten DLI class, my focus has changed. I realized quickly after the first few weeks of school that the strategies I had hoped to use would likely be more appropriate later in the year. I really needed to lay the groundwork for behavior expectations and allow students to get used to being in a class where Spanish is the target language. Compaeros: My Experience with Peer Collaboration My first four years of teaching were in fourth grade at a bilingual visual and performing arts magnet school. Classes were made up of 50% native Spanish speakers and 50% native English speakers. This was an Alternative Bilingual program, meaning that the ultimate goal was for English learners to be transitioned into an English only class by fifth grade. In Kindergarten, non-native speakers received 90% of their instruction in Spanish and 10% in English. The percentages continued to shift by 10% until fourth grade when the curriculum was 50/50. After fourth grade, students who had not met the qualifications for transition, continued to receive ELD instruction, but no longer received native language support. Native English speaking students received all of their instruction in English, with the exception of two 45-minute SLD (Spanish language development) classes per week. The aim of these SLD classes was to introduce students to a foreign language and not for them to become biliterate. One of the things I liked best about the program, aside from the integration of the arts into the curriculum, was that students were partnered with a compaero. Theses pairs were made up of a native English speaker and a native Spanish speaker. They sat together in class and worked together when we went to our visual and performing arts classes. There was not a set structure to their 8

partnership, as in peer tutoring. As I look back, I realize that this was a missed opportunity. Students could have been working collaboratively and reflecting on their progress. This is what I hoped to achieve in my year of action research. I wanted to create time and space for this type of collaboration. As I researched reciprocal collaboration, I kept coming back to my experience in bilingual education as a possible way for students to benefit equally as they learn each others native language. Students in any type of bilingual program are exposed to a different language and culture to some extent. Conversely, mainstream English programs focus on proficiency in English and typically do little to maintain the English learners first language. My personal experience learning a second language has brought me to the conclusion that when all students are faced with a similar challenge, in this case learning each others native language, they start to see each other as resources. As bilingual educators we need to capitalize on this and create structures that allow for this to happen in a meaningful and sustainable way where both groups benefit. However, in the alternative bilingual program at my previous school, native English speaking students attended Spanish classes while English language learners attended ELD classes. They were not learning language together. The ultimate goal of the program was proficiency in English for native Spanish speakers, not biliteracy for all. Since my ultimate goal was to create opportunities for reciprocal learning amongst my students, I began to explore other programs. In the summer of 2012, I decided to take a Kindergarten position at Capri Elementary in their Dual Language Immersion program.

Capri is one of two schools in my school district with a Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program. In a DLI program, classes are made up of 50% native English speakers (NES) and 50% native Spanish speakers (NSS). Our program is whats known as a 90/10 program. Starting in Kindergarten 90% of the curriculum is taught in Spanish and 10% in English. The percentages shift by 10% until fourth through sixth grade when the curriculum is split 50/50 between both languages. In Kindergarten we keep a strict one teacher, one language policy, meaning I only speak Spanish in front of my students. Native Spanish speakers and native speakers of other languages, receive leveled ELD instruction four days a week. The native English speakers in the DLI program also receive four days a week of English instruction, where the focus is on reinforcing some of the concepts we are teaching in Spanish, but not on teaching reading and writing until second grade. The ultimate goal of the DLI program is for students to become bilingual and biliterate by the end of sixth grade. Creating Opportunities for Students to Work Collaboratively It has been my experience that native English speakers dominate class discussions. As I stated earlier, all of my teaching experience has been in classes with 50% native and 50% non-native English speakers. In their book titled, Content-Area Conversations, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Carol Rothenberg, discuss the importance of classroom talk. They cited several research studies that found in classrooms with higher poverty levels, students were given less opportunity to talk. Also, in classrooms with a high percentage of low achieving students, teachers spoke 80% of the time. While in classrooms with more high achieving students, the number was more equal at 55%. In addition they observed that English language learners in many classrooms were asked easier 10

questions or no questions at all and thus rarely had to talk in the classroom (Fisher, Rothenberg, and Frey, 2008). I have been guilty of this in my own classroom. By trying to be helpful and understanding of my students individual language acquisition timeline, I have unintentionally fostered a community of English language learners that dont have a significant voice in our classroom. In order to create an opportunity for student voice to be more balanced in my classroom and for students to work collaboratively in a meaningful way, I have researched several protocols used to engage students in conversations that push their thinking. Response Protocol: This protocol is meant for teachers to extend English language learners classroom interactions. Initially, the protocol can be used whole group to encourage students to broaden and extend their responses with help from the teachers probing questions. The strategies can then be used in peer collaboration to help students push each others thinking. Some general guidelines for the Response Protocol help to ensure maximum participation: using a class roster to keep track of students contributions, practice and value behaviors that encourage students to participate (smile, nodding your head, move closer, eye contact), accept partial answers while modeling more elaborate grammatically correct answers, and use probing questions to follow-up and extend students thinking. Using the response protocol in my class helped encourage the use of Spanish by both groups of students. It also gave me a way to keep track of which students were speaking and how much Spanish was being spoken. I liked that it includes modeling of correct grammar and probing questions. Kathryn

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Lindholm-Leary noted in her review of best practices in Dual Language Education Programs, promoting highly proficient oral language skills necessitates providing both structured and unstructured opportunities for oral production. It also necessitates establishing and enforcing a strong language policy in the classroom that encourages students to use the instructional language and discourages students from speaking the non-instructional language (2005, p. 17) Cooperative Learning: According to Johnson, Johnson and Holubec in their book Circles of Learning (1984), there are five essential components that make cooperative learning successful: Positive Interdependence - Students must feel a connection to the rest of the group or their partner, and a responsibility to do well. I tried to achieve this through friendship and community building activities. In our community meetings we discussed qualities of a good friend and brainstormed specific things we could do that helped encourage these qualities. Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction Students explain concepts learned to one another and share connections made. During interactive writing time students shared their work with their compaero as a way to slowly get them to begin to talk to each other in Spanish. Through more directed scripted talk they were eventually ready to share and explain concepts they learned.

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Individual Accountability Students must take individual responsibility and not rely solely on their group or partner to contribute. Since my focus was on the reciprocity of the compaero relationship, it was essential that students realized they were an important part of our classroom community. Again during our class meetings, I emphasized the importance of working together with their compaero to solve problems and finish activities.

Social Skills Students must be taught explicitly how to work effectively with others, through trust-building activities, conflict resolution strategies and specific protocols for stepping up and stepping back. Many of the friendship building activities I planned helped students learn how to relate to each other in the classroom. Compaeros practiced phrases to use when asking for help or sharing materials.

Group Processing Students must give each other feedback on how they perceive each member is participating and offer suggestions for improvement. They need to check in with each other periodically to ensure that everyone is doing their part (Johnson, Johnson and Holubec 1984). After students finished an activity with their compaero, we reconvened as a class and reflected on what went well and where there was room for improvement. I also had students model correct behaviors and incorrect behaviors. For example, if we were working on pair reading, a correct example would be to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with your partner and lean in to listen. An incorrect example would be sitting far away or not following along as they read.

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After reading about different protocols, I combined the best aspects of all of them into a hybrid of collaborative peer talk. Over the past year, I have been more tuned in to the needs of my students, how they interact with each other and how I respond to their struggles. I feel an immense sense of responsibility to create a classroom culture where students value each others opinions and one where they grow as collaborators. I found that students began to seek out help from their compaeros and they began to feel more comfortable offering help. Changing grade levels and programs prompted me to re-evaluate which collaboration protocols would be most effective and appropriate. Since the goal of the DLI program is biliteracy, an essential component of any protocol is the emphasis on using the target language, Spanish. While looking into best practices for Dual Language instruction, cooperative learning emerged as a recurrent theme. Through my research, I found when students with different backgrounds work together on common objectives their attitudes towards each other become more positive. However, research also showed that the social value of Spanish has the risk of diminishing as students progress through elementary school. This was surprising to me. I would have thought that the social value of Spanish would increase in a program that has a goal of biliteracy. In a research study about student attitudes towards biliteracy, Dr. Linda Gerena (2010) found that although most students had positive attitudes towards Spanish when they started school, English succeeded in becoming the more valued language by both native English speakers and native Spanish speakers. The study was conducted with first and second graders in a DLI program in a suburban school, where 55% of the students were Spanish dominant and 45% of the students were English 14

dominant. Gerena states that the results of the study seem to indicate that, The older and more cognizant of the larger educational community children are, the less social value they place on the use of Spanish(2010, p.68). I have felt the same thing throughout my career in education. When I taught fourth grade, I can remember numerous occasions where Spanishspeaking parents would come to me concerned that their son or daughter would no longer speak to them in Spanish. I recall having parent teacher conferences with Spanish speaking parents where I would have to translate into English for the student, because they were no longer as fluent in Spanish. I wondered if the problem of Spanish loosing its social value persists even in a DLI program that strives to promote equality for both languages and cultures. And if so, what can I do to help ensure this doesnt happen in my own classroom and at our school? Dual Language Immersion Benefits & Challenges While working on my action research I have kept in mind some of the common challenges unique to Dual Immersion Programs. Although the assumption is that having an even mix of native English speaking students and native Spanish speaking students will create a reciprocal learning environment where students act as language models for one another, this is not always the case. Delgado-Larocco (1998) found that while Spanish-speaking children were acting as translators for their English-speaking peers, thereby demonstrating knowledge of both languages, the teachers' response did not acknowledge this accomplishment. She wrote: "Translations had the possibility of placing the SNSs (Spanish native speakers) in leadership roles, yet they primarily served the functions of safeguarding ENSs' (English native speakers) participation in the lesson 15

and maintaining a smooth pace to the lessons...Although questions often placed SNSs in a modeling role, their function was not necessarily to boost the SNSs' self-concept, but one of providing a service for the English native speakers and/or the teacher" (1998, p. 319). In other words, although Spanish speakers were showing leadership by translating, the teachers focus was on ensuring the English native speakers understood the lesson and were able to participate. In my first few weeks of teaching Kindergarten in the DLI program, I often relied on Spanish speakers to translate for non-native speakers. As I read more, I realized it was important to allow native English speakers to acquire Spanish through authentic interactions with their classmates and not rely so much on translations. It is also important to acknowledge the accomplishments of the Spanish speakers to build their selfconcept. Delgado offers many suggestions for DLI teachers and administrators to help encourage an equal status of both languages. Educating parents about the overall goals of the DLI program is a first step. She goes on to suggest that perhaps English speaking parents could attend Spanish classes, so their children could see that they also value becoming bilingual themselves. Spanish speaking parents should be educated about the importance of maintaining Spanish and reading to their children in Spanish. Efforts should also be made to bring these two groups of parents together to discuss the goals they have in common for their children. Through my conversations with colleagues that teach in the DLI, working to maintain an equal status for both languages is something that teachers keep in mind as native English speakers begin to surpass their native Spanish speaking 16

peers academically as years go by. Teachers have told me that it is not uncommon for native English speakers to dominate classroom discussions as early as Kindergarten. As I worked towards creating situations where my students worked together cooperatively, I kept this information in mind and evaluated ways to encourage a more balanced classroom. In a study titled Effects of an Elementary Dual Language Immersion School Program on Junior High School Achievement(2005) the researchers sought out to measure how DLI programs influence the academic performance of native and non-native speakers of English. They hoped to find that both NES (native English speakers) and NSS (native Spanish speakers) whod attended DLI programs since Kindergarten would achieve better overall in sixth and seventh grade as compared to similar students in a traditional elementary school with an English as a Second Language program for English learners. The study found there was no negative impact academically of the DLI program and that the program was moderately beneficial for English language learners. An added benefit is that students overall felt that being bilingual helped them think better and challenged them more than a traditional elementary program. English speaking parents felt that exposing students to cultures different than their own was an important benefit. Spanish speaking parents were happy students were maintaining their native language and culture. After reading several studies by Dr. Lindholm-Leary, an expert in the field of bilingual education who has published the most comprehensive studies of bilingual programs in the United States, I found that an effective Dual Immersion program is the best model for English language learners to maintain their primary language, as well as the most effective second language immersion 17

