“If you don’t find a friend in here, it's gonna be hard for you”: Structuring bilingual peer support for language learning in urban high schools

Carhill‐Poza, Avary

doi:10.1016/j.linged.2016.09.001

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…By presenting conversational excerpts, this research provides a glimpse into what it means to students to be in an officially monolingual classroom in which students speak several languages; furthermore, these excerpts illustrate the types of peer socialization that take place. The findings corroborate those of earlier studies of how peer interaction affords learning opportunities and the development of multilingual identities and of the institutional mechanisms that can constrain peer interactions (Carhill‐Poza, ; Cekaite & Björk‐Willén, ; Martin‐Beltrán, ; Talmy, , ). As multilingual learners of English, the focal students learned to experiment with Spanish, drawing on their knowledge of its grammar and pronunciation and using it to their advantage.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…The past decade has seen increased scholarly interest in interaction as a learning tool and a means of analyzing learner identities in multilingual classrooms (Cekaite & Björk‐Willén, ; Kibler, ; Martin‐Beltrán, ; Talmy, ). Much attention has been given to the role of peer interaction in learners’ acquisition of target academic and social languages in bilingual, second‐ and dual‐language learning contexts (Carhill‐Poza, ; Donato, ; Volk & Angelova, ). Considerably less research has examined learners’ acquisition of nontarget languages and language varieties in officially monolingual teaching and learning contexts, such as English as a second language (ESL) classrooms.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Multilingual Interactions and Learning in High School ESL Classrooms

Dávila

2019

TESOL Quarterly

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This article explores how peer and teacher–student interactions in linguistically diverse high school English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms produce changes in learners’ uptake of different languages and cultures. Data presented are from a 2‐year ethnography of communication focusing on adolescent multilingual English learners’ language use in three ESL classrooms in the United States. The study participants’ primary languages were French, Lingala, and Tshiluba, and the dominant language spoken by the students in class was Spanish. The data include recordings of peer group classroom interactions, individual and focus group interviews, and field notes from classroom observations. Analyzed through an ecology of language framework (van Lier, 2004) and heteroglossic perspectives on language learning and use (Bakhtin, 1981), the findings reveal a gradual ideological and pragmatic shift among the focal students from resenting the predominant use of Spanish by their teachers and peers during Year 1 of the study to using Spanish words and phrases during Year 2 for two distinct purposes: peer socialization and learning English. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of attending to students’ language experiences to harness metacognitive thinking, critical multilingual language awareness, and linguistic creativity.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

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confidence: 99%

Multilingual Interactions and Learning in High School ESL Classrooms

Dávila

2019

TESOL Quarterly

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“…From a policy perspective, the current focus on how much time English learners spend in a particular type of classroom does not account for how language is used (Leung, 2005). Overwhelming evidence has shown that although immigrant youth value and prioritize learning English, many lack the opportunity to engage in the kinds of interactions with peers, teachers, and texts that facilitate the high levels of academic language learning needed (Carhill-Poza, 2016;Harklau, 1994;Valdés, 2001). In teacher-centered classrooms where discourse structures and routinized activities enforced instructional scripts (Gutiérrez, 1992), findings show that affordances for using academic language productively were scarce, and such opportunities were often limited in the types of knowledge that were sanctioned.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silenced Partners: Language Learning and the Role of Bilingual Peers in High School

Carhill‐Poza

2018

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background In schools, a major obstacle to drawing on emergent bilingual students’ knowledge and skills in their first language is a widespread lack of awareness about language use among adolescent English learners, including how peer talk can connect knowledge and abilities in both languages to school-based learning. Although research often acknowledges the importance of engaging students’ home language and culture to bridge to academic literacies in English, few have explicitly examined bilingual peer talk as a resource for language learning during adolescence. Purpose This study explores how emergent bilinguals engaged multiple linguistic codes to scaffold their own academic language development with peer support. Research Design Ethnography and discourse analysis of student interactions were used to contextualize and analyze the academic language use of four Spanish-speaking adolescent immigrant students, taking into account the affordances of classroom discourse structures and peer talk. Conclusions The study describes the linguistic resources available to Spanish-speaking adolescent immigrant students through their peers and shows that emergent bilingual youth used academic language in both Spanish and English most frequently—and in more elaborated interactions—while off-task or in less supervised spaces. Classroom discourse structures often limited student participation, particularly when students used nonstandard linguistic codes.

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“…In multilingual classrooms, scholarly interest in interaction as a learning aid and a technique for examining learner identities has grown over the last decade. In bilingual, second-, and dual-language learning contexts, the role of group work in learners' acquisition of target academic and social languages has received a lot of attention [11,12]. Thus, language is probably the most important tool that teachers have to provide an inclusive and supportive learning environment.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing plurilinguistic abilities through group work in an english first additional language context: teachers’ perspectives

Zano

Mbirimi-Hungwe

2023

Eureka: SH

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Language is an ever-developing and ever-changing phenomenon, thus ways to teach a language also develop and undergo changes in the progress of time. To keep up with these developments, translanguaging was used in this study. Translanguaging is the most recent all-encompassing method in language planning and evaluation that is needed to replace past linguistic practices that viewed languages as separate entities in a globalised world. The study aims to determine why English first additional language teachers use group work in the Further Education and Training phase. For this qualitative study, only 8 English First Additional Language teachers teaching in the Further Education and Training phase were selected as participants in individual interviews. These participants were stationed at 4 high schools in South Africa. The results indicate that as the learners translanguage as they work in groups, they appreciate each other’s linguistic background. Communicative language teaching is one of the most effective methods of teaching and learning a second language because it provides opportunities for learners to practice and improve their communicative competence in pedagogic and real-life situations. Learners are largely content with linguistic concepts in a multilingual setting that dwells on the known to the unknown. Working in groups may make the learners improve their understanding of content and also language proficiency as the subject under discussion will be tackled using different languages apart from English First Additional Language. Besides, language and culture are interconnected; therefore, keeping up with one’s home language(s) allows for greater participation in the home culture and builds stronger ties between different languages.

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“If you don’t find a friend in here, it's gonna be hard for you”: Structuring bilingual peer support for language learning in urban high schools

Cited by 12 publications

References 29 publications

Multilingual Interactions and Learning in High School ESL Classrooms

Multilingual Interactions and Learning in High School ESL Classrooms

Silenced Partners: Language Learning and the Role of Bilingual Peers in High School

Enhancing plurilinguistic abilities through group work in an english first additional language context: teachers’ perspectives

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