Using Dual-Language Books to Preserve Language & Culture in Alaska Native Communities

“Children learn their language on their mother’s lap.” This conventional wisdom from a Cup’ik Elder describes the approach used by many Alaska Native peoples to promote native language acquisition. Presumably, the children learn by listening to stories and tales from a trusted parent or caregiver. However, what happens when the caregiver does not speak the native language? This chapter describes an effort to address this issue while also promoting better educational outcomes by providing access to diverse dual-language books in Alaska Native languages through the use of a digital children’s library. Potential benefits from these efforts include an increase in resources for schools, a revitalization of Indigenous languages, and an increase in access, with hopes that future work will show evidence that using these dual-language books encourage greater parent support and involvement in education, support second language acquisition, and promote a strong sense of identity. Implications and future efforts follow.Ye

Preservice Teachers’ Encounters with Dual Language Picturebooks

Our action research explored the potentialities of dual language picturebooks related to language inquiries with preservice teachers. For six weeks, preservice teachers browsed picturebooks featuring English and another language, starting with a familiar language and moving to unfamiliar languages. After browsing, we shared our responses to the books, made connections across books, and engaged in experiences to think about language. Initial comments indicated that readers were not familiar with dual language picturebooks and connected to their own complex personal relationships with language. The preservice teachers engaged in inquiries around audience and book design, including issues such as Indigenous books signalling a resistance to prioritising English as a stance that differed from Spanish-English books where the design signalled a higher status to English. In this article, we discuss our findings using Ruiz’s (1984) language-as-resource framework, showing how the preservice teachers used dual language picturebooks to develop their critical awareness of language-as-resourc

Selecting high quality dual language texts for young children in multicultural contexts: A uae case

© 2019, Western Australian Institute for Educational Research Inc.. All rights reserved. Bilingual literature for children is valuable in encouraging literacy in second language learners. Stories can enhance vocabulary and language abilities, learning encounters, subject content, social aptitude, and other skills in the early reader through text as well as illustrations. This paper explores issues in selecting quality dual language picture books with the aim of deepening understanding of what is meant by ‘quality’ dual language books, in terms of text quality, specifically translation accuracy, cultural relevance and book information. Four English/Arabic bilingual children books were evaluated by three raters from different backgrounds. A mixed method approach was followed to combine qualitative evaluations of these books with quantitative scores based on inter-rater reliability. Findings highlight the importance of interplay between picture and verbal text in picture books, urging educators to give more explicit attention to illustrations in any evaluation of text quality in picture books

Examining the text quality of English/Arabic dual language children’s picture books

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Children’s literature plays an essential role in the development of children’s literacy skills. Dual language learners can particularly benefit from the use of picture books to facilitate comprehension, formulaic language acquisition, and vocabulary acquisition. This paper explores the availability and quality of English/Arabic dual language books in an early years setting in the United Arab Emirates. It is a qualitative study that examines the text quality of 24 English/Arabic dual language picture books available within the setting itself and the affiliated university library. The researchers’ combined experiences with literacy in the context of young children, including experience in choosing appropriate texts for young children, as well as their ontological perspectives as researchers, guide this personal appreciation. The study found issues with availability of book information, translation accuracy, and cultural relevance. In order to have a high quality bilingual picture book, it is crucial that the translation is accurate and reviewed very carefully by experienced authors/editors in both languages to avoid any errors. The major categories generated from this study can serve as a checklist to guide researchers in future studies, educators in various settings and parents in the community, in choosing appropriate dual language books

Using dual language picturebooks with children in an after school club

Dual language picturebooks use more than one language in the text of the book. There is increasing literature showing the potential of such books to support language learning, and recent studies explore their use in classrooms to raise awareness of multilingualism. This article describes the ways in which dual language picturebooks were used in an after school club of 8-11 year olds in a Latinx neighbourhood in Arizona. Over a six week period an inquiry cycle was used as a curricular framework for exploring dual language picturebooks featuring both familiar and unfamiliar languages for the children. Findings showed the importance of providing time for connection with the books, followed by demonstrations or readings  of the picturebooks, and the importance of invitations for the children to explore ideas from the picturebooks. The article provides guidelines for using dual language picturebooks in classrooms, and ends with a provocation suggesting that bilingual picturebooks are not necessarily only for bilingual children

Using dual language picturebooks with children in an after school club

Dual language picturebooks use more than one language in the text of the book. There is increasing literature showing the potential of such books to support language learning, and recent studies explore their use in classrooms to raise awareness of multilingualism. This article describes the ways in which dual language picturebooks were used in an after school club of 8-11 year olds in a Latinx neighbourhood in Arizona. Over a six week period an inquiry cycle was used as a curricular framework for exploring dual language picturebooks featuring both familiar and unfamiliar languages for the children. Findings showed the importance of providing time for connection with the books, followed by demonstrations or readings  of the picturebooks, and the importance of invitations for the children to explore ideas from the picturebooks. The article provides guidelines for using dual language picturebooks in classrooms, and ends with a provocation suggesting that bilingual picturebooks are not necessarily only for bilingual children

BILINGUALISM AND THE MAINTENANCE OF THE MOTHER TONGUE IN MULTILINGUAL SINGAPORE

Two issues have been identified that act against the development of a strong bilingual and biliteracy proficiency among pupils in Singapore schools: 1. English is perceived as having a much higher status than the Mother Tongue (MT) and the language in which success is primarily measured given its primacy as the language of instruction in all subjects except the MT. Consequently, children’s use of their MT has been observed to decline in favour of English; 2. English and the MT are taught in effect as a form of double monolingualism, in watertight compartments, with no opportunity for bilingual learning or reflection in class on the relationship between the two languages. This artificially blocks pupils’ access to the other language and prevents the development of a more robust bilingual. In this presentation, I will describe the ways in which the MT is maintained in Singapore, and in particular focus on the research that has recently been completed on the use of dual language books to rejuvenate the interest and ability to read in Malay in bilingual Malay children

Probing the Promise of Dual-Language Books

Because dual-language books (DLBs) are written entirely in two languages, they have the potential to help readers develop multilingual literacy skills while acting as cultural and/or linguistic windows and mirrors. However, the ways in which publishers choose words when translating, format languages, and represent cultures have implications for readers in terms of identity, readability, and language learning. This content analysis of 69 U.S. Spanish–English dual-language picturebooks published from 2013–2016 investigated trends in DLBs’ cultural, linguistic, formatting, and readability factors. It also determined these trends’ relationships with publisher types, original publication language, and author and character ethnicity. Findings include that publishers specializing in multilingual or Latinx literature tend to create more DLBs featuring Latinx characters and with more diverse portrayals than in the past. However, regardless of publisher type, original language, or author/character ethnicity, DLBs’ formatting generally privileges English. The implicit marginalization of Spanish and the need to seek out smaller, lesser-known publishers for diverse Latinx portrayals can have implications for readers’ identity and biliteracy development

Digital Picture Books for Young Dual Language Learners: Effects of Reading in the Second Language

Reading picture books in the first language (L1) before rereading them in the second language (L2) is assumed to be beneficial for young dual language learners (DLLs). This pilot study examined how sharing digital picture books in L1 or L2 at home before reading them in L2 in kindergarten affected L2 book-specific vocabulary learning and story comprehension. Participants were 14 three- and four-year-old children who spoke Polish at home and learned Norwegian as their second language. Even when DLLs were less advanced in L2, reading first in L1 was not advantageous for L2 vocabulary learning. Characteristics of caregiver–child interactions during the reading of digital picture books in L2 may explain why home reading in L2 was more beneficial than reading in L1 for less proficient young L2 learners.publishedVersio

Preschool teachers' simultaneous use of L1 and L2 with dual language learners to bridge L1 to connect with L2: Evidence from Ghana

This study examined the degree to which preschool teachers' simultaneous use of L1 and L2 pedagogical practices support Akan (L1) and English (L2) dual language learners’ linguistic development at the kindergarten level in Ghana. Using a pre-test-posttest experimental design, the study investigated teachers’ responsive practices that facilitate the connection from L1 to L2. The experimental group taught by teachers with linguistic responsive practices, such as reading books concurrently in L1 and L2 to children, reading poems to expose children to sounds of L1 and L2, utilising dual language learners' L1 language as resources in the learning process and encouraging higher level thinking in both L1 and L2, outperformed the control group taught with only L2 with no linguistic responsive practices. There was a significant difference observed in the scores for the experimental group (M= 80.10, SD= 5.753) and the control group (M= 56.24, SD= 8.304) for all the five measurement constructs at t(198)=23.62 ,p<0.001. This supported the evidence that when L1 and L2 are simultaneously designed for dual language learners at the preschool level, it facilitates the bridging of L1 to connect with L2