model for native English speakers. Through a study conducted in 2003, Lindholm-Leary found that bilingual students reach higher levels of academic achievement and cognitive functioning than their monolingual counterparts. In an article titled, The Rich Promise of Two-Way Immersion(2004), she points out six factors for a successful DLI program. 1. School Environment: The staff and administration should share a common vision for the program and have specific goals for student achievement. In schools with a DLI program and a traditional program, it is important for non-DLI teachers to be supportive and knowledgeable about the bilingual program. This has been a challenge at my school. The DLI program has been the preferred program of parents, and this preference has created tension between the two groups of teachers. 2. Curriculum and Instruction: Language instruction should be integrated across the curriculum and should equally reflect the culture of the students. Students should have the opportunity to practice both languages academically and socially. In my own classroom it has been challenging to get to students to speak Spanish during unstructured time. In general, if a NSS and a NES are playing together, English is the dominant language. However, during structured activities most students will speak at least some Spanish. 3. Program Planning: A strong program-planning process should include proper scope, sequence, and alignment with developmentally appropriate practices and language proficiency in both languages. (Lindholm-Leary, 2004, p. 57) DLI programs are structured so that 18

during the first few years students are immersed in Spanish 90% of the time. Formal reading and writing instruction in English does not happen until second grade and even then its only 30% of the instructional time. Students should receive 50% of their instruction in Spanish and 50% in English by fourth grade and continue 50/50 through sixth grade. In order for students to become proficient in both languages, teachers must plan across grade levels to ensure that needed skills are being taught in order to prepare students for the next grade. 4. Assessment and Accountability: Multiple measures should be used in both languages to ensure that students are meeting grade level goals. At the first DLI teacher meeting I attended, we discussed the lack of a scope and sequence across grade levels in the bilingual program. We are at the beginning stages of creating grade level goals. The challenge has been a lack of across grade level collaboration and specific direction from past administration. Our school has had five principals over the past nine years, so the directives have varied substantially. 5. Teacher Quality and Familiarity with Bilingual Education: Teachers should understand instructional strategies specific to bilingual education, such as education equity and second language development. Teachers should be fluent in both English and Spanish. 6. Family Involvement: Parents from both groups of students should be involved in school activities and feel welcome at the school. Englishspeaking parents should not dominate parent advisory groups to the exclusion of non English-proficient parents. (Lindholm-Leary, 2004, p. 19

58) This has been a challenge at Capri. Our current DLI parent advisory group is overwhelmingly made up of native English speaking parents. The principal is aware of this inequity and is making strides towards creating a more equitable group. However, this type of inequity has been an issue since the program started. Keeping in mind the risk of students eventually devaluing the use of Spanish, I recalled the distinct difference between how students act at home and school. Last year, I had a native Spanish-speaking student in my fourth class who had been struggling academically for the past few years. I had given her all of the usual beginning of the year benchmark tests and she scored about one grade level behind. She was a shy student who got anxious about taking tests. Her mom wanted her to begin working with a tutor at home, so I recommended a friend who had worked as a special education teacher. The tutor administered similar assessments at the students home to check her fluency, comprehension and overall reading ability. I was surprised when the tutor shared the results with me. My student scored at grade level, was relaxed during the assessments and even said she enjoyed them! I have read about students in DLI programs, where the equality of both languages is stressed and students are provided positive role models within the school who value Spanish and the students cultures, yet still eventually the students began to devalue Spanish. I am left wondering how to create a space where students and parents maintain these values outside of school and through the grades.

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School Setting Capri Elementary School opened in Encinitas, California in 1969. It is one of nine elementary schools in the Encinitas Union School District. Capri has both a regular English mainstream program and a Dual Language Immersion Program in Spanish. It is a Kindergarten through sixth grade elementary school with approximately 650 students. Our school is one of three Title I schools in the district, which means that, a minimum of 40 percent of the students in the school, or residing in the attendance area served by the school are from lowincome families. (2004, July 2) The primary goal of the Title I program is to ensure that all students, in particular low-income and second language learners, are able to demonstrate proficiency on standardized state tests. Capri is situated in the northern coastal town of Leucadia. The school sits on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Its considered a west side school, meaning that it is located west of El Camino Real. The three west side schools in our district are similar in demographics in that the student populations are made up of an average of 40% English language learners and 60% English only students. The east side schools serve a more affluent population with a much lower percentage of English language learners. These schools are all located east of El Camino Real and west of the privileged Rancho Santa Fe community. Capris student population is culturally diverse and mirrors the schools surrounding community. As you drive down the streets you see large beautiful homes with million dollar price tags and just around the corner crowded duplexes and apartment buildings, many with two or three families sharing a small space.

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Our school is a natural gathering place where these two distinct groups meet. We have very active parent volunteers who work together with staff and students to ensure our school based programs are successful. Capri has been the recipient of several generous grants that have allowed us to offer students many new programs this school year. Demographics The majority of Hispanic or Latino students at Capri are English learners and they receive free or reduced lunch. Conversely, the majority of students that speak English as their first language do not receive free or reduced lunch. In addition, a large number of English Learners at our school have parents who have not completed college. The difference between these two socioeconomic groups and the inequity it presents in standardized testing has been the focus of many changes. Capri is currently in Program Improvement status. The test scores of our English Language Learners, specifically, have gone down over the past few years. Some of the roadblocks to improving the academic performance of the ELs are curriculum consistency across the grade levels and teacher fidelity with a state adopted ELD program.

Ethnicity African American

Our School 0%

County Average 6% 10% 47% 33%

State Average 6% 11% 53% 26%

Asian American/ Pacific Islander Hispanic/Latino White/European American or Other

3% 33% 59%

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Family Factors Free and Reduced Lunch Parents with Some College Parents with a College Degree

Our School 23% 80% 66%

County Average 53% 66% 41%

State Average 60% 56% 32%

School Wide Programs Dual Language Immersion Program Capri began offering the DLI program in 2005. The Dual Language Immersion Program is a challenging and rigorous academic program in which Spanish is used as the primary language of instruction. The ultimate goal of the DLI program is for our students to become bilingual and biliterate by the end of sixth grade and be better prepared to be contributing citizens in our global society. The DLI program is very popular and entrance is based on a lottery. Students from within the Encinitas Union School District are eligible to apply to the program. Our program is a 90/10 model in which Kindergarten students receive 90% of their instruction in Spanish and 10% in English. In first grade instruction is 80% Spanish and 20% English, second grade 70% and 30%, third grade 60% and 40% and for grades fourth through sixth the curriculum is 50% Spanish and 50% English. Ideally teachers adhere to a one language only model; one teacher delivers instruction in English and another in Spanish. However, in the upper grades this becomes difficult to attain. As a Dual Language Immersion (DLI) program, we face our own challenges. Capri Elementary has offered the DLI program for nine years, and is in its second year of Program Improvement for not meeting the annual yearly 23

progress goal (AYP) set by the state of California. Students in the DLI dont receive literacy instruction in English until second grade, which is also when they begin taking the annual STAR test in English. DLI schools AYP goals are not modified, even though students are receiving 70% of their instruction in Spanish in second grade, 60% in third and 50% in grades fourth through sixth. The Wheel The Wheel has been implemented for the past two years. All grade levels participate in enrichment classes as they rotate through three 40-minute sessions. The rotations include science lab, physical education/yoga, and music. While the students participate in these enrichment classes, grade level teams meet to plan, collaborate, set student goals, and review assessments. Funding for The Wheel classes is made possible by the support of the PTA. Classroom Setting In 2012, I began my first year teaching Kindergarten in the DLI program at Capri. Prior to this year I taught fourth grade for 10 years. The transition has been profound. Much of the research that I did leading up to starting my action research, brought me to the decision to change schools. My focus was on creating a more reciprocal relationship between native English speaking students and native Spanish-speaking students. The DLI program seemed like the perfect place to implement my plan. My class was made up of twelve native English speakers and twelve native Spanish speakers. The Spanish speakers acted as language models for the nonnative speakers. My role as the teacher was also that of a language model. I only spoke Spanish in front of students. It is an important component of the program in that it encourages students to take risks in Spanish that they would not 24

naturally take if I spoke to them in English. I was impressed by the amount of receptive language my non-native Spanish-speaking students were able to comprehend after only a few weeks. It was difficult to adjust to delivering instruction to a class where only half of the students could fully understood what I was saying! However, I had many students who were bilingual and translated for me into English. The Kindergarten team at Capri collaborates regularly and clearly has the whole child in mind when designing an engaging curriculum. Last year, they began implementing Project Based Learning into the curriculum. They completed four integrated projects by the end of the school year. My daily schedule was set up to include many opportunities for students to share their thinking with me and with each other. Also, I am lucky to have had three parent volunteers everyday that made it possible to do lots of hands on learning projects. Its Kindergarten, so we sing lots of songs and move a lot to keep everyone engaged! Methods In order to meet my goals of helping students to value Spanish, to close the achievement gap and to build relationships so they see each other as resources in their learning, I chose to pair up native English speaking students with native Spanish speaking students as compaeros or partners. To better understand how compaeros work together and the dominant language being used, I used a variety of data collection methods and analysis. I looked for information to understand what choices students made and to see if there was any correlation as a result of explicit instruction on working with a language model partner or compaero. 25

Data Collection Surveys: Beginning of the Year & End of Trimester: At the beginning of the school year I had my students take the Baseline survey in Appendix A. The questions helped me understand how comfortable my students felt working with their classmates. I was able to understand better what students see as Bright Spots in their education and learning. When do they feel most successful? I understood better their attitudes towards receiving help from peers and their perception of whether or not they felt it was helpful. For the survey, I chose to use multiple-choice questions with an icon they could choose for their response. The End of Trimester survey provided me with feedback on how attitudes either changed or stayed the same. Initially, I gave the baseline survey orally, whole group, with the help of a parent who translated each question into English. However, when I realized students did not understand the concept of filling out a survey, I gave the survey a second time one on one with their compaero. Here are some of the questions I asked in the survey: 1. Cuando estas aprendiendo algo nuevo, como te gusta trabajar? When you are learning something new, how do you like to work? (alone, with a friend or with the whole class) 2. En la escuela, como prefieras leer? At school, how do you prefer 26 to read? (alone, with a friend or with the whole class) 3. Te parece que un compaero de la clase te puede ayudar a leer mejor? Do you think a friend in class can help you learn to read better? (yes, no or sometimes) Student Tally Chart: To collect data about how my students were working with their compaero, I put up a tally chart on our calendar wall that the students and I used to measure how often they gave and received help from their compaero or other students in the class. I came up with the idea of using the chart when I 26

noticed early on that it was difficult to capture interactions in my classroom. After working in our morning literacy rotations, we would reconvene on the rug and students would share who had helped them. I used the chart in Appendix C to collect the results. Baseline Interviews & Exit Cards: In order to have a representative sample, I chose three compaero pairs made up of three native English-speaking students and three native Spanish-speaking students. I asked probing questions that revealed how students feel about working with others in school. Through open-ended questions I found out how to best accommodate my students needs as I began my Action Research. I used the set of questions in Appendix B to ask students. I asked my focus students questions at the end of the day during unstructured playtime to get their feedback on how they felt about working with their classmates. I aimed for asking Exit Card questions weekly. I pulled them aside with their compaeros, in case they needed to translate for one another. I varied the questions as wonderings arose for me during my research, but here are some samples of questions I asked: Que hizo hoy un amigo que te hizo sentir feliz? What did a friend do today that made you feel happy? Contame que paso hoy que te hizo sentir orgulloso te ti mismo. Tell me something you did today that made you feel proud of yourself. Student Observations, Anecdotal Records and Field Notes: I kept a journal and anecdotal records to document the following: student interactions, language being used, level of engagement, attitudes expressed and

