Two languages in the air: a cross-cultural comparison of preschool teachers’ reflections on their flexible bilingual practices

Abstract

Bilingual preschool education is under researched compared with bilingual school education. There is also a lack of research on bilingual preschool teachers' agency and how they negotiate between two languages in the classroom. We examined the language practices of five bilingual preschool teachers working within three different socio-linguistic settings, in Finland (Finnish-Swedish and Russian-Finnish contexts), and Israel (an Arabic-Hebrew context) and interviewed the teachers about their use of languages in the classroom. We found that in each context the teachers reported modifications to an initial bilingual education model over time: from a strict separation of languages, to flexible bilingual practices. A thematic analysis of the contents of the teacher reflections as they emerged through interviews revealed five shared categories:(a) the flexible use of two languages; (b) responsible code-switching; (c) contextual and linguistic supports; (d) adjustments for individual children; and (e) role-modelling.Despite the different settings and sociolinguistic conditions, the similarities in teachers' practices and the rationale they gave for applying flexible bilingual practices were significant. The shared practices across contexts may have important implications for bilingual education.Keywords: bilingual preschool education; flexible bilingual practices; teacher agency; early childhood bilingualism; language attitudes; code-switching IntroductionThe aim of this study was to compare five teachers' reflections on their own language practices and the challenges they faced in implementing bilingual language education within three contexts of preschool education in Finland (Finnish-Swedish and RussianFinnish contexts), and Israel (an Arabic-Hebrew context). Ricento and Hornberger (1996) as well as Menken and García (2010) place teachers at the very heart of language policy-making. However, little research attention has been paid to providing bilingual teachers with any deeper understanding of their own agency and their critical role in negotiating, constructing and reconstructing classroom language practices. This is especially true for the context of preschool education and young children's essential developmental and social needs.As Heller (2007) has pointed out, language practices are inseparable from beliefs about languages and attitudes towards them in the surrounding society. For this reason we also considered it important to examine how the teachers' reflections were embedded in the specific educational and socio-political context in which they expressed them, and which possibly had an impact on their language practices. The comparative contexts chosen for this study, Finland and Israel, are both bilingual countries, where Finnish and Swedish, and Hebrew and Arabic, respectively, are official languages. However, for socio-political and historical reasons, the minority languages Swedish and Arabic are differently presented in the linguistic landscape of these countries and also differ considerably in terms ...

A Close Look at Bilingualism Research in Asia

“…Using interviews, they could do an indepth exploration towards the phenomena being observed as well as conduct more qualitative analysis to provide an adequate explanation of the findings. Observation was also exploited to bring both linguistic and non linguistic factors together (Li and Ren, 2013;Dixon et al, 2012;Zhao et al, 2007;Birnie-Smith, 2016;Cahyani et al, 2016;Chena et al, 2015;Schwartz and Asli, 2014;Palviainen et al, 2016). Similarly, observation in language research is proven to be a reliable data collection as the researchers can capture a more authentic language use.…”

“…This is especially true for Israel, where there is a growing interest in this field of research. Henceforth, I am going to briefly outline eight previous works by Palviainen, Protassova, Mård-Miettinen, and Schwartz (2016), Schwartz and Asli (2014), Schwartz, Kahn-Horwitz, and Share (2014), Schwartz, Moin, and Leikin (2011), and Schwartz and Gorbatt (2016). These works studied bilingual preschool language development in bilingual education.…”

“…Such works include Cheng's (2012) who examined the influence of second language immersion, Wang (2015) who put his concern on English immersion in non English speaking country, Chena et al (2015) who brought the issue of bidialectism in China's education context, Schwartz and Asli (2014) who investigated bilingual language teaching for children, and Palviainen et al (2016) who examined a model in bilingual education. Their observations were very significant in evaluating and improving the quality of bilingual education.…”

“…He used a language-focused listening activity to conduct the study and concluded that the observed children had constructed their social relationship and ethnic marking through active discourse management within intergroup contexts. Focusing more on the education system, Palviainen et al (2016) looked into language practices of five bilingual preschool teachers in three different settings: (1) in Finland with FinnishSwedish; (2) in Finland with Russian-Finnish; (3) and in Israel with Arabic-Hebrew bilingual context. They found a change on the bilingual education model from a strict language separation to a flexible separation that employs code-switching, contextual and linguistic supports, and role-modeling (Ibid.).…”

Quasi-Communication Interaction Aspects In Early Ontogenesis

“…Child speech is even a more complex process than adult speech as motivation appears to be hidden during interaction [11][12][13][14][15][16]. It results in "pseudo-communication" or "quasicommunication" with its quasi-remarks: quasi-questions and quasi-statements which have their pragmatic meaning of quasi-understanding or quasi-misunderstanding.…”