"Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish among Students, Teachers, and Parents"

Event: 14th Annual Center for Hearing Research (CHR) Symposium
Theme: Variation from Hearing to Language
Location: Medical Education Building, UCI
Date: June 1, 2019

Presentation Title: Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish among Students, Teachers, and Parents
Presenters: Yenda Prado, Elizabeth Peña

Abstract

Research has shown that bilinguals typically privilege majority-labeled over heritage language. Privileging is related to identity, proficiency, language use, and cross-cultural attitudes toward language. It is not clear why privileging occurs in environments deemed supportive of dual-language cultivation. This mixed-methods research explores language privileging by investigating the moves students, teachers, and parents make in their concerned cultivation of Spanish within a dual-language immersion school.

Research questions:

1. In what contexts, and with whom, is Spanish used?
2. In what ways do teachers cultivate students’ Spanish use at school?
3. In what ways do parents cultivate students’ Spanish use at home? 
4. How do students perceive their Spanish use in School and at home?

​Findings suggest that students’ Spanish use is (a) cultivated across culturally specified spaces, speech, and contexts; (b) by incorporating multiple concurrent instructional strategies, (c) with opportunities for full language immersion, and (4) by developing comfort, support, and engagement. 

Yenda Prado (photo by Phillip Tran)