Children's language ideologies in a first-grade dual-language class

Abstract

This study explores the language ideologies of young children in a Spanish/English dual language programme in the USA. Recent studies of language ideologies in education have centred primarily on adults or older students, but this study focuses on young children from varied language backgrounds. By analysing discussions centred on children's literature, I report first-grade students’ beliefs about language in their responses to themes in the literature and closely examine two students’ discourse over time. These young participants often expressed competing ideologies as they responded to the various contexts they were in and the roles they were expected to play. While students were becoming proficient in two languages, they were also creating their identities and beginning to understand issues of language and society and formulating ideologies. I highlight the importance of acknowledging young students’ ideologies and discussing issues of language, bilingualism and language use as schools become increasingly diverse.

Keywords

bilingual critical discourse analysis dual language programme language ideologies

Introduction

Although the study of ideologies has typically centred on adults, young children are also in the process of developing ideological stances about many things in life, including language. In a dual-language programme, where students come from at least two language backgrounds and are learning two languages together (Lindholm, 1999), messages are constantly being sent and received in relation to language, such as when a certain language should be used, which linguistic code is more prestigious and which speakers of certain languages have more influence than others. In this study, I focus on children's language ideologies uncovered through responses to literature in a first grade dual language class in southwestern USA.

Theoretical frame

Ideology

The notion of ideology used in this research takes into account early work on ideologies that was rooted in the social sciences and that paid particular attention to social institutions, power and dominance (Althusser, 1984; Gramsci, 1971). In recent years there has been an increasing interest in ideologies as related to education, particularly with an emphasis on curriculum (Apple, 1990), teacher preparation (Bartolomé, 1998, 2008), literacies (Cadiero-Kaplan, 2002) and language (González, 2001; Heller, 1999, 2001; Razfar, 2003). Ideologies are not merely prevailing ideas, belief systems or attitudes, they are also mental representations that influence the knowledge and attitudes of social groups (van Dijk, 2000). Ideologies also have a societal dimension wherein groups or institutions are involved in the formation, affirmation, reproduction or change of ideologies and are enacted by group members through social practices and in institutional discourse – both talk and text (González, 2001). In this way, ideologies are reproduced by social practices and discourse.

Although some educational researchers define ideologies as inherently negative and hegemonic (Bartolomé, 2008), for this research, ideologies are viewed as either positive or negative, but rarely neutral (Ricento, 2000). That is, ideologies implicate power and power relations but not always from the same side of power. It is specifically this emphasis on power dimensions in language and the social processes of learning that prompted González (2001) to call for a shift in studies of language, culture and schooling from the more static notion of culturally relevant to the more complex framework of language ideologies. Silverstein (1979) defined language ideologies as sets of beliefs about languages expressed by users as a rationalization or explanation of language use. Furthermore, language ideologies are viewed as cultural systems of ideas or sets of beliefs about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests (Woolard, 1998). Just as ideologies are, broadly, more than just thoughts, language ideologies also pertain to practices through which notions are enacted (Gal, 1992). Examining language ideologies in studies of schooling has the power to interrogate language and literacy policies as well as to show the multifaceted and complex use of language in context (González, 2001).

Some studies in language education have begun to address and even centre on language ideologies, however they tend to examine older students in secondary schools (Fecho, 2000; Heller, 1999; Mendoza-Denton, 1999; Razfar, 2003) or upper elementary grades (Fitts, 2006; González, 2005). Few studies seek to understand the formation of language ideologies among young children, even though data exist that point to the early years in school as being vital to the success or failure of students in their academic careers (Burke and Burke, 2005; Wesley and Buysee, 2003). One exception is a study of the language ideologies of young children in a dual language school in Arizona by Martínez-Roldán and Malavé (2004). They used the term ‘embryonic ideological discourses’ (p. 176), to refer to the early development of the processes that eventually lead to the formation of concepts or ideologies. Their assertion is that the language ideologies of young children are akin to the complex mental activities that Vygotsky (1986) called thinking in concepts, which are not yet fully mature in the young child but instead exist in an embryonic stage. They found that one of their first grade participants, Steve, a native Spanish speaker living in a bilingual home, had formed a cultural model¹ (D'Andrade, 1987; Gee, 1999b) of Spanish speakers as lacking in intelligence. Because of this ideological stance, he was reticent to speak Spanish, even though he was enrolled in a dual-language programme that supported Spanish language maintenance goals. He had not invested in an identity as a Spanish speaker, despite his parents’ bilingualism and his own experiences in a dual-language programme.