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level of participation. I used video and audio recordings during unstructured playtime to capture exchanges. I documented how often students spoke and how I perceived their level of interaction and engagement. I focused on the quality of their dialogue. For example, if they used complete sentences, did they give commands, or ask questions. I was looking to see if students were actively trying out the things we talked about whole group. For example, one of the things they came up often in our morning meetings was that students wanted to be invited to play. As I observed, I looked for signs of this happening. Data Analysis: Surveys: Beginning of the Year & End of Trimester: The baseline survey proved to be a challenge to administer. Since Im certain this was their first experience filling out a survey, some problems arose. I had a parent translate the questions into English and I projected the survey as students filled out their individual surveys. Still many students circled all choices. This was a learning experience. I realized my students were not ready for multiple-choice surveys! I opted to use interviews to get at what I really wanted to know about students working with a partner. The results of the first survey were invalid, since most of the students marked every answer. However, after asking the questions one on one, I was able to see that students preferred to learn something new with a friend, since I had a lot of partner work planned for the year. In order to compare my students attitude about working with a partner, I administered the beginning of the year survey again at the end of the trimester. After my first experience with surveying my class, I decided to do things 28

differently from the start! I called students over individually during free choice time to ask them the questions with their compaero. Things went much smoother the second time around. Student Tally Chart: I decided to implement a tally chart so students could help with the data collection. I put the tally chart up in an area of the classroom where all students had access. I went over the columns explicitly and modeled how to fill it out. Each pair of compaeros had a row on the chart where they I put a tally mark when they noticed that their partner or another classmate helped them in the following areas: 1. My partner helped me say something. 2. My partner helped me with my work. 3. My partner played nicely with me. I used the data from the tally chart to see which areas they favored and which areas we needed to work on further. As I collected data, I ended up changing items in the columns of the tally chart to reflect what I found students felt was important as they worked with their compaeros. For example, one thing that became clear immediately was that it was important to students to have someone invite them to play or work on an activity. So, after working on this whole group and modeling explicitly, we added this to the chart as something to look for, Alguien me invito a jugar o trabajar, Someone invited me to play or work with them. Interviews & Exit Cards: I digitally recorded my Exit Card questions and interviews with students. Having them interviewed with their compaero proved to be very beneficial, since there was a need for translating. I transcribed my interviews and pulled out phrases and words to go through to see if I found common themes related to working together. Since one of my goals was for more Spanish to be spoken I 29

noted which language students used as they answered and if there was a shift throughout my data collection. Their answers helped inform my instruction as I planned topics for our community meetings and friendship activities. Through interviews I had a clearer view of my focus students thoughts on working with their compaero. Student Observations, Anecdotal Records and Field Notes: I recorded notes of my observations of my focus students. I observed what roles students assumed and their level of engagement both during unstructured play and during small group instruction. I recorded and took notes throughout. I reviewed these notes on a weekly basis to see what trends were emerging. One thing that stood out was my focus students comfort level with their compaero. One pair of students clearly didnt feel comfortable working together. Fernanda loudly complained when I paired her up with Ricardo. I ended up keeping them together, because Fernanda had a tendency to complain about most pairings, so I was interested to see what would happen. After they worked together for only a few weeks while I was asking students what activity they would like to choose for free choice, she loudly stated, I want to do what Ricardo is doing, because I love him! I compared what I saw in my observations with what students said in their interviews to see if my students were doing what they were saying. I used this information to decide next steps in terms of activities or social skills to focus on.

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Appendix A Baseline Survey: Part 1 Aprendas de sus compaeros de la clase? Do you learn from your classmates?

No

De ves en cuando Sometimes

Si Yes

Te parece que escuchas con atencin? Do you think you are a good listener? No Haces preguntas cuando no estas seguro de algo? Do you ask questions when you are wondering something? Te gusta hablar con un compaero de la clase? Do you like talking with a friend in class? No Te gusta compartir libros con tus compaeros? Do you like sharing books with friends in class? De ves en cuando Sometimes Si Yes De ves en cuando Sometimes Si Yes

No

De ves en cuando Sometimes

Si Yes

No

De ves en cuando Sometimes

Si Yes

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Baseline Survey: Part 2 4. Nombre: ______________________________________ 5. Cuando estas aprendiendo algo nuevo, como te gusta trabajar? When you are learning something new, how do you like to work?

Solo (Alone)

Con un Amigo Con toda la clase (with a friend) (with the whole class)

6. En la escuela, como prefieras leer? At school, how do you prefer to read?

Solo (Alone)

Con un Amigo (with a friend)

Con toda la clase (with the whole class)

7. Lees libros en casa? Do you read books at home? J L Si Yes No 8. Con quien lees en casa? Who do you read with at home? 9. Te gusta leer? Do you like to read? J L Si Yes No 10. Te parece que un compaero de la clase te puede ayudar a leer mejor? Do you think a friend in class can help you learn to read better? J Si Yes L No

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Appendix B Name__________________ Preliminary Interview Questions 1. A quien pides ayuda cuando necesitas ayuda en la clase? Who do you ask for help when you are unsure of something?

2. Contarme cuando te sientes orgulloso en la escuela? When do you feel proud of yourself at school?

3. Como te sientes trabajando con un compaero en la lectura? How do you feel about working with a partner at school?

4. Dame un ejemplo de una vez que fue dificil de trabajar con un compaero What are some things that make it difficult to work with a partner?

5. Describe como seria si estuvieras trabajando bien con un compaero. Describe what it would look like and how you would feel if you were working with a partner successfully.

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Appendix C Compaeros Me ayudo decir Me ayudo con mi Jugo bien (I will have photos algo. trabajo. migo. and names of pairs of students in the rows below) con

Tally marks will go in these columns.

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Findings What Brought Me Here Throughout my teaching career, I have been concerned with the inequities that exist between native English speaking students (NES) and native Spanish speaking students (NSS). As I pondered different topics for my Action Research, the common theme remained, what could I do to help all students succeed? I kept coming back to the great divide between NES and NSS academic achievement. I hoped to find a way to encourage students in my class to build friendships and collaborate on projects to increase academic achievement. As I researched the socioeconomic gap that exists between NES and NSS, I continued to reflect upon my time teaching fourth grade in an Alternative Bilingual Program at the Vista Academy of the Visual and Performing Arts (VAVPA), a K 8th magnet school. Schools must offer an Alternative Bilingual Program when waivers are approved for 20 or more students of the same language group and in the same grade. The program is offered exclusively to English language learners. Students still receive English language development, however literacy and content area instruction is provided in both languages. Much like DLI programs, there are 90:10 models and 50:50 models of instruction. At VAVPA they had a 90:10 model, where the amount of English instruction increased by 10% until fourth grade when instruction was 50:50. The goal of the Alternative Bilingual Program was to develop biliteracy and transition students to an all English program by sixth grade. There were teams at each grade level made up of a bilingual teacher and an English only teacher. We shared a group of 60 students, 30 NSS and 30 NES. My homeroom class was made up of 15 NES and 15 NSS. The homeroom group of students stayed 35

together for Math instruction in English and all specialty classes (Physical Education, Computer, Library, Dance, Instrumental Music, Vocal Music and Art). For all other subjects, I had my core group, which was made up of 30 NSS. I remembered feeling that having an even mix of both native and nonnative English speakers in the class felt more equitable, although the test scores said otherwise. The majority of my students scored above grade level on the SABE or Spanish Assessment for Basic Education. This test was a state standardized assessment for all students participating in an Alternative Bilingual Program, it was administered from 1999 through 2005. However, NES consistently outperformed NSS on the STAR test. This was not surprising since NSS had been receiving the majority of their instruction in Spanish since Kindergarten. Typically NSS in the program reached a proficient level on the STAR test by 7th or 8th grade. At VAVPA, I enjoyed the diversity and the chance for students to learn more about their fellow students culture and language. Reflecting on my time there prompted me to return to my bilingual education roots. At the end of last school year, I decided to make a big change and take a Kindergarten position at Capri Elementary in the Dual Language Immersion program. I knew this was probably not the best time to make such a big change, since I was about to begin my Action Research, however I felt a bilingual program would be a great setting to work through the inequities amongst NES and NSS. Beginning of Kindergarten Wonderings Before the school year started I sat down with my current teaching partner, Meghan, to talk to about my research plan and to find out what concerns 36

and challenges shes noticed over the years. She has been teaching DLI Kindergarten for the past 10 years and was instrumental in bringing the program to Capri. I started off by telling her that one my biggest concerns starting the year was that many of the NES would be confused and even upset at not being able to understand. In DLI Kindergarten we adhere to a strict Spanish only model. This means I only speak Spanish in front of my students, I cannot translate into English at any time. Meghan let me know that the NES students receptive language progresses quickly. Receptive language is listening to and understanding what is said or comprehending what the speaker is communicating. Meghan shared with me that during the first few weeks of class she asks NSS to translate when necessary for the NES. This allows NES access to what is being taught, with the hope that they will begin to understand more Spanish as time goes on. I found that since I repeated the same commands and followed a daily routine consistently, some NES began to show an understanding of these commands as early as the rst week of school. After two or three weeks, students were able to answer simple questions such as How are you? and What day of the week is it? with one word answers, such as Fine and Monday. Initially students provided whole group responses. Later, I modeled direct questions to NSS and then after they answered I would ask the same question to a NES. I found that by repeating what another student said, the students began to internalize vocabulary and language structures. My partner and I also talked about the socioeconomic gap and she said that it has been her experience that even as early as Kindergarten, NES start to dominate class discussions and surpass their NSS classmates academically. I 37

knew I would need to keep a close eye on signs of this happening in my own classroom. Within the first trimester of school I found this to be true. After administering an assessment on beginning letter sounds, I found that the majority of my NES (10 out of 12) knew an average of 70% of the letter sounds, while only five NSS students scored 70%. This was concerning to me, since I had previously thought that the gap took longer to widen. Since all students received the same instruction in class, I considered a reason for this discrepancy might be that NES parents were working with their children more frequently at home. Although it is hard to gauge what goes on at home, the NES did turn in homework more often. In addition, out of twelve NSS, ten of them attended the afterschool childcare program, which ends at 6:30pm. This ends up being a long ten-hour day for these kids. The afterschool program is taught in English, although the staff does provide time for students to work on homework in Spanish. After speaking with many of their parents, they shared with me that it is difficult to find time to work with their children at home. Equity in Dual Immersion In her article, Dual-Language Immersion Programs: A Cautionary Note Concerning the Education of Language Minority Students, Guadalupe Valds discussed issues of language and power that teachers in DLI programs should be aware of. She writes, For minority children, the acquisition of English is expected. For mainstream children, the acquisition of a non-English language is enthusiastically applauded. Children are aware of these differences (1997, p. 405). Now that I have spent some time in the DLI program, I can see that this is an issue at our school. I know that the goal of the program is biliteracy for both 38

groups of students, but since in the early years the focus is on acquiring Spanish, its important to applaud the efforts of all students and not just the students who are learning Spanish. Valds also emphasizes the importance of ensuring a high level of Spanish with as little translation as possible. Modifying the language to make it more comprehensible to the non-native speakers, even slightly, influences the language development of the native speakers. Can NSS in a DLI program acquire academic Spanish at a level comparable to that in an Alternative Bilingual Program? Previously, when I taught in an Alternative Bilingual-fourth grade class, all of my students were native Spanish speakers, so I didnt feel the need to alter my language. Until now, I hadnt considered the implications of slowing down and simplifying my language so that NES would not be left behind. Now I wonder if NES are indeed dominating class discussions and out performing their NSS classmates, what part does altering the language play in this? If I were to eliminate translating and make a conscience effort to deliver instruction in unaltered Spanish, would there be less of a gap? Another challenge Meghan and I discussed is the socioeconomic gap between the NES and the NSS families. In general, most of the NES parents have university degrees and work in professional careers. The majority of my parent volunteers come from this group. In Kindergarten, we typically have three parent volunteers daily to work with students in small groups. After meeting with parents during parent teacher conferences, I found that the majority of NES moms work part-time or less and therefore are able to help out in class, go on field trips, attend special activities and drop off and pick up from school. On the other hand, many of the NSS parents have not attended college and nine out of 39

the twelve families are considered low income and receive free lunch. In the majority of the NSS families both parents work full time, necessitating before and after school care and not allowing time to volunteer in their childs classroom. In the DLI program the native English speaking students often benefit at the expense of the native Spanish speaking students. I have heard some form of this quote from several colleagues that teach in DLI programs. This has also been a concern of mine, considering that overall at Capri NES outperform their NSS classmates on both English and Spanish assessments. In the article, Dual Language Programs on the Rise, Ron Unz, the California software developer who spearheaded the ballot initiatives against bilingual education in California and Massachusetts states, The Spanish-speaking kids are roped in as tutors for the English-speaking kidsThe whole debate on dual language is dominated by English-speaking parents who want their children to learn Spanish. I question whether the Spanish-speaking students are [really] learning English. (2011, p.2) While I dont agree with his quote completely, I also question how effective our program is at ensuring NSS acquire a proficient level of academic English. The ultimate goal of the program is biliteracy; however in 2012 only 33% of English language learners in grades second through sixth scored at the proficient level on the CST (California Standards Test). On the other hand, according to a review of research findings by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) minority students in two-way immersion programs benefit in the following ways: ELL students in 90:10 programs attain the same levels of proficiency in English and the same or higher standards of achievement in reading and language arts and math (measured in English) as ELL students in 50:50 40

programs. Thus, more exposure to instructional time in English does not lead to an improvement in English language proficiency or achievement in reading/language arts and math as measured in English. There are significant correlations between achievement in English and Spanish for both reading/language arts and mathematics. Thus, the ELL students who score the highest in reading, language and math achievement on achievement tests as measured in English also score the highest on achievement tests measured in Spanish. ELL students who participate in high quality two-way immersion programs achieve at levels that are comparable or superior to their ELL peers in the district and state. By fifth or sixth grade, almost all ELL students who had attended a two-way immersion program since kindergarten or first grade were rated as proficient in both languages. (2007, May) This quote explains beautifully what I hope to help my students achieve in our program. It seems to me that patience is essential in any DLI program. Parents and teachers need to have realistic expectations based on reliable research. Having read research on high-quality DLI programs, I realize the same things that make a traditional elementary program successful also apply to DLI: consistency across grade levels and teacher fidelity. I am encouraged by the conversations weve had at our DLI staff meetings around collaborating on grade level goals, but I still feel we are at the beginning of a long journey. First Day of School Jitters Since this was my first time teaching Kindergarten many challenges arose as I embarked on my research. I struggled with how to modify my survey questions, my methods of collection and which strategies I had considered for 41

fourth graders would work for 4 and 5 year olds. Another concern was how to make my questions comprehensible to the whole class. With all of these challenges in mind, I tried to keep a clear focus on what I wanted to observe: How do the two groups of students in my class interact and communicate and how will this change as we grow together as a classroom community? Im always a little nervous the first day of school, but since this was also my students first day of school in their elementary school experience, I was more nervous than usual! My biggest concern were the criers I had heard so much about from my friends that teach Kindergarten. School starts at 8:00am, but loads of kids arrived at 7:30am to check out their new classrooms. It was an exciting time and most of the kids were happy to be starting Kindergarten. I did see several students hugging their parents legs and fighting back tears, so I swiftly brought them inside and we started our day. As we gathered on the rug, I saw a sea of curious faces staring up at me. We started the day singing a song about Juanito who loves to dance. The kids loved it! At first, I felt a little goofy (not a lot of singing and dancing in the upper grades), but their energy was contagious and the smiles and giggles started to appear. We must have sung that song 20 times the first week! Anytime I noticed they were getting a little squirmy, tired or homesick, we put on Juanito and danced! My concerns about all students understanding me were validated within the first few minutes of school, but luckily I had several students who were able to translate. It was important to me that all students understood certain key phrases quickly: Puedo usar el bao, por favor? (Can I use the bathroom, please?), Me lastime! (Im hurt.), Puedo tomar agua por favor? (Can I drink water, please?), 42

and Levante la mano, antes de hablar. (Raise your hand before speaking.) I made vocabulary cards with visual cues for these key phrases and I would point to them as I asked students to repeat the phrase. Hoping to scaffold and introduce a Cooperative Learning strategy called Face-to-face Promotive Interaction where students explain concepts learned to a partner, I had students create hand gestures to help remember key phrases. Students volunteered to show the class a gesture that went along with a phrase and we all repeated both the phrase and the gesture whole group. For example, Michael came up with holding an imaginary cup and drinking it for the phrase, Puedo tomar agua por favor? I then asked students to turn to the person sitting next to them and sit eye-to-eye and knee-to-knee to practice the gesture and phrase. This seemed like a perfectly simple idea, however the results were less than perfect! I got a lot of blank stares and the few NSS that did turn towards a friend were met with the back of the other childs head. After asking them to turn and practice, I had Michael (whos bilingual) repeat the directions in English. I really wish I had filmed this, but I had no idea it would prove to be so funny. So, Michael stands up and with exaggerated hand gestures and a very mature tone, says, Ok, guys, what the teacher wants you to do is to turn and sit with your knees on a friend and look at their eyes and say: Puedo tomar agua por favor? Most of the students didnt know where to turn and they ended up fidgeting around, with a few making the gesture and saying the phrase, but most clearly confused. Take two! I then asked my trusty friend Michael to model with me what I wanted them to do. As I looked at my students faces I noticed a little less confusion and even some nodding heads! I quickly stepped carefully through the rows of Kindergarteners and physically turned 43

them towards their partner, since in my excitement I hadnt told them who to turn and practice with! We practiced and Im happy to sayit went okay. By that time we need another song and dance. As I reflected on this first experience with Face-to-face Promotive Interaction, I realized I would need to give more detailed instructions and really break things down in order for my students to understand. Baseline Survey: How comfortable do my students feel working with their classmates? Going from fourth grade to Kindergarten was a huge transition. I, of course, knew I would need to adjust my expectations and certainly my plans to implement my research, but the adjustments were bigger than I anticipated. My initial plan was to ask the students a series of baseline questions about how they felt about working with a partner in class, since my research would focus on how students worked together. (Appendix A) I tried to think through how to give the survey, since my Kindergarteners were not able to sit down independently and fill out a survey. I asked a parent, a high school Spanish teacher, to help me out. I gave each child a copy of the survey, a clipboard and a pencil and projected the survey on the screen, so students could follow along as I went over each question explicitly. The first thing that really threw them into a fit of laughter was the document camera. As soon as my hand appeared to point out the first question and the smiley and frowning faces to circle, they exploded into laughs and oohs and ahs! It never dawned on me that theyd never seen anything like it before. Each time I used my finger to point, they cracked up. So, I decided to just continue without the visual. As I read each question in Spanish, my parent

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helper read the question in English. Here are some of the questions we asked the students: 1. Cuando estas aprendiendo algo nuevo, como te gusta trabajar? When you are learning something new, how do you like to work? (alone, with a friend or with the whole class) 2. En la escuela, como prefieras leer? At school, how do you prefer to read? (alone, with a friend or with the whole class) 3. Te parece que un compaero de la clase te puede ayudar a leer mejor? Do you think a friend in class can help you learn to read better? (yes, no or sometimes) 4. Aprendas de sus compaeros de la clase? Do you learn from your classmates? (yes, no or sometimes) 5. Te parece que escuchas con atencin? Do you think you are a good listener? (yes, no or sometimes) 6. Haces preguntas cuando no estas seguro de algo? Do you ask questions when you are wondering something? (yes, no or sometimes) 7. Te gusta hablar con un compaero de la clase? Do you like talking with a friend in class? (yes, no or sometimes) 8. Te gusta compartir libros con tus compaeros? Do you like sharing books with friends in class? (yes, no or sometimes) We both explained several times that they were to circle one of the three choices. However, most of them ended up circling all three on each and every question. This was definitely a learning experience for me and an indicator that I would need to modify my data collection even further. After looking over the surveys we did whole group I realized that I would not be able to use the results, since they clearly did not understand what to do. I decided to ask students the survey questions in pairs, with their compaero. As part of my research, I paired students up with a partner or compaero. The pairs consisted of a native English speaker and a native Spanish speaker. I thoughtfully paired them up with someone they had shown interest in forming a friendship with in class, based on whether or not they chose to play together during free choice or recess. I also made sure I didnt pair up two children who

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were reluctant to talk. Another important consideration was if the Spanishspeaking student was also bilingual. The levels of bilingualism vary, but most of the Spanish speakers in my class attended at least a year of preschool in English, so they are able to communicate at some level in English. So, after the not so great results of my first survey, I decided to give it again.
At school, how do you prefer to read? When you are learning something new, how do you like to work? 0
Figure 1. Reading Survey Results

Whole Class With a Friend Alone 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

The results were not too surprising to me, since Id already noticed that my students were very social and were interested in getting to know each other. However, at the beginning of the year most students still felt more comfortable having the teacher read to them, rather than reading with a friend. I was pleased to see that students preferred to learn something new with a friend, since I had a lot of partner work planned for the year. I also asked students whether or not they read at home, 100% said they did and 90% of students said they liked reading or being read to. When I asked students whether or not they thought a friend could help them read better, I got a lot of confused looks. I rephrased the question and asked if they thought a friend could help them with some of the words they didnt know or explain what was happening in the story. After this explanation, most students seemed to understand, but the majority of students, 75%, answered no. I was a little disappointed, because I had hoped that they would see each other as resources. I suspect that at this age most children look to adults for help. Many of my

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students were transitioning from parallel play, where children play next to each other but interact very little, to engaging in interactive play, where they participate in group games or play together. I noticed during those first few months many students would exclusively come to me for help. Thankfully, this changed as the school year progressed. Through the questions in my baseline survey, I hoped to get at whether or not my students felt comfortable asking for help from their classmates and if they thought this was useful. When I asked the questions with their partner I had to do quite a bit of explaining and give examples to help them understand what I was getting at. Also, relying on a five year old to translate clearly was difficult and a lot to expect, but most of them rose to the occasion and were able to make themselves understood to their partner. I felt conflicted having students translate, since this is an immersion model and translation should be very limited, if at all. However, Im not really sure I would have gotten the data any other way.
20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Do you learn Do you think Do you ask Do you like Do you like from your you are a questions talking with a sharing classmates? good when you are friend in books with listener? wondering class? friends in something? class?
Figure 2. Baseline Survey Results

Yes No Sometimes

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Initial Observations: How can I encourage students to see each other as resources? During my informal observations throughout the first month of school, I noticed the children in my class were not so interested in working together. As I watched them work at table groups on activities, like drawing what they liked to do with their friends, they interacted very little. I saw one student crawl across the table to reach the crayon basket. I realized quickly they needed to learn the basic language skills to ask for help. It wasnt just the phrase or the words, but explaining to them and modeling how they could use each other as resources to get their work done. I also observed during our first few class meetings that they were not too excited about discussing what we were doing in class. This was a big surprise to me; I thought theyd be excited to share ideas and questions. It was important for me to include student voice in my research. For example, I asked the class, Qu es lo que te gusta ms cuando trabajas con tu compaero? What do you like best about working with your partner? Mostly, I got a lot of blank stares. I relied on my bilingual students to translate, but usually the translation didnt get at what I was asking. I also suspect that by the time a student finished the translation the kids were tuned out. The children in my class that speak Spanish as their first language were tuned in most of the time and ready to share with their compaero, but their native English speaking (NES) partner was usually confused and not sure what to do. At the time, I was frustrated at my inability to get more input from my students about how they were experiencing the first few weeks of school. Now I realize that my expectations were not reasonable for where they were at developmentally with respect to language acquisition and simply being a Kindergartener. 48

Another thing that I noticed was the classroom behavior of the Spanish dominant students compared to that of the English dominant students. The English dominant students, in general, were able to sit, listen to directions, do their work quietly, and basically follow the class rules. Many of the Spanish dominant students had a more difficult time attending, sitting for more than a few minutes at a time and following the class rules. This was surprising to me. In my 13 years working with a very similar population there hadnt been such a discrepancy. Each group of students came from different socioeconomic backgrounds and attended different preschools. The majority of the NSS

attended the local Head Start preschool. I wondered if the different expectations and structures of the preschools my students attended had something to do with their behavior. I also wondered whether the NES were quieter and better behaved during those first few months, because they were unable to understand most of what was said. As I considered my NES overall behavior and reluctance to share during class meetings, I recalled my undergraduate linguistic studies on language acquisition. Nearly all of the research I had done up until now had been on students learning English as a second language. However in the DLI program, my NES students were also second language learners. According to Stephen Krashen (1982), most English language learners (ELLs) will go through a silent period, when they are unable or unwilling to communicate orally in the new language. The silent period may last for a few days or longer depending on the learner. The silent period occurs before ELLs are ready to produce oral language and is generally referred to as the Pre-production stage of language learning. Krashen cautions that ELLs should not be forced to speak before they 49

are ready. They need time to listen to others talk, to try to comprehend what they hear, to develop receptive vocabulary, and to observe their classmates interactions and reactions to language. When students do speak, we want the speech to be real and purposeful instead of contrived. When the students are in the silent period, it does not mean they are not learning. They may

understand what is being said, but they are not yet ready to talk about it. Although much of Krashens work is around ELLs, the idea of a silent period pertains to any second language acquisition. Revisiting this research helped me make sense of why my NES students were seemingly better behaved and not as responsive. Now this seems glaringly obvious, but at the time when I was concerned I wouldnt be able to get my students to give me their input on working together, it wasnt as clear. As the months passed, I noticed a shift in NES input during our class discussions. Once they had acquired more phrases and vocabulary in Spanish they began to share more and ask more questions. Sometimes they would speak completely in English. Other times they would use the Spanish they knew and add words from English to fill in. For example, Ayer I had a sleepover con mi amigo. (Yesterday I had a sleepover with my friend.) The overall behavior of the class shifted as well. NES seemed to feel more comfortable in class and began to talk out of turn and misbehave more frequently. I still noticed that the NSS misbehaved more frequently, but my NES students had clearly found their voice! Parents and Students: How can I balance parent expectations and reality? During this time, educating the parents about what to expect at this age and in this program, was a challenge. The first few months of school were filled with parent concerns about the behavior of a few students in my class. I had a 50

difficult time dealing with parents and helping my students adjust to Kindergarten. There were five students who were behavior problems almost immediately. All five were NSS, three girls and two boys. Lola, who was also one of my focus students, was a twin and one of six children in her family. She was defiant and acted out constantly within the first week of school. Vera was the youngest of three girls. She lived with her biological Mom and Dad and two older half sisters (same Mom different Dad). Sadly she had a history of sexual abuse and didnt speak until she was four. She was immature for her age and would not follow the basic rules of the class; often she would crawl around and meow to get attention. Yolanda was the youngest of four girls and had severe separation anxiety. Without exaggeration, she cried every day, nearly all day long for two months, often causing herself to vomit. Ricardo, also one of my focus students, was the youngest of five boys and Evan was the oldest of three children all under the age of five. They were both extremely active and had difficulty following directions. The biggest challenge in dealing with their difficult behaviors was the constant presence of parent volunteers. During morning literacy rotations, I had two parent volunteers to work with small groups and help with prep work, from 8:00am to 10:15 am. In the afternoon, one parent volunteer came in from 1:00pm to 2:15pm to help out with Math centers. Although their help was valuable and necessary for some of the involved activities we were doing, I couldnt escape their scrutiny of the behavior of my students. This was a delicate time as I was working on establishing norms and procedures with the class and trying to get to

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know them amongst the five students who were presenting daily behavior problems, all under the watchful eye of parent volunteers. Several of the parent volunteers spoke to other parents in the class about their concerns with the students behavior. They also contacted the principal and myself. Ironically, classroom management and difficult student behavior has been a strength of mine. It was hard to have my authority and my ability to deal with the problems questioned. However, I worked hard not take it personally and to realize that all parents have their childs best interest at heart. Thankfully, most of the behavior problems I mentioned got progressively better as the year went on. This didnt happen magically. Improving student behavior became my main focus. I wanted to help all of my students adjust to Kindergarten and create friendships. In order to do this I implemented the following strategies and structures to help improve classroom behavior and create a more united community. Implementing Cooperative Learning Strategies: Five Essential Components Class Meetings: Creating Positive Interdependence As I researched Best Practices for strong DLI programs a common theme emerged, the use of Cooperative Learning Strategies. The second week of school we began having Class Meetings to help support Positive Interdependence or feeling a connection and responsibility to the group. The first activity was to brainstorm a list of things a good friend does. I asked the class, Qu hacen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Jos translated for the class, What does your good friend do? Ricardo immediately raised his hand and shouted out, Juegan bien! They play nice! This struck me, because he had been having difficulty getting along with the other boys in the 52

class. He was very physical and had a habit of taking things out of other students hands without asking. I was encouraged that he saw this as an important trait. The next comment came from Jos, Si no tienes el almuerzo, comparten contigo. If you dont have lunch they share with you. As students shared their ideas, I wrote them down on chart paper and drew a sketch to describe what they shared. If the student answered in English, I would repeat what was said back to them in Spanish and then write the phrase in Spanish on the chart. This is standard practice for teachers in the DLI program; whenever English is spoken we repeat the phrase back in Spanish and encourage the student to echo the phrase. Several students volunteered to translate what was said into English. Initially, there were two standout translators. Michael, whos dominant language was actually English, but had a Spanish speaking nanny since birth and Jos, who was excited to translate, but his English was often difficult to understand. I used a thumb up or thumbs down signal to check for understanding after a student would translate. Often it took a few versions of what they thought I was trying to say before I got a thumb up from the majority of the class. Both boys appeared confident and happy to be able to help out their classmates. I struggled with allowing translations, but I also found it difficult to create a sense of community and help form friendships, without the input of all students. Im still conflicted about translating, since within a few months, my NES were contributing regularly. I wonder if I hadnt allowed translating, would they be contributing as often.

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Qu h acen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Juegan bien! Play nice! - Ricardo (NSS) Si no tienes e l almuerzo, comparten contigo. If you dont have your lunch, they share with you. Jos (NSS) Un da, Vera no tenia bocadillo y yo compart con ella. One day, Vera didnt have her snack and I shared with her. Gianna (NES) Leen libros juntos. They read books together. Steven (NES) Comparten juguetes. They share toys. Evan (NSS) Te ayuden cuando te lastimes. They help you w hen youre hurt. James (NES) Te empujen en los columpios. They push you on the swings. Shane (NES) Figure 3. Class Meeting Chart: What do good friends do? (The original chart was in Spanish only.)

I was pleased that both NES and NSS gave their input during our class meetings. It was important to me to have students share explicitly what they thought good friends do, especially since several of my students were having behavior problems. I was hopeful that if they heard their classmates describe what they thought a good friend should do, they might begin to try out more positive behaviors. Developing Norms and Celebrating Good Behavior: Building our Social Skills My initial intention was to have students start working with their partners right away and begin using the protocols I had researched. Reality set in quickly! I first had to establish expectations and formulate class norms that were clear to all students. Just sitting on the rug next to each other without somersaulting was a challenge for some students! I was surprised at how quickly students picked up key phrases in Spanish, especially one that I repeated throughout the day constantly during the first few weeks of school: No tocamos a los amigos. (We dont 54

touch our friends.) My dream of having students work together as peer to peer mentors couldnt possibly take place if they couldnt sit next to one another without poking, hugging, pinching, and even kissing each other. I quickly realized that clear boundaries needed to be established before any collaboration could occur. I worked on role-playing with students, different scenarios I had noticed come up throughout the day. Some students had difficulty asking a friend to pass them a pencil; instead they would just climb across the table and get it themselves, truly not a very collaborative move. I had also noticed a lot of grabbing and hoarding of materials. Although students said that sharing was important to them, many were not putting it to practice. We clearly needed to set some guidelines for what was acceptable behavior in our class. After several days of class meetings we came up with a list of class norms: Escucho con atencion. ~ I listen carefully. Levanto la mano antes de hablar. ~ I raise my hand before speaking. Hago mi trabajo calladito. ~ I do my work quietly. Termino mi trabajo. ~ I finish my work. Soy un buen amigo. ~ I am a good friend. Camino calladito. ~ I walk quietly.

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Figure 4. Class Norms and Behavior Clip Chart

In order for students to internalize our class norms, we repeated them two to three times a day for the first few weeks. I went over the norms first thing in the morning and asked students to give examples of what it looked like to follow certain norms. We revisited the norms after our morning literacy rotations, to check in and see if as a whole class there were any norms we needed to work on. This turned out to be a great opportunity for my NES to expand their vocabulary in Spanish. Since we were repeating the norms throughout the day, I began to hear students using the same phrases in our class discussions. Another important system I implemented was a behavior chart. I have mixed feelings about behavior charts and treasure boxes for good behavior. I think they can condition kids to expect something for behaving, instead of teaching them that being kind is its own reward. However, the behavior of a few

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students was negatively impacting our class and making it hard to get through the day, so I gave in. Im glad that I decided to use the behavior chart, because it was effective at improving the behavior of most of the class. Another classroom management tool that I used was simple yet surprisingly effective. The class earned caritas felices or smiley faces for awesome behavior. I kept track of the smiley faces on the whiteboard and when we reached a certain number the class earned a reward. One of their favorite rewards was a Soul Train style dance party. Students would line up on either side of the carpet, creating an aisle for the dancer. They loved it! Lucky for me the dance fever didnt wear off as the year went on. As simple as it was I think the smiley face chart helped bring my class together as a community. They encouraged each other to follow the rules and worked together to clean up. I would over hear them talking about getting enough caritas felices to have a dance party!

Figure 5. Dance Party!

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Friendship Building Activities: Fostering Group Processing through Positive Feedback In order to promote a strong bond between my students and help them form friendships where they would seek each other out in both play and academics, I chose several friendship building activities. Faulkner and Miell (1993) discovered that children who had well-established friendships upon entering school had better social and communication skills. They concluded that the ability to make friends influenced childrens performance in a range of learning activities, particularly those involving collaboration and cooperation. I reached out to the other Kindergarten teachers on my team for ideas to help build friendships and positive behavior in my class. There was one activity that they all found useful for promoting kindness and friendship, filling buckets. The activity is based on Carol McClouds book Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids. The book encourages children to fill friends metaphorical bucket with kind words and kind deeds. It also discusses the importance of not being a bucket dipper or someone who uses unkind words or does unkind things. After reading the book we discussed things we could do and say to fill our classmates buckets. I made a bucket for each student and put them all in a pocket chart hanging on the wall. I made slips of paper with images of kids helping one another for them to write down ways that their friend had filled their bucket. The first time we did this activity was amazing! After generating a list of phrases they could write on their bucket filler cards, I put stack on each table group and gave them a chance to write messages and fill buckets. As I walked around the classroom, I heard students telling each other, Im writing one for you, porque juegas bien con migo. (You play nicely with me.) It was hard to get them to stop! 58

After they had written for about ten minutes we reconvened on the rug and I read some of the slips from the students buckets. I asked the class how it felt to have their buckets filled, Me hace sentir feliz. (It makes me feel happy.), Julia said. We discussed the importance of using kind words throughout their day. I let them know that I would leave the bucket filler cards out for them to fill their friends buckets whenever they liked.

Figure 6. Students filling up buckets.

I had anticipated that students would be rushing over to fill out bucket filler slips throughout the day, but this didnt happen. I realized that unless I mentioned it during our morning meetings as an activity to do when they were finished with their work, it didnt get done. They needed constant reminders, just like with the class norms. However, when I pointed it out as an option they almost always chose to fill someones bucket. It also became clear that it was important to them to have time to sit and read their notes and for me to highlight a few students notes at the end of each day.

