Introduction
Context
When people ask me what I do, I often want to say that I spend a great deal of my time playing charades with 5 year olds. While this isn’t exactly true, what I do does require me to make a lot of gestures, act out scenarios, and point out specific things. No, I am not a mime, I teach kindergarten in a Dual Language Immersion program. The model that the school has adopted has kindergarteners follow a 90/10 ratio of Spanish to English instruction time. This means that all instruction in the classroom is given in Spanish as the students have their “special classes” in English (yoga, music, gardening, and physical education). The class is comprised of half native-English speakers and half native-Spanish speakers. There are a number of students who are not native-Spanish speakers but attended Spanish preschools. This additional experience of attending preschools where the Spanish language was spoken means that these students are able to understand a great deal of Spanish and are beginning to produce writing in the Spanish language.
Needs Assessment
In the classroom it is apparent that students understand most of the discourse as evidenced by their following directions and/or responding appropriately to questions, even if their responses are at times in English. While they do understand a great deal of the Spanish language, they do not generally produce much language in Spanish. The class has 7 native Spanish speakers and 17 native English speakers. The native Spanish speakers are able speak the language but do not always do so in an academic manner. Conversely, the native English speakers mostly speak in English but do use Spanish words when they know them.
When students in this class are instructed in the subject of mathematics, the teachers adhere to the philosophy of Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). According to this philosophy, the students are taught to solve problems using different strategies. CGI is student guided and focuses on the thought processes of the child. Each child is asked to verbalize the steps that have been used to solve the problem. This verbalization process requires a great deal of language production and many of the students do not have the language skills necessary to be proficient. The combination of the math philosophy and the Dual Language Immersion model create an interesting dynamic. The students need to produce language in math to explain their thinking but are unable to produce the language not because of a lack of understanding, but because they are at an early stage of language acquisition.
Working with small groups of students, ten total, they were asked to solve a math problem then explain how they solved it. They were instructed to only speak in Spanish as they gave their explanations. The majority of the students were only able to produce 5 or fewer words. These 5 words consisted mainly of the words in the number sentence and not original language. When prompted to add more, many of the students shrugged and said, “no”. Four students were able to go into more detail and produce between 7 and 12 words. The following is a graph of how many Spanish words each of these 10 students produced.
This graph depicts the number of Spanish words that each child could produce during their explanation of what they did to solve the math problem. Some students did use English during their explanations but only the Spanish words produced were counted and included in this graph. Students are able to explain their rationale when solving math problems, but in a classroom where only Spanish is to be spoken I must work to have them be able to both solve the math problem and explain themselves in Spanish.
Research Question
In what ways will a mediated approach to problem solving in math affect language production in a dual language immersion kindergarten classroom where only Spanish is spoken?
1. How will students use the Spanish language to explain their solutions to math problems?
2. What happens when students are asked to collaborate and share their explanations to find solutions?
3. How does their ability to explain their thinking in Spanish apply to other subjects?
When people ask me what I do, I often want to say that I spend a great deal of my time playing charades with 5 year olds. While this isn’t exactly true, what I do does require me to make a lot of gestures, act out scenarios, and point out specific things. No, I am not a mime, I teach kindergarten in a Dual Language Immersion program. The model that the school has adopted has kindergarteners follow a 90/10 ratio of Spanish to English instruction time. This means that all instruction in the classroom is given in Spanish as the students have their “special classes” in English (yoga, music, gardening, and physical education). The class is comprised of half native-English speakers and half native-Spanish speakers. There are a number of students who are not native-Spanish speakers but attended Spanish preschools. This additional experience of attending preschools where the Spanish language was spoken means that these students are able to understand a great deal of Spanish and are beginning to produce writing in the Spanish language.
Needs Assessment
In the classroom it is apparent that students understand most of the discourse as evidenced by their following directions and/or responding appropriately to questions, even if their responses are at times in English. While they do understand a great deal of the Spanish language, they do not generally produce much language in Spanish. The class has 7 native Spanish speakers and 17 native English speakers. The native Spanish speakers are able speak the language but do not always do so in an academic manner. Conversely, the native English speakers mostly speak in English but do use Spanish words when they know them.
When students in this class are instructed in the subject of mathematics, the teachers adhere to the philosophy of Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). According to this philosophy, the students are taught to solve problems using different strategies. CGI is student guided and focuses on the thought processes of the child. Each child is asked to verbalize the steps that have been used to solve the problem. This verbalization process requires a great deal of language production and many of the students do not have the language skills necessary to be proficient. The combination of the math philosophy and the Dual Language Immersion model create an interesting dynamic. The students need to produce language in math to explain their thinking but are unable to produce the language not because of a lack of understanding, but because they are at an early stage of language acquisition.
Working with small groups of students, ten total, they were asked to solve a math problem then explain how they solved it. They were instructed to only speak in Spanish as they gave their explanations. The majority of the students were only able to produce 5 or fewer words. These 5 words consisted mainly of the words in the number sentence and not original language. When prompted to add more, many of the students shrugged and said, “no”. Four students were able to go into more detail and produce between 7 and 12 words. The following is a graph of how many Spanish words each of these 10 students produced.
This graph depicts the number of Spanish words that each child could produce during their explanation of what they did to solve the math problem. Some students did use English during their explanations but only the Spanish words produced were counted and included in this graph. Students are able to explain their rationale when solving math problems, but in a classroom where only Spanish is to be spoken I must work to have them be able to both solve the math problem and explain themselves in Spanish.
Research Question
In what ways will a mediated approach to problem solving in math affect language production in a dual language immersion kindergarten classroom where only Spanish is spoken?
1. How will students use the Spanish language to explain their solutions to math problems?
2. What happens when students are asked to collaborate and share their explanations to find solutions?
3. How does their ability to explain their thinking in Spanish apply to other subjects?