Dual-language programmes

A large number of dual-language programmes are based on a language ideology of linguistic pluralism, where multiple languages are supported and taught (Jeon, 2003). These programmes can be resistant to educational and linguistic homogenization and enable bilingual instruction to continue in this era of restrictions and attacks on language rights. They are one of the few options in the USA for children to maintain or achieve bilingualism (Garcia, 2005). In some states, such as California and Arizona, dual-language programmes are, typically, the only options for bilingual education. Throughout the USA there is a range of models in place, varying according to class composition and the amount of instructional time allocated to each language, but currently the most common model in elementary schools is the 90/10 programme (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2006). This model begins in kindergarten or first grade with 90% of the instruction being taught in the target language, usually Spanish; the amount of English instruction increases each year by 10%. Once students reach fifth grade, the instructional time is half English and half Spanish (Torres-Guzman, 2002).

Dual-language programmes have also proven to be quite effective for educating language minority and language majority students. Lindholm-Leary (2001) studied 16 dual-language schools and found that after long-term participation in the programme (five to six years), students achieved at least as much as their peers who were in non-dual-language programmes, and they performed at grade level in language arts and content areas. Other studies have found that the majority of students who have participated in a dual-language programme perform at or above the levels of their non-participant peers on standardized tests (Alanís, 2000; Thomas and Collier, 1997, 2002). There is also a wealth of evidence that shows that dual-language programmes foster bilingual and biliteracy competencies for all participants more than any other programme (Pellerano et al., 1998; Pérez, 2004; Quintanar-Sarellana, 2004; Smith and Arnot-Hopffer, 1998).

In part because of the recent state mandates and the effectiveness of these programmes, there has been exponential growth in dual-language programmes, with a 33% increase in programmes nationwide between the 2000 and 2006 (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2006). In Texas, where this study took place, the dual-language programme is one of various programme models (i.e. transitional or maintenance bilingual education, English as a second language, dual-language, etc.) available under state law. However, it is the only one considered as enriching bilingual education (Cloud et al., 2000) and designed to foster bilingualism in all children.

Method

As a former Spanish/English dual-language teacher, I was very interested in finding out more about what both language minority and language majority students thought about language and language users. I also believed that young emergent bilinguals were beginning to formulate sets of beliefs about language. In light of my personal background and interests, this study was guided by the following question:

What language ideologies are held by young children learning English and Spanish in a dual-language programme?

Setting and participants

This study was conducted in a public primary school serving pre-kindergarten to first grades, located in a small city of approximately 50,000 residents in south central Texas. The school district was historically significant as one of the first public school districts in Texas to offer bilingual education, albeit in German (Blanton, 2004). At the time of the study, the school offered several programme choices including 90/10 Spanish-English dual-language, transitional Spanish-English bilingual, English as a second language, generalist and special education classes. This school was purposefully chosen (Patton, 2002) because of its dual-language programme and the long history of bilingual education in the community.