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Although students were writing the bucket fillers in Spanish, almost all of the conversations around bucket filling were in English. I heard a lot of code switching and borrowing of Spanish or English during their discussions. Code switching is the use of more than one language in a single conversation or sentence. Borrowing is used when someone is not yet fully bilingual and they insert a word or phrase from either language into the sentence when they dont know the correct word. For example my student James said to me, Ayer I played futbol with mi papa. He is using all the language he knows in Spanish, but borrows the words he doesnt know from his native language, English. On the other hand, speakers practice code switching when they are mostly fluent in both languages. The majority of the conversations I heard were exclusively in English, with the exception of the phrases they were writing in Spanish. Hearing that much English being spoken was concerning to me. As I considered the amount of English I was hearing in my classroom I began researching issues of language and power in bilingual programs. Dual Immersion programs strive to bring equity to both languages and bring diverse groups of students together with a common objective of becoming biliterate. However, I wondered if the societal inequities can be overcome by curriculum and teaching practices. Students know that English is the language of power and wealth. Its transparent in the cars their parents drive, the houses they live in and the clothes they wear. Observing Student Interactions: Unstructured Play I decided to videotape groups of students during unstructured playtime to see what language they chose to speak. I have a pocket chart on the whiteboard with six choices of activities: house, cars, coloring, beading, Legos, 60

and puzzles. Student names are written on popsicle sticks and I take turns asking each student, Qu quieres jugar? What do you want to play? I noticed that several students wanted to wait until their friend chose an activity, before they chose. James (NES) said, Esperar mi amigo Emilio. Wait for my friend Emilio Emilo is a native Spanish speaker. I was pleased to hear James continue to take risks in Spanish; he was progressing in Spanish quickly. I allowed students to wait and make a choice after their friend. As I walked around the room with my iPad videoing their interactions, several things struck me. The group of students who were beading (4 NES girls, 1 NSS boy, and 2 NSS girls) spoke exclusively in English. They would lean in and whisper to each other when I walked over. The native Spanish speakers in this group were silent. The group playing in the house area was a mix of students from my class and the other DLI Kindergarten class. It was a pretty even mix of NES and NSS, but mostly girls. Again, English was exclusively being spoken. There was a group of boys putting together a train track (3 NSS and 1 NES, James). I was really interested in hearing whether or not they chose to speak in Spanish, since James is one of the NES who has picked up Spanish very quickly. They actually didnt speak either language! They made car and train noises, but didnt speak at all while I observed them. This same thing happened when I observed Juan (NSS) and Fiona (NES). Fiona joined our class the third week of school and had a difficult time making the transition to the DLI program. She was vocal about not understanding Spanish and loudly said, Qu? What? throughout the day or Whats she (meaning me) saying? Often times I think she understood what Im saying, but chose to feign misunderstanding. 61

Anyway, she and Juan were playing cars. They had built a very long track and had it completely covered with cars. Fiona explained to me, We made a traffic jam. While I observed them, they didnt speak very often. They took turns laying down pieces of the track, then filled the track with cars. I asked Juan if he enjoyed playing with Fiona and he said, Si! Juan translated my question to Fiona and she smiled and said, Hes fun to play with! After my observations, I determined that the dominate language during playtime was English. My observations during the first few months of school were that during academic activities more Spanish was spoken. However, most of the NES were still in the silent stage so most of the talking was being done by NSS. Most students tried to speak Spanish to me and to each other while working in small groups during Language Arts rotations. Ultimately, the language during academic activities shifted to mostly English as the year progressed. Students still spoke Spanish directly to me and with their peers during Reading groups with me. However, when students were working on an activity in a small group either alone or with an English-speaking parent volunteer, they spoke mostly English. I struggled with the amount of English I heard during our morning literacy rotations and during playtime in the afternoon. I spoke to my teaching partner Meghan and she said she was noticing the same thing. She decided to start giving out incentives when she heard students independently using Spanish. At our school students can earn cougar dollars (our school mascot) for good behavior. So, we decided to pass them out for speaking Spanish. I told my class explicitly that I was hoping to hear more Spanish being spoken. I didnt specifically tell them that would earn cougar dollars, but they picked up on it 62

pretty quickly. When I heard a student, either a NES or NSS, say a phrase or sentence in Spanish I praised them by saying, Que bien que estas hablando espanol! Its so great that youre speaking Spanish! Then I would give them a cougar dollar. The effect of the cougar dollar snowballed. I would hear students purposely looking up to see if I was listening and begin speaking Spanish. It was a little artificial, but I was happy that students who hadnt taken risks before in Spanish were beginning to make more of an effort. I was careful to balance the rewards amongst both NSS and NES. Activities to Promote Face-to-Face Interaction In small groups, I began working with compaeros on sharing materials, in an effort to get them talking with one another and in the hope that they would begin to see the value in working with a friend. This was an ongoing effort. I wondered if it was developmental; maybe they are so concerned with themselves at this age that they dont look outside themselves or to the teacher for possible solutions. During small group rotations (students were split into groups of eight, two groups worked with parent volunteers and I took the third group), I modeled practicing sight word flash cards. First, we practiced whole group: I held up the card and they chorally repeated back the word. Then, I modeled working with a partner with one of the students and explained that its important to allow time to read the word, then offer help if their partner needs it. I assigned specific spots in the room and they practiced. I observed one pair closely: He doesnt know any of the words, Fiona announced loudly. Juan looked deflated and disappointed. I reminded Fiona, Una de nuestras 63

reglas es: Soy un buen amigo. Hay que ayudar tu compaero. One of our rules is: I am a god friend. You need to help your friend. Fiona looked up at me and said, Huh, what did you say? Her partner Juan replied, Maestra said be nice. Fiona shrugged and we walked back to the table to meet with the rest of the group. For most of the pairs, this first attempt went better than expected! I noticed students focused on the cards and offering help. As I reflected on this, I realized I should ask students to share out what worked well and what we can still work on next time they work in pairs on sight words. Also, I noticed there were several students that did not know their sight words and their partners struggled with how to offer help. During a class meeting we generated a class list of how a good friend offers help. It was important for them to have some guidelines and for me to have an anchor chart I could refer back to after students read with a friend, worked on flashcards.

Que h acen los buenos amigos? What does a good friend do? Te escuchen. They listen to you. Juan (NSS) Si no intiendes algo te dicen. If you dont understand something they tell you. Jos (NSS) Comparten contigo. They share with you. Fiona (NES) Te dicen, Buen trabojo! They tell you, Good job! Anna (NES) Ponen el libro en el medio. They put the book in the middle to share. Evan (NSS) Figure 6. How do good friends offer help? Class chart

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After building a foundation of what it looks and sounds like to work positively with a friend, I decided to have students begin giving each other feedback during Interactive Writing time. My hope was that this activity would serve as a starting point for helping students move towards working together on projects that required more collaboration. During Interactive Writing time,

students came in from recess and picked up a mini whiteboard, a marker and a sock and sat on the rug. Students sat next to their compaero on the rug and I sat on a low stool in front of the group. I wrote a sight word on the board and students followed along on their boards. They held it up to show me first. Then I asked students to turn and sit knee-to-knee and eye-to-eye with their compaero. They hold up their boards and tell each other, Muy bien amigo! Good job friend. Getting them to really look at their friends work was a challenge, but they from the smiles on their faces I could tell they were super excited to get the feedback from their partner. Initially, students parroted back the compliments that I modeled, Excelente trabajo! Excellent work! Then we transitioned to giving a specific compliment. I asked students to pick out one letter that they noticed was written especially well. I noticed many students focusing on their own work more than their partners work and this specific direction forced them to take a closer look. At first, this did not go so smoothly. Lola, one of my focus students who was also defiant and difficult to deal with, often didnt do the writing I had modeled. Her compaera Elena was just the opposite, always on task. Shes not doing it right! Elena informed the class. Lola had been working on an elaborate drawing of her family on the whiteboard and hadnt written any of the words we were practicing. l no lo hizo tampoco! He didnt do it either! Lola complained as she 65

pointed at James, who was drawing a smiley face on the carpet! I practiced a lot of patience during those first few weeks and took many deep breaths. The practice and patience paid off and after awhile students were able to turn kneeto-knee and eye-to-eye and give each other feedback. In order for all students to have their work seen, even if their partner was off task, I had them show their board to the person sitting in front of them and in back of them. This seemed to solve the problem of fairness, when a partner wasnt finished with their work or was drawing, they could choose another friend. I wondered if the skills they had learned in giving each other feedback during interactive writing would transfer over to other activities throughout the day.

Figure 7. Interactive Writing

Student Tally Chart: Encouraging Individual Accountability In order to encourage students to take an active role in creating friendships with their compaero, I designed an input chart to track which ways students were helping each other. I knew that they all loved being recognized for making good choices. Throughout the first few weeks of school I heaped on the praise for students that were following our class norms. For example, if many of the students were calling out answers, I would focus on the students that were

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following our class norm: Levanto la mano antes de hablar. I raise my hand before speaking. I repeated this comment many times, Me encanta como nuestro amigo Juan levant su mano antes de hablar. Que bien que esta siguiendo nuestras reglas! I love how our friend Jorge raised his hand before speaking. Its great that he is following our class norms! The reaction from Juan and other students was immediate, big smiles, raised hands with out yelling out. Of course this was not a magic bullet! They needed constant reminding. The days that I tried to plow through activities and curriculum without taking the time to praise behavior individually and specifically always backfired. My students reverted to calling out, grabbing materials, and running in the classroom (yes, often with scissors!). I realized that taking the time to point out and encourage positive behaviors was essential to holding them accountable and to preserve my mental health! In the book Responsive School Discipline (2011), the authors detail the importance of using direct positive language with students to encourage positive behaviors. By affirming the exact action, students know what is expected. If teachers are too general in their comments, such as, Its important to be friendly students will not always know what specific behaviors are expected. I modeled giving specific compliments, Me gusta como compartiste los crayones con tu amigo. I like how you shared your crayons with your friend. I decided to use a tally chart to record when students were helping each other and in what way. I included the headings: Mi compaero me ayudo a decir algo. (My friend helped me say something.), Mi compaero me ayudo con mi trabajo. (My friend helped me with my work.) and Mi compaero jugo bien con migo. (My friend played nicely with me.) Initially, I thought I would explain the 67

chart during our community meeting and model adding smiley faces to the chart for the different categories. I planned on letting students come up during the day and add smiley faces when a friend helped them. However, once we began discussing the chart, I realized that I had found a very valuable way to collect data! I was thrilled when students began sharing very detailed descriptions of the way their friend had helped them to read a word or finish a project. I realized that the discussion that came out of that first meeting was really great and I needed to document what was being said. So, I audiotaped our next community meeting. We had just finished our morning rotations, where students rotate through four different activities in groups of six students (with their compaero). I began by asking students if anyone had helped them say anything or helped them with the meaning of a word. I was pleased when one of my focus students, Fiona, who has been reluctant to use Spanish said, Ayude a Lila. I helped Lila I praised her for helping out her friend and also for speaking in Spanish and I put a smiley face next to her name. The next comment came from James, Ayudar, ayudarI helped Emilio draw a spider. There were several more comments about helping with coloring. Students had noticed what someone had drawn and wanted help to do the same thing. At the end of our meeting, Naomi said, Yo puedo ser la amiga de James porque Gretta no esta aqu y Juan tan poco. (I can be James friend today, because Gretta and Juan are both absent.) I was so pleased that she had made that connection after wed been talking about helping out friends.

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Figure 8. Student Tally Chart

End of Trimester Survey After working with my students on Cooperative Learning strategies and community building activities for six months I gave my baseline survey a second time. I was pleased with the results and feel that they reflect how my students had grown as communicators and collaborators. In the first survey half of my students didnt feel like they could learn something from their classmates and by the end of my research only four students felt they couldnt learn something from a friend. I am hopeful that all of our partner work and class meetings to discuss working with a friend influenced their decision. Im sure that part of the reason they felt they could learn something from a friend is that they felt more comfortable in our classroom community to express themselves and share ideas. Another dramatic shift was whether or not students enjoyed reading a book with a friend. At the beginning of the school year they were split 50/50, however by February all but four students stated they enjoyed reading with a 69

friend, at least sometimes. This was something that I enjoyed seeing blossom over the year. Initially, pairs of students would sit next to each other to read, but interact very little, much like in parallel play. As time passed, I noticed students trying to read chorally and pointing out pictures they liked in the text. These were all things we had practiced in our Reading groups and it was great to see them put it to practice! Students questioning skills definitely improved over time as well. There are many factors that influenced this. For NES transitioning from the silent stage to producing and understanding more Spanish had a lot to do with how often they asked questions or expressed their wonderings. I continued to push students to use more Spanish. NES rose to the occasion and the majority would try out questions, knowing that I would support them with the language. As for the NSS, they continued to ask questions and contribute to our class meetings. One dilemma that I am still struggling with is the amount of background knowledge and outside experiences that each group of students comes with. Typically, it the NES would have more connections and comments to make about new topics of study. For example, when we were studying about weather, many of my NES would tell stories about far off places they had visited that had different weather, whereas the majority of the NSS did not share similar experiences. I was pleasantly surprised that all of my students felt like they were good listeners for the final survey. I am certain that my daily mantra of, Escucho con atencion. I listen attentively had everything to do with this. Seriously, our daily conversations about working with friends in a positive way, being kind and helpful surely helped them listen more attentively. What I enjoyed most was 70

having a student come up to me unprovoked and tell me that someone had filled their bucket by helping them out or saying a kind word.
25 20 15 10 5 0 Do you learn Do you think Do you ask Do you like Do you like from your you are a good questions talking with a sharing books classmates? listener? when you are friend in class? with friends in wondering class? something?
Figure 9. Final Survey Results

Yes No Sometimes

Conclusion As I began my research I had lofty dreams of students working together as peer-to-peer mentors. I had hoped to see my students engaging in conversations about their work thoughtfully, while offering suggestions to improve their partners work. I teach Kindergarten in a Dual Immersion Language program where the goal is to help students become bilingual, biliterate and bicultural. The program I teach in is a 90:10 model (90% Spanish and 10% English) where the amount of English instruction increases by 10% each year until fourth through sixth grade in which the instruction is equally divided between English and Spanish. The main goal of my action research was to foster friendships and communication between the native Spanish speakers (NSS) and the native English speakers 71

(NES) in my class. Since the target language for Kindergarten is Spanish my students would be having these conversations in Spanish, aided by their compaero, or language partner, who would help them with any unknown words or phrases. Things didnt go entirely according to my plans. Working with four and five year olds proved to be challenging enough, without adding in the extra pressure of getting them to give each other feedback and work together on projects. But, Im nothing if not flexible, so I reworked my plan and decided it would be more appropriate to focus on the following questions: How do NSS and NES interact and communicate in my class, and how will this change as we grow together as a classroom community? Limitations This was both my first year teaching Kindergarten and the first time I taught in a Dual Language Immersion program. My inexperience with this age group led me to feel like I was taking two steps forward and three steps back, at least during the first few months of school. However, I reached out to many teachers throughout this process for guidance and suggestions. Their help proved to be invaluable! My focus quickly shifted from peer-to-peer mentoring to creating a classroom community where students felt valued and supported by their classmates. I implemented several structures to foster friendships and participation amongst my students. Some of the activities and structures worked right away and others required refining over time. One of the themes that surfaced immediately for me was equity. My focus from the beginning was to find a way to help all of my students succeed after 72

many years of watching the English learners in my class struggle academically. In those first few weeks of Kindergarten it was crystal clear to me that the inequities I struggled with as a fourth grade teacher were there long before my students started school. The NSS and NES came from distinct cultural backgrounds and many from different economic situations. At the beginning of the year, I conducted a survey to get at how students felt about working with a partner. I struggled with data collection from the start. Getting Kindergarteners to understand the questions was challenging, especially since many of them had not acquired enough Spanish to make sense of what I was after. I ended up interviewing them individually and got the information, but I regretfully didnt keep track of which student gave the information. I compiled the data into a class graph based on how they answered the questions. As I look back, it would have been helpful to show how NSS responses differed from NES. Throughout my action research I grew as an educator and gained insight into the challenges that teaching in a Dual Language Immersion program presents. The following are the key findings that had the most impact on me personally. Equity and balance are essential in a dual immersion classroom One of my big concerns at the beginning of the school year was that of being understood by the NES in my class. I only speak Spanish in front of my students and the majority of the NES started school with very limited exposure to Spanish. Much to my dismay, I ended up overcompensating to make myself comprehensible to the NES. I used dramatic hand gestures, spoke slowly, and asked NSS to translate what I was trying to communicate into English. After 73

reading the research on successful DLI programs and philosophies on language acquisition, I realized that I was going about this the wrong way. I was

inadvertently placing my NSS in the role of translators and simplifying my language, while focusing most of my attention on how my NES students were adapting to being in a full immersion class. I was frustrated, since one of my goals was to create equity in my classroom between these two diverse groups of students. In her article, Help! Theyre Using Too Much English! Cindy LaVan, a fourth grade dual immersion teacher, discusses the importance of establishing clear language expectations within the first weeks of school. She went from teaching first grade to teaching fourth grade and noticed a dramatic decrease in students speaking Spanish. LaVan found that some students may influence the language use of their peers, as in the case of one student who consistently used the L2 (Spanish), thus provoking his peers into using it more as well (2001, p.2). By having my NSS translate, I was inadvertently allowing more English into the classroom, which in turn increased the amount of English I heard students using throughout the day. Best practices in a DLI class require a teacher to strive for a balance between offering support for non-native speakers and keeping the academic level of the Spanish high. Kathryn Lindholm-Leary, a leading researcher in bilingual education, points out that optimal input has four characteristics: it is adjusted to the comprehension level of the learner, it is interesting and relevant, there is sufficient quantity, and it is challenging (2001, p. 16). During those first few months it was difficult to provide optimal input to all students in my class. My goal was equity, but during the beginning stages of language acquisition it is 74

not always possible. It was a challenge to modify what I was saying while still staying true to the full immersion model. What I now realize is that NES parents sought this program out. While I of course want all children to feel successful in my classroom, it is not reasonable to have the same expectations for all of my students, at least during the first half of the year. NES parents were well informed of the details of the program and what to expect during the first year. It is an academically rigorous program for both groups of students, but especially so for NES, at least initially. If I were able to go back in time, and really I get the chance to start again this August, I would not show preference to the NES. The majority of my NES began speaking in short phrases quite quickly and their receptive language developed much quicker than I had imagined. All thats to say, that if I hadnt modified my instruction for them specifically, would they be any worse off? I dont believe so. I think that translating played a part in allowing precedence to set; English became the language that students began conversing in informally. It was difficult to undo. Dual Language Immersion Educators must strive to increase the value of Spanish Something that came up consistently during my research into equity in DLI programs was the decrease of Spanish use by students as they reached the upper grades. Many educators have voiced their concerns about the importance of equalizing the status of Spanish in DLI. This task is especially difficult at schools like mine, which offer a traditional monolingual program in addition to DLI. The result is that there is less Spanish spoken than at a site that has adopted DLI school wide.

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This is problematic for many reasons. Since more than half of the staff is not bilingual, the common language amongst the staff is English. The majority of the announcements are given in English, all of our specialty teachers speak only English, and the full time special education support staff, are also all monolingual. We do have a bilingual school psychologist and speech therapist that we share with three other sites. In addition, the social and economic status of the NES and NSS families at my school differs greatly. The majority of the NES students come from higher income families and the majority of the NSS students come from lower income families. Delgado-Larocco conducted a study of a two-way immersion kindergarten in California and found a similar pattern. She noticed a distinct separation amongst the native English-speaking parents and native Spanishspeaking parents, and noted Because of Spanish-speaking parents' cultural status, they are placed in a subordinate role relative to English-speaking parents (1998, p. 318). She observed that English-speaking parents were more assertive and vocal about voicing their concerns. They also made up a larger percentage of school committees that were involved in decision-making. Delgado-Larocco also noticed that teachers often tailored their instruction to meet the needs of their English-speaking students(1998, p. 318). DLI teachers must be aware of the tendency to favor the needs of the NES. It easy to fall into this practice, but it sends a subtle message to all students that English is the favored language and that English speaking families have more influence in the school. My recommendation to DLI teachers is to be keenly aware of this tendency when delivering instruction. We must keep the level of Spanish academically challenging and not allow translations. 76

Schools must also make more of an effort to ensure school committees are representative of the demographics of the school. Giving all voices value would be a great place to start. I wish I knew of an easy way to increase participation in classroom activities amongst Spanish-speaking parents. When I have asked parents about this in the past, they have told me theyd love participate more but their work schedule doesnt allow it. One way to get around this is to schedule evening and weekend events that bring both groups together. Ideally, our school would exclusively offer DLI classes. However, since this is not within my power, its important for schools with two distinct programs to make every effort to equalize the value of Spanish. This can be done by consistently offering all materials bilingually, providing support services in Spanish, and reaching in out in a more meaningful way to NSS parents. Kindergarteners must be explicitly taught how to work together in a positive way Many of my failed attempts at having students work together made me realize students at this age, and Im sure older, need very clear concise instructions on how to work together. Also, even after offering specific steps of what to do, things will go wrong and its okay. There were a lot of teachable moments for us to reflect on as a class. A big one was sharing materials. Many students were not used to sharing and even if they were it wasnt something most of them did innately and willingly. What I realized was that they needed specific modeling of how to ask for something and how to respond. Also, we spent a lot of time reflecting on how things went after an activity. What went well? How can we improve? Skipping this reflection was not an option. If I tried to rush through things it backfired consistently. It was difficult to hear kids arguing over a pencil when there was a box filled with 77

pencils between them, but the conversations that came afterwards almost always resulted in both students seeing an easier way to solve the problem. DLI Programs Can Help Promote Positive Attitudes Toward Biliteracy The reality is that the percentage of people who speak Spanish in the United States has been rapidly increasing over the last twenty years. Helping these two populations both experience success in school and to see each other as a part of that success is vital given the evolving demographics of our country. For many years the goal of bilingual education was to help non-native English speakers transition as quickly as possible into an all-English curriculum. Spanish instruction was seen as a bridge to English, where the skills learned in Spanish were used to transfer over to skills learned in English. Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs, like mine, represent an important ideological shift. The goal of DLI is to educate students that are bilingual and bicultural. In doing this we have an opportunity to change the mindset of a generation. Previously, a common thought was that children should learn English and there was no emphasis on maintaining their first language. I agree that anyone living in the United States should learn English, however not at the expense of their first language. Also, it has been my experience that many of the people pushing for students to be mainstreamed into English without preserving their native language are monolingual. One of the most important benefits of both NSS and NES learning each others native language is that it brings these two diverse groups together as a community, rather than keeping them segregated. When I first started teaching, their werent any DLI programs in the schools I taught at.

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Now we have two in my current district and new DLI schools are starting every year. I am happy to see an increase in the popularity of DLI programs that value biliteracy. To become fully biliterate by the end of sixth grade our students will be able to read, write and speak in both languages. However, its important that we educate parents and the society at large about the positive impact of being bilingual. The implications of educating students to value each others language and cultures can be profound. My hope is that by being mindful and reflective as DLI teachers we can help English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students, and families, see their success as interdependent! I recall reading an article by Linda Gerena (2010), Student Attitudes Toward Biliteracy in a Dual Immersion Program. She referred to current educational practice as hegemonic, in that it leads English learners to believe that only literacy in English is valuable. Some of these messages are subtle and others are explicitly delivered by mainstream media and popular opinion. Many NSS parents with children in our DLI program are preoccupied with their childs progress in English. Some end up pulling their children out of the program because they fear they are not acquiring English quickly enough. Educating parents about the benefits of biliteracy is essential. Its also important to share with them that Latinos are one of the fastest growing populations in the country. This means we have more of a reason than ever to make sure that we can communicate with the people in our community. There has been a lot of emphasis lately in politics on the growing Latino population. Candidates are trying to find ways to reach out to them and get their vote. It seems to me that if we make an effort to ensure our children are bilingual and 79

bicultural, this would not be such an important issue. I think that if implemented properly, DLI programs can play an important role in not only equalizing the status of English and Spanish, but also serving as a way to equalize access to economic and social opportunities for second language learners. It is our responsibilities as educators to offer an equal educational experience for our students. What a gift if in the process we can help shift the socio-economic divide as well. Final Reflection The initial plan for my research was to find a way to bridge the gap between the students in my class that spoke English as a first language and those that spoke Spanish as a first language. Over the years my frustration grew as many students succeeded, while a large percentage of the English learners in my class struggled to reach grade level proficiency. I thought a way to help students succeed would be by teaching them how to become peer-to-peer mentors. It made sense to me, since my class was made up of an almost equal mix of Native English Speakers (NES) and Native Spanish Speakers (NSS). My plan was to pair NES and NSS during literacy time and teach them some valuable cooperative learning strategies. I thought this would help put a dent in the gap. My plan took a turn when I went from teaching fourth grade to teaching Kindergarten in a Dual Language Immersion Program. This was my first experience teaching another grade. I immediately readjusted my question to reflect my new group of students: What happens when native English speakers are paired with native Spanish speakers in a Dual Language Immersion Kindergarten classroom? I wanted to leave my question open to possibilities, 80

since I had no idea what to expect. Many upper grade teachers think that teaching a lower grade is easy. They are wrong! I didnt start the year with grand illusions of cutting and pasting happily all day. I knew this journey would be difficult. My Kindergarten teacher friends actually freaked me out with their stories of kids peeing their pants and crying for their mommies all day. Some of them said, Just wait until December, it gets much easier. Others told me that January was the magical month of transitions. Either way, that meant four months of craziness that I wasnt sure I was prepared for! I started the year with some preconceived notions about what would transpire. I was most concerned that the NES would feel disoriented and confused by me only speaking Spanish. I put a lot of thought and worry into how they would react and feel. I recall the Friday before school started we had a Kindergarten orientation, where parents and students came to meet their new teachers. I was nervous and hoped I wouldnt have any criers! The parents attended an informational meeting with the principal and the new Kindergarteners stayed with me. Most of them came in willingly and sat down on the carpet with wide eyes and some serious looks. I read them a story and we sang a song, all within a 20-minute period. There were a few criers and lots of blank, confused stares. The NES I had been so worried about just sat quietly and took it all in, at least I think they took it all in! The NSS on the other hand were asking me questions, Eres mala? Are you mean? was the first question from a student who would later

