Teacher Questioning to Promote Extended Language Use for Preschool Emergent Bilinguals

Abstract

Purpose: Emergent bilinguals (EBs) from Spanish-speaking households are a sizable and quickly growing segment of the preschool population in the United States. However, there is limited research on the provision of opportunities for EBs to engage in language-rich classroom discussion, particularly in English-dominant contexts where most EBs attend preschool. This study focused on teacher and Spanish–English EBs' language interactions in an English-dominant preschool program to better understand whether and, if so, how teachers' use of questioning strategies provided extended oral language use opportunities for Spanish-speaking EBs in their classrooms. Method: We adopted a sequential–explanatory mixed-methods design to examine audio recordings from whole-group instruction across seven preschool classrooms and investigate how EBs responded to teachers' conversationally responsive questioning strategies, with a specific focus on how they used Spanish as they composed extended responses. Researchers coded 31 audio recordings from 12 EB students to identify teachers' ( n = 7) use of questioning strategies (closed-response, open-response, and single-word-response), as well as students' responses to questions (one-word-response or extended response) and Spanish use. Results: Teachers' use of closed-response and single-word-response questions emerged as most important in supporting Spanish–English EBs' extended language use during whole-group instruction. Furthermore, the majority of student responses that included Spanish utterances were extended responses, underscoring the value of Spanish use for students to develop extended responses. Conclusion: Findings suggest that equitable opportunities to enter into classroom dialogue for EBs might require more explicitly scaffolded questioning strategies and might necessitate the purposeful and intentional use of Spanish.