Resumen
Este estudio se realizó en dos salones de clase preescolar con niños de edades múltiples, dentro de un programa preescolar de lenguaje dual español-inglés, ofrecido en una extensa localidad urbana y lingüísticamente diversa en el sureste de los Estados Unidos. El estudio examina las experiencias tempranas de estos niños bilingües emergentes con el lenguaje académico en inglés y en español, por medio del uso de formas gramaticales para materializar sus propósitos en una actividad de Show-and-Tell (presentación oral a la clase de un objeto especial para el niño). El análisis de las características del lenguaje académico utilizado en estas presentaciones se basó en los principios de la lingüística sistémico-funcional. Los hallazgos muestran que las presentaciones de los niños representan tres propósitos diferentes: Describir, explicar y recontar. Aunque los niños tuvieron oportunidades de participar en la actividad de Show-and-Tell a través del idioma inglés o del español, la mayoría de sus presentaciones fueron en inglés. El lenguaje oral de los niños cumplió funciones específicas relacionadas con las diversas intenciones de la actividad y con su complejidad lingüística. Los hallazgos revelan implicaciones importantes de los beneficios de Show-and-Tell y maneras en las que esta actividad apoya la comprensión y el envolvimiento de los niños con el discurso escolar.
Palabras clave: Educación de lenguaje dual, preescolar, bilingüe emergente, lingüística sistémico-funcional, lenguaje académico
Abstract
The study was situated in two multi-age, pre-kindergarten classrooms within a Spanish- English dual-language preschool program in a linguistically diverse, large urban center in the southeastern United States. Emergent bilingual preschoolers’ early experiences with academic language in English and Spanish are explored through children’s use of particular grammatical forms that carried out their intended purposes in Show-and-Tell activity. We drew on functional linguistics to analyze the academic language features in children’s presentations. Findings suggest that children’s presentations represented three distinct purposes: to describe, to explain, and to recount. While children had the opportunity to engage in the activity through English and/or Spanish, most of their presentations were performed in English. Children’s talk served specific functions associated with their 1 Assistant Professor of TESOL/Bilingual Education at Florida Atlantic University. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Miami in Language and Literacy Learning in Multilingual Settings, with a focus on early childhood bilingualism. Her research focuses primarily on the development of emergent bilingualism and biliteracy in young Spanish-speaking children, and the instructional practices supporting children’s academic discourse development in dual language contexts. She frames her research from sociocultural and systemic functional linguistic perspectives. Her research has been published in Language and Education, Bilingual Research Journal, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, and Peabody Journal of Education. 2 Associate Professor of Bilingualism and Biliteracy at The Ohio State University. She studies emergent bilingualism and biliteracy in young Latino children, including instructional practices and educational policies that support their dual language, biliteracy, and academic development. Her research has been published in the Journal of Literacy Research, Bilingual Research Journal, Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, International Multilingual Research Journal, Language and Education, Educational Policy, and a number of edited volumes. She is co-editor, with Dr. Eurydice Bauer, of Early Biliteracy Development: Exploring Young Learners’ Use of their Linguistic Resources (2012, Routledge).
Keywords: Dual language education, Preschool, Emergent bilingual, Systemic functional linguistics, Academic language