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become one of my biggest challenges. After that I wondered, how am I going to make myself understood, how am I going to get these kids to communicate, form friendships and learn the curriculum. At that point, I really missed fourth grade. Another assumption I made had to do with the parents of the native English speakers in my class. I knew that in contrast to most of the native Spanish-speaking parents, the majority of them were economically advantaged. I knew that we usually had a waiting list of at least 50 native English-speaking students. I also knew that these parents were highly involved in our school. I assumed that they would be demanding, entitled and narrow-minded when it came to the NSS in the program. I based these assumptions on what I had experienced at previous schools with similar populations. Im not making a blanket statement, to say that I thought all of the parents would fall into this category, but I suspected that many would. I anticipated that they would be concerned that their children were not able to comprehend the Spanish being spoken in the class. No one ever said this to me; I just thought this was most likely the case. Thankfully, I was wrong on many accounts. I feel guilty about the assumptions I had about the parents in my class. They were incredibly supportive of the program and all kids in our class. However, this did not happen overnight. The first few months were an uphill battle of trying to get control of some big behavior problems. The hard part was that the children who were presenting the most difficult behaviors were NSS. No one came out directly and said, Those kids sure behave badly but I felt defensive nonetheless. Many parents voiced their concerns both to me and to my principal about my difficult 82

class. Frankly there was a huge difference in the manners and behavior amongst the two groups. After closer examination, I realized that most of the kids who were having difficulty cooperating went to the same Head Start preschool and attended our schools extended day care program. I spoke to the other Kindergarten teachers on my team and they had a similar experience. When I reflected on this, I realized that what I suspected was true, the inequity in preschool experience and parent involvement made it difficult for many students to adjust to Kindergarten. Another assumption I made that was proven wrong had to do with the NES in my class. Much to my surprise they adapted quickly to having a teacher who only spoke Spanish. Their receptive language increased faster than I had imagined. At the beginning of the year, I was in survival mode and I asked NSS to translate into English frequently throughout the day, so the NES would not feel left out and lost. This is one of my biggest regrets. I spent so much time worrying that the NES in my class didnt understand that I ended up allowing a lot of English into the classroom. The whole point of having an immersion model for language acquisition is so children take risks and are encouraged to try out the language. By having my NSS translate, the dominant language of the class quickly became English. Ironically, the translations were typically not accurate and didnt get the point across. I realized early on that relying on translations set a precedent in my class. When a NES didnt understand what I was saying they would stare at their partner and wait for them to try to explain to them in English. This was frustrating, because it went against what I knew were best practices for a successful DLI program.

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Working on my Action Research kept me accountable and caused me to look deeper at what works in Dual Language Immersion programs. It also pushed me to ask more questions both of my self and of my colleagues. Throughout this process my methods of collecting data changed. Initially, I was convinced that the only way to conduct serious research and collect data was through surveys. When I realized giving surveys wasnt an option, I began having more impromptu conversations during circle time. The ideas and language that came out of those conversations were what really ended up driving the choices I made this year. I realized that debriefing after activities was important to help reinforce our class norms and also learn what was working for students and what needed to be changed. My main goal for the year was two-fold: to foster friendships between NES and NSS and to increase the amount of Spanish being spoken amongst students. Luckily friendships were formed between both groups of students. Unfortunately, the amount of English being spoken informally amongst my students only increased as the year went on. This was troubling to me both as an educator and someone who personally values biliteracy. For me, being biliterate has opened many doors. I have friendships I wouldnt have had otherwise and professionally it has helped me as well. I know this a hard concept to convey to five year olds, but I wanted them to be able to have a relationship with each other in Spanish, because I know this is a key element in becoming truly bilingual. All was not lost. Although students chose to speak in English informally (during free choice or art activities), they spoke Spanish during most academic 84

situations. When we had whole group discussions, students usually responded in Spanish. Another plus was when students were working on a common task during a project, they would choose to speak Spanish more often, as long as the groups had a mix of NES and NSS. I realized after the first few months of school that I had to let my frustration over the amount of Spanish being spoken go. The important part was they were learning to work together in a cooperative way. We had many class meetings about how to share with friends in play and work time. This was an ongoing battle for some of my students. It was difficult to spend so much time and effort getting my students to implement the qualities of a good friend we had come up with, and then see kids grabbing materials and pushing each other. Progress was surely made, but I am left with a list of many things I will do differently next year. First, I plan on keeping translations to an absolute minimum. This will likely mean explaining to NES parents in advance that students will not be translating into English. Im not sure what to expect, as far as my students reactions and my own. However, I feel its the perfect follow up to my research this year. I am excited to see if there will be a shift in the amount of Spanish spoken. Another issue that I am still struggling with is the stark contrast in the behavior of these two groups. I hadnt experienced this before; doing this research highlighted the differences of school readiness and opportunities of my students. They come in at different places and the dilemma lies in how to even

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the playing field, when its uneven from day one. As I look back, it seems so obvious that the inequity of access is where the problem lies. The majority of the NES in my class went to private preschools with small class sizes and a well-trained staff. Most of them also have parents who are able to spend more time with them. In contrast, the majority of the NSS in my class went to a government-funded preschool with larger class sizes and a staff that rotates frequently. The parents of these students often work long hours, requiring their children to stay at school from 7:30 am until 6:00pm. When I take into consideration these inequities its easy to understand why their classroom behavior is so different. Im not sure what the answer is or how to solve this, even on a small scale. However, I think a step in the right direction is to continue to find ways to encourage all families to be more involved in their childs education in any small or big way they can. A first step to get more families involved, is to reach out to them and ask specific questions about ways they are able to volunteer at school. I envision brainstorming ideas with the teachers at my school and creating a survey to give to parents. I am hopeful we could come up with some flexible and creative ways for parents to be more involved in our classrooms. One idea that worked for me this year came about during our project on Where Does Our Food Come From? We took the kids on mini-field trips around our community to research their product. We reached out to parents and visited some of the places they worked: a fruit stand, a restaurant, a farmers market and a flower stand. We also

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invited experts in to talk to the kids about their jobs in food production, a gardener came to talk to the class about where honey comes from and harvesting vegetables. This was a great opportunity for parents that could not typically come in to volunteer to be a part of our classroom community. I imagine that if we came to together as a staff we could generate many other opportunities. I know the reality for some families is that they cant be any more involved than they already are, but I know that if we reach out to families in a meaningful way, we would find that some just need a supportive liaison between home and school. I wish I knew exactly what that would look like right know. This is definitely something that will stay with me. I want to find a way to bring families that need more support and families that have found a way to make it work together in a positive, hopefully reciprocal way. Sources Alim, H. S. "Critical Language Awareness in the United States: Revisiting Issues and Revising Pedagogies in a Resegregated Society." Educational Researcher 34.7 (2005): 24-31. Print. Cobb, R. Brian, Diego Vega, and Cindy Kronauge. 2005. Effects of an Elementary Dual Language Immersion School Program on Junior High Achievement. Middle Grades Research Journal (1): 2748. Delgado-Larocco, E. L. (1998). Classroom processes in a two-way immersion Kindergarten classroom. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis. DeVillar, R. A., Faltis, C., & Cummins, J. (1994). Cooperative learning in the culturally diverse classroom. In Cultural diversity in schools: From rhetoric to 87

practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Effective literacy and English language instruction for English learners in the elementary grades. (2007, December). What Works Clearinghouse. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/pdf/practice_guides/20074011.pdf Faulkner, D. & Miell, D. (1993). Setting into school: The importance of early friendships for the development of childrens social understanding and communicative competence. International Journal of Early Years Education, 1, 23-45. Flynn, K., & Hill, J. (2005, December). Policy brief: English language learners: A growing population. Policy Brief English Language Learners: A Growing Population. Retrieved from http://www.mcrel.org/topics/products/257/ Fry, R. (2008, June 26). The role of schools in the English language learner achievement gap. Pew Hispanic Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2008/06/26/the-role-of-schools-in-theenglish-language-learner-achievement-gap/ Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Mathes, P. G., & Simmons, D. C. (1997). Peer-assisted learning strategies: Making classrooms more responsive to diversity. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 174-206. doi: 10.3102/00028312034001174 Gerena, L. (2010). Student attitudes toward biliteracy in a dual immersion program. The Reading Matrix, 10(1), 55-78. Retrieved from http://www.readingmatrix.com/journal.html Hemphill, F. C., & Vanneman, A. (2011, June). NAEP studies - achievement gaps: How Hispanic and White students in public schools perform in Mathematics and Reading on NAEP. NAEP Studies - Achievement Gaps: 88

How Hispanic and White Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on NAEP. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2011459.asp Ho, D. E. (2005). Why do teachers ask the questions they ask? RELC Journal, 36(3), 297-310. doi: 10.1177/0033688205060052 Horvath, K. (n.d.). Effects of peer tutoring on student achievement (Unpublished master's thesis). Retrieved from http://www.cehs.ohio.edu/gfx/media/pdf/Horvath.pdf Jackel, M. (2008, June 5). Wisdom of the (multi) ages: Students learn by teaching. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/multiage-classroomlooping-peer-mentoring Johnson, D. W. (1984). Circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. LaVan, C. (2001). Help! Theyre using too much English! The problem of L1 vs. L2 in the immersion classroom. The bridge: ACIE Newsletter, February 2001. Krashen, S. D. (1982). Introduction: The relationship of theory to practice. In Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Lindholm-Leary, K. J. (2005, March). Guiding principles for dual language education. Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/twi/guidingprinciples.htm Lindholm-Leary, K. (2007, May). Top ten research findings on minority language learners in two-way immersion programs. The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA): Articulation of Language Instruction. Retrieved from

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http://www.carla.umn.edu/immersion/acie/vol10/may2007_researchm inority.html Littleton, K., Miell, D., & Faulkner, D. (2004). Developing the capacity to collaborate. In Learning to collaborate, collaborating to learn (pp. 95-109). New York, NY: Nova Science. Schoolwide Programs. (2004, July 2). - Title I (CA Dept of Education). Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/sw/rt/ Valds, G. 1997. "Dual-Language Immersion Programs: A Cautionary Note concerning the Education of Language-Minority Students." Harvard Educational Review. v67 n3 p391-429 Wilson, D. M. (2011, March/April). Dual language programs on the rise. Harvard Education Letter, 27, 1-2. Wood, C., & Freeman-Loftis, B. (2011). Positive adult language. In Responsive school discipline: Essentials for elementary school leaders. Turners Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children.

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