Abstract
In an increasingly globalized world, emergent bilingual learners need the opportunity to engage in effective and just education. The mission of this chapter is two-fold: (1) to problematize monocultural/monolingual pedagogy for emergent bilingual learners and (2) to introduce biography-driven instruction (BDI) as an instructional method for powerful, culturally responsive teaching and learning within linguistically diverse classrooms. To accomplish this mission, the authors will elaborate on theoretical foundations and critical concepts and discuss biography-driven instructional practices. This chapter will address concerns: What is the role of teachers' biographies and critical reflection in their readiness to serve emergent bilingual learners? How are students' biographies conceptualized? How to nurture a bio-friendly, relational classroom ecology? How can teachers negotiate a bio-driven curriculum? How can teachers cultivate bio-driven, differentiated instructional practices?
TopIntroduction
During the last five decades, the number of CLD students that speak a language other than English at home has consistently and significantly increased. In 2019, the share of school-age children (i.e., ages 5-17) that spoke a language other than English at home was 23% (i.e., 12.1 million, or one in four children in the U.S.) (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2021). Such learners are developing bilingual skills – they understand and speak a language at home other than or in addition to English. Slightly over three-quarters are native Spanish speakers. The other quarter speaks a wide variety of languages, including Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese. In total, over 400 languages are spoken throughout the U.S. Bilingualism is one of their most significant assets for language, literacy, and conceptual learning (Woods & Hanson, 2016). Therefore, these students should be multilingually understood as emergent bilinguals (EBs) (García et al., 2008).
Along with bilingual skills, emergent bilingual learners bring bicultural competencies. This new form of cultural capital involves using cross-cultural knowledge and social skills to negotiate intercultural interactions (Grosjean, 2015; Smokowski & Bacallao, 2011). Most emergent bilingual learners are born in the U.S. and have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen (Urban Institute, 2019). The wealth of experiences, languages, and perspectives that they (and their families) bring to U.S. classrooms often remains untapped potential. Hence, a change in perspective advocates for the maximization of assets (e.g., alternative ways of knowing and conceptualizing) that emergent bilingual learners bring or may develop through academic learning and language acquisition.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Socially Just: Countering inequities in schooling and education to provide students with access and opportunity to programs and services that enhance theirs and their families and communities’ futures.
Student Biographies: Interdependent and complex students’ sociocultural, linguistic, academic, and cognitive dimensions at the heart of teaching and learning.
Culturally Responsive Education: Education recognizing and affirming the diversity that students bring with them including sociocultural identities, languages, cognitive applications, academic backgrounds, and learning differences among others.
Bicultural Capitals: Additional assets an individual develops when navigating two cultural and social interaction systems.
Inequities: Gaps or inadequate access to programs, services, and opportunities among groups of people, especially those from non-dominant, marginalized backgrounds.
Classroom Ecology: The learning context of a classroom including the physical environment with the human element of caring teacher-student relationships, high-quality differentiated instruction, and equitable access to the curriculum, learning opportunities, and resources.
Inclusion: Educational service strategy placing English learners in English-medium classrooms and providing them instructional support, including using students’ home languages. Sometimes, English learners in English-medium classrooms are taught only in English and do not receive instructional support.
Equity: Achieved when all groups of people have access to programs, services, and opportunities regardless of background.
Community of Learners: Students collaborate and engage in dialogue using their assets to maximize learning.
Bureau-Technocratic Approach: A complex organizational and top-down management approach to education that includes policymaking and practices based on dominant European American middle-class norms, accountability, high-stakes testing, and standardization.
Advocacy: Use people’s assets to create change such as understanding and removing systemic injustices in collaboration with other like-minded individuals for the well-being of culturally and linguistically diverse students and families.
Bilingual: An individual who understands and speaks two languages.