A total of 21 students from one first-grade dual-language class participated in the study, representing a cross-section of the society in Shoals Creek (all names of places and participants are pseudonyms), with some students coming from the affluent river-front properties and farms in the area, many from the middle-class neighbourhoods surrounding the school, and others from the impoverished trailer parks and rural plots of land nearby. Of the 21, 10 were English dominant, eight were Spanish dominant and three were bilingual, according to school records and teacher data. The students also had diverse ethnic backgrounds and heritages in their parents’ or grandparents’ generations. Although the class was made up predominantly of Mexican or Mexican-American students (60%), there were many students who were from mixed heritages such as Mexican and Mexican American, as well as northern European or German backgrounds. Of the 21, a third claimed German ancestry. There was also diversity within the groups, for example some of the students whose families claimed German ancestry still spoke German in the home while others did not. Similarly, students from homes with one or more parents who were Mexican or Mexican American represented a wide spectrum of linguistic and cultural backgrounds related to both linguistic and generational diversity.

Data collection and analysis

Data collection in Mrs Kaiser's first-grade class occurred over a 10-month period. During this time, I observed language arts instruction several days a week. I audiotaped direct instruction and student interactions, collected writing samples and asked students about their work. These qualitative methods were selected in order to provide a thick description (Geertz, 1973). Using various data sources allowed me to triangulate (Denzin, 1988) and enhanced the trustworthiness of the information collected (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1996). I cross-referenced and compared findings from the various sources in order to maximize the authenticity and consistency of the observations.

During data collection, I found that there were some instances of language arts instruction where students discussed their beliefs and attitudes towards language and language learning, and I include some examples from these lessons in this article. Yet I wanted to ensure ample collection of students’ language ideologies in order to answer my research question. So together, Mrs Kaiser and I strategically planned additional lessons where the goal was to elicit such ideas through responses to literature containing subject matter pertaining to language attitudes, bilingualism and language choice. I call these lessons ‘strategic literacy lessons’, because they were carefully planned with the research question in mind. The strategic literacy lesson presented in this article centred on the book Pepita Talks Twice/Pepita habla dos veces (Lachtman, 1995). Mrs Kaiser read the book aloud to students and led a whole class discussion centred on language and bilingualism. Following the discussion, students were asked to respond to a writing prompt based on the book.

Throughout the course of study, I assumed an iterative approach by cycling back and forth between data collection and analysis. In the preliminary stages, I began the analysis with an open coding scheme, according to Strauss and Corbin (1998). Through open coding, I identified potential themes by pulling out examples from participant observations, interviews and written responses. All data were broken into chunks and grouped by emerging themes. When concepts and categories developed that were similar, typologies were created according to the three-step process outlined by Berg (2004). First, I assessed the data and categories or themes that emerged, then I made sure that all the elements were accounted for. Finally, I examined the categories and their contents and drew conclusions from these categories. In this way I attempted to link social meanings or shared ideologies to practices and talk that were observed in the field, evident in interviews and exemplified in literacy lessons and writing samples. I also analysed the data using critical discourse analysis (CDA) modelled after Fairclough (1995, 2003), Gee (1999a) and van Dijk (1998).

CDA is both a theory and an analytical tool. Gee (1990) states that discourse analysis should be the primary analytical method for unveiling ideologies because it attends to what is visible and what is not. In addition, CDA lends itself to the study and analysis of ideologies because of the importance of these intersections of language and social structure (Blommaert and Bulcaen, 2000). For this study, I have chosen CDA, as described by Fairclough (1995) and Gee (1999a), as my primary analytical tool.

Fairclough (1995) outlined a method for critically analysing discourse by analysing the relationships between concrete language use and wider social and cultural structures. He attributes three dimensions to every discursive event – textual level, level of discursive practice and social practice dimension. The method of analysis entails description, interpretation and explanation. Figure 1 is a reproduction of Fairclough's ‘Dimensions of discourse and discourse analysis’, as found in Titscher et al. (2000: 152), and depicts the interrelatedness of these three dimensions as well as the three main components of analysis.

Figure 1.

Fairclough's Model of Critical Discourse Analysis (Titscher et al., 2000: 152).

For classroom discourse analysis, the description included the talk and texts produced by students and teachers. I coded the talk using themes and taxonomies that arose from the data as well as the literature on language ideologies. I also analysed the talk using Gee's framework, described below. The interpretation described the relationship between the productive processes of discursive practice and how the text was taken up by the participants, akin to Gee's notion of world building. Finally, the level of explanation according to Fairclough's model was evident in the overall social analysis or cultural models as described by Gee (1999a).

Gee (1999a) presents a method for investigating the social construction of language and literacies with a similar foundation but in more detail. He also advocates the systematic analysis of language in practice in addition to the larger sociocultural, historical and political contexts. His theory of d/Discourse analysis (Gee, 1999b) provides a theoretical grounding for investigating the social construction of language and literacies in this additive bilingual setting, in order to learn about the localized development of ideologies through a close examination of language in action, known as discourse (lowercase ‘d’), and the larger social, economic, political and institutional affiliations that are blended and coordinated with non-language aspects, known as Discourses (uppercase ‘D’), or ways of believing, acting, seeing, speaking, reading, writing and thinking (Gee, 1999a). A description of Gee's analytic system follows.

Gee offers a way of looking at situated language use in all social interactions, including literacy instruction, by examining the overlapping and distinctive aspects of six building tasks through which social situations are negotiated with others. In interactive situations we build or construct activities, sign systems or semiotics, identities and relationships, politics, views of the world (ideologies) and connections. Gee also poses particular questions (Table 1) that guide the discourse analyst to interrogate the language data of a social situation in order to examine what meanings are being constructed. To question how tasks are built socially, Gee outlines ‘tools of enquiry’ (Table 2) as ‘ways of looking at the world of talk and interaction’ (Gee, 1999a: 12).

Table 1.

Six components of social building tasks (Gee, 1999a: 85–6)

Social building task	Questions
Semiotic building	What sign systems are students using (speech, writing, gestures, images)? (and I would add language, i.e. Spanish or English)
	What systems of knowledge are relevant?
	What social languages are relevant?
World building	What are the situated meanings of some of the words and phrases that seem important?
	What are the institutions and Discourses being (re)produced in this situation and how are they stabilized and transformed in the act?
Activity building	What is the larger main activity and sub-activity?
	What actions are taking place?
Identity and relationship building	What roles or positions do students engage in, concurrent with personal, social and cultural knowledge and beliefs?
	How are relationships stabilized and/or transformed?
	What feelings are expressed?
	What are the Discourses' relevance (identity, activities, relationships)?
Political building	What are the social goods' relevance (status, power, gender, race, class, etc.)?
	How are these social goods made relevant or irrelevant?
	How are these social goods connected to the Discourses operating?
Connection building	What are the connections being made across utterances and large stretches of interaction?
	What are the connections being made to previous or future interactions with people, ideas, texts, things, Discourses outside the situation?
	What are the intertextual links and interdiscursive connections being made?

Table 2.

Tools of enquiry (Gee, 1999a)

Tool of enquiry	Description
Situated meanings	Local meanings grounded in practices and experiences that are integrally related to social and cultural groups in ways that go beyond individuals.
Situated identities	Different identities or social positions we enact and recognize in different settings.
Social languages	Different styles of using language we use to enact and recognize different identities in different settings; different social languages used to engage in building tasks.
Discourses	With an uppercase ‘D’, are different ways in which we integrate language with different ways of thinking, acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, believing, using symbols, tools and objects.
Conversations	With an uppercase ‘C’, are historic long-running important themes or motifs that have been the focus of a variety of texts and interactions for a significant stretch of time and across an array of institutions.
Cultural models	Taken-for-granted theories, images, storylines or descriptions of simplified worlds that are the sources of our assumptions about what is ‘normal’ and ‘natural’; theories as rooted in socioculturally defined groups of people.

These social building tasks are interrogated through the ‘tools of enquiry’ (Table 2) that represent organized frames of reference from which to interpret the discursive moves that build or shape as well as constrain social situations. These overlapping enquiry tools guide the analyst through a systematic process of thinking about participants’ language use and social construction of situated meanings. By analysing language data to understand the social language and cultural models, socially situated identities, Discourses and Conversations, analysts can present evidence for learning how language ideologies and literacies are at work in the dual-language classroom.

The frameworks outlined by Fairclough (1995) and Gee (1999a) were used together with the classroom discourse and writing samples to provide a systematic analysis of the language ideologies as expressed by these emergent bilingual first graders. In the section that follows, I show how students began to understand their situated identities and build various worlds (Gee, 1999a) as emergent bilinguals. From the examples of Johanna and Cody, I also present examples of children's language ideologies.

Findings

Young readers interact with texts in multiple ways and their understandings are influenced by various factors. Students’ responses to literature can reveal beliefs, values, assumptions and attitudes that are steeped in ideologies (Cai, 2008). Their responses may even reveal particular ideological stances that constitute desired ways of responding to texts and socialization patterns (Beach, 1997). As we read multicultural literature with students, particularly in classrooms where students come from different social positions, we should encourage personal responses and also strive to understand those personal responses in the larger societal and ideological realms (Rogers and Soter, 1997; Rosenblatt, 1995). By attending to the various dimensions of such responses, we are better poised to understand children's developing sense of themselves, their identities and their beliefs (Sipe, 1999). In this first-grade classroom, students responded candidly during read-alouds to teacher queries, to subject matter presented by texts and to other students’ in the class. From these early class discussions, I began to capture spontaneous discourse that revealed students’ various ideologies about language and language users. Later, the teacher and I engaged in more strategic lessons to elicit further responses.

One day in mid-October, Mrs Kaiser was reading Canción de todos los niños del mundo/Song of All Children of the World (Ada, 1996). The book shows children from different parts of the world participating in different kinds of daily occurrences, such as eating, speaking, going to school and so on. After reading the sentences, ‘Yo no hablo tu idioma, tú no hablas el mío… Pero tú te ríes, cuando yo me río. I don't speak your language, and you do not speak mine… But you laugh when I laugh.’, Mrs Kaiser asked the class, ‘¿Todos hablamos el mismo idioma? Do we all speak the same language?’ Many students answered, ‘No.’ The discussion continued.

857	Cody:	Algunos hablan English
858		and others no
859	Mrs K:	¿Cual es nuestro idioma?
860	Multiple students (including Cody):	English!
861	Johanna:	Aquí en los estados unidos hablamos inglés
862		…¡y español también!
863	Mrs K:	…y español también…
864		¿Y aquí en la clase?
865	Cody:	Hablamos español.
866	Mrs K:	Si, muy bien.

Translation:

857	Cody:	Some speak English
858		and others no
859	Mrs K:	What language do we speak?
860	Multiple students(including Cody):	English!
861	Johanna:	Here in the United States we speak English
862		…and Spanish, too!
863	Mrs K:	and Spanish too…
864		and what about here in class?
865	Cody:	We speak Spanish
866	Mrs K:	Yes, very good.

Cody, an English-dominant student, responded to Mrs Kaiser's question with, ‘Algunos hablan English and others no.’ He recognized that people across the world do not necessarily speak English. He also could have been thinking that some of his fellow classmates were less proficient in English than he was. Mrs Kaiser asked the entire class for clarification with an emphasis on nuestro/our, ‘¿Cual es nuestro idioma?/What is our language?’ (line 859). In this question, the use of the pronoun we (or nuestro) indicates an identity and relationship building task. Mrs Kaiser is building community as a classroom that engages in something together. It also may have been political or world building, as Johanna interpreted it to be. Johanna, a native Spanish speaker, answered that there were more options than just English in the USA and in fact, in their class, they spoke Spanish in addition to English (lines 861–62). Mrs Kaiser confirmed Johanna's response by re-voicing her statement, and then returned to her initial question of what language they speak in the class, a return to the identity and relationship building task. Cody responded with the answer she sought, ‘Hablamos español’ (line 865) and she positively evaluated his statement, ‘Sí, muy bien!’

Here Mrs Kaiser reinforced their identities as Spanish speakers in an additive bilingual setting. In Table 3, I illustrate how the discussion can be examined using both Fairclough's (1995) and Gee's (1999b) CDA tools to show ideological stances. I use three stages of analysis, guided by Fairclough (1995). First, the teacher and students are signalling particular ideologies through their discourse. Called the description phase by Fairclough (1995), this level of analysis entailed a description of the talk and text produced by the participants. Here, the participants produced discourse in English and Spanish around the Spanish book and engaged in semiotic building (Gee, 1999b). Although students could respond in English, the official language of the lesson (and 90% of the instructional day) was Spanish, elevating it to a legitimate instructional language. The ideological stances, both official and from the students, demonstrated a linguistic pluralism and validation of Spanish as an official instructional language.

Table 3.

Critical discourse analysis of class discussion around Canción de todos los niños del mundo/Song of All Children of the World (Ada, 1996)

Level of analysis	Fairclough (1995)	Gee (1999b)	Classroom Discourse	Ideological stances
1	Description	Semiotic building	From book, ‘Yo no hablo tu idioma, pero todos hablamos/ I don't speak your language, but we all speak’	Linguistic pluralism
1	Description	Semiotic building	Discussion officially conducted in Spanish while allowing for English responses	Linguistic pluralism Spanish as a legitimate instructional language Bilingualism as a goal
2	Interpretation	World building	Cody – nuestro idioma es… ‘English!’ (lines 859–60)	English is the dominant language in the USA We can speak two languages in the USA
		World building	Johanna – ‘Aquí en los estados unidos hablamos inglés…¡y español también!/Here in the United States we speak English… oh and Spanish, too!’ (lines 861–2)
		Identity and relationship building	Mrs Kaiser – ‘¿Cual es nuestro idioma?/What is our language?’ (line 859)	We share a common language
		Identity and relationship building	Cody – ‘Hablamos español/We speak Spanish’ (line 865)	We are Spanish speakers
3	Explanation	Discourses	Multiple students – ‘English!’ (in response to what language do we speak? line 860)	English is the language of power
3	Explanation	Cultural models	Johanna – ‘Aquí en los estados unidos hablamos inglés… ¡y español también!/Here in the United States we speak English… oh and Spanish, too!’ (lines 861–2)	Schooling in the USA should be conducted in English

In the second level of analysis, Fairclough's (1995) notion of Interpretation analyses the processes of learning and how the text was taken up by the participants. Students engaged in world building (Gee, 1999b) by interpreting the text in certain ways. Cody thought ‘our language’ was English, but Johanna added that Spanish was spoken in the USA as well. Although power and status in society were not explicitly addressed in this discussion, together the class built a world where people might initially think of English as the language of school (Cody), though they could speak Spanish legitimately as well (Johanna). Mrs Kaiser added the dimension of building a group identity and relationships using the pronoun ‘our’ to signal the community of learners. This social interaction serves to interrogate the cultural model prevalent in society (and in the class, as evidenced by the number of responses) that schooling in the USA should be conducted in English. It is clear that a monolingual English setting is the underlying assumption, even when asked in Spanish. This is the third level of analysis and what Fairclough (1995) describes as the explanation, because it looks at the wider context and adds a dimension of social analysis. This exchange illustrates that the hegemony of English in the USA had seeped into the students’ lives and young children's understanding on some level such that the linguistic goal of schools is typically English dominance (Smith, 1999). Whether they were conscious of it or not, they responded that English was the de facto official language of the USA (Wiley, 1999). Not until the teacher probed deeper did some of the students realize or articulate that they were reading literature and speaking in Spanish and therefore multiple languages were spoken in the USA.

These contradