Week 4: Assignment 2

The video that I watched was a day in the life of a kinderegarten student in a bilingual program. What I thought was interesting about this was that they did not stay in the classroom for the entirety of the day. They start the day together in their "home room". They started the day with spanish. They counted and sang a song in Spanish. After that, they were then split up into two groups, one group's home language wasEenglish, and one was Spanish. Each group had a teacher that spoke their native language. Since they are in kindergarten, they are still learning the basics of their home language, on top of another language so it was interesting to see the teaching strategies used. The thresholds theory mentioned in chapter 8 suggests that bilingual students who are at an age appropriate level in both languages have a cognitive advantage over monolinguals. I thought it was so interesting to learn about this theory then watch the video because it shows students at such a young age going through this. After the students come back from being split up, they were paired up with their "bilingual buddies" for the remainder of the day to have that support system of the other langauge. I think this is a great idea becaise for the remainder of the day both Spanish and English are being taught, so if help is needed, they were able to give eachother peer support. Ont thing I did notice when watching the video was that, when a teacher would say something in one language, sometimes in the background I could hear a student say either answer to make a statement in the opposite language. I found this very interesting.

References:

(Baker & Wright, 2017, pp. 131–155)

Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2017). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism (6th Edition, pp. 131–155). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

WWU Alumni Association. (2009). A Day in a Dual Language Kindergarten - Part 1 [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8KMYmiVjw

WWU Alumni Association. (2009). A Day in a Dual Language Kindergarten - Part 2. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzGNjk8clY

WWA Alumni Association. (2009). A Day in a Dual Language Kindergarten - Part 1 [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b8KMYmiVjw