How Dual Language & Bilingual Classrooms Empower Students
And What to Look for in Bilingual Instructional Materials
What are dual language or bilingual classrooms?
Dual language or bilingual classrooms allow for students to become bilingual from a young age, and for English Learners, allow them to continue to learn content in their native language while also acquiring new language skills. In some cases, students may be predominantly English speakers and structure aims to help them acquire a new language in the context of subject matter. In other cases, when classrooms may contain many English learners, instruction is provided in two languages to boost English acquisition while ensuring students have access to important grade-level content. Dual language programs support all learners to become bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural.
How do dual language and bilingual classrooms empower students?
Classrooms that offer instruction in more than one language can be very empowering for students. Here’s why:
Young brains are ready for language learning. Scientists haven’t pinpointed an exact age range or cut-off date, but we do know that younger minds are better suited for language acquisition than older ones. Dual language and bilingual programs seize the opportunity to provide students with an invaluable skill at a time when it’s easiest for them to pick it up.
Bilingualism may be related to improved executive function. Many researchers believe that bilingual people also have superior executive functioning skills. According to the “bilingual advantage hypothesis,” bilingual people frequently use important executive function skills such as task switching and inhibition when alternating between using different languages in everyday life. Researchers haven’t determined long-term implications of this additional practice time with executive functioning skills.
Bilingual and dual language classrooms celebrate culture. Language and culture are inextricably linked — so honoring and celebrating language through practice and exploration inevitably celebrates culture! Many bilingual teachers take additional opportunities to celebrate culture through art, holidays, food, literature, history, and more. Classrooms with predominantly native English speakers celebrate culture through exposure that students may not have outside of the classroom, whereas bilingual classrooms with a high population of English learners can validate and honor the students’ cultures in ways that monolingual classrooms cannot always do. For more on culturally responsive and relevant teaching read this story from an educator.
Bilingual and dual language classrooms unite language learning with content. Bilingual and dual language classrooms aren’t just about learning a new language. Students also focus on social studies, science, and more. They discover new things about the world around them, find books they love, and learn about history or geography, just like other students. Bilingual classrooms set English learners up for success by ensuring they have access to important grade-level content in their first language. Dual language and bilingual classes can even include opportunities for cross-disciplinary connections and knowledge building, such as reading about grade-level science topics, made even richer by a wider selection of literature across two languages.
English learners can retain — and continue to learn in — their native language(s). Instead of focusing solely on English language acquisition, bilingual and dual immersion classes acknowledge the importance of students’ first language(s), empowering them to retain and continue to refine their reading, writing, and speaking skills. Bilingual and dual immersion teachers view students’ language skills — regardless of their background — from an asset-based perspective, seeking to foster and celebrate a room full of bilingual, biliterate, bicultural learners.
Students can foster meaningful, lasting, life-changing connections — across cultures, places, and languages. Language is the key to connection. With the ability to communicate in another language and with empathy and understanding for new perspectives and cultures, students have what they need to forge meaningful connections with peers in their own communities and all over the world.
To be successful in your bilingual or dual language classroom, look for instructional materials that are:
Connected and aligned across languages. Wonders and Maravillas, our comprehensive, parallel programs for Spanish Language Arts and English Language Arts, work together to foster literacy in English and Spanish. Resources like side-by-side lesson plans, parallel instructional routines, manipulatives like Sound-Spelling cards, and differentiation options in Teachers’ Editions help make connections between the two languages and support learners of all language levels and abilities. These connected lessons even provide a bridge between the new skills and concepts learned in Spanish and encourage students to explore the similarities and differences between the two languages, helping students strengthen their knowledge in both languages.
Culturally responsive and sustaining. Materials should employ a pedagogy that treats cultural differences among students as assets. Wonders and Maravillas includes research-based instruction that develops all domains of literacy for all students. Program authors are as diverse in background and in culture as students, and Maravillas authors represent a wide spectrum of Spanish-speaking regions. Students are represented in the texts they navigate and instruction includes plenty of equitable opportunities for students to engage in meaningful tasks with texts. Wonders teachers are provided with digital, supplemental Culturally Responsive Lessons and embedded equity support in the Teacher’s Edition.
Cross-curricular and cross-disciplinary. Bilingual and dual language classes should offer rich opportunities for knowledge building and cross-disciplinary connections. Parallel instructional routines across languages ensure students have access to important grade-level knowledge in their first language while building new language skills. Wonders and Maravillas texts explore science concepts, social studies concepts, and a wide array of multicultural literature.
Accessible and easy to differentiate. Dual language and bilingual teachers are masters of differentiation, navigating instruction in two languages — but they’re also tasked with reaching students at different literacy proficiency levels in each language, and with varying backgrounds, experiences, and needs. The collection of differentiated texts in Wonders and Maravillas enables all students — from English language newcomers to students who are approaching, on, or beyond grade level — to effectively access classroom content.
For more on how Wonders and Maravillas can support dual language and bilingual classrooms, read this story from Meriden Public Schools in Connecticut:
For more dual language tips from an educator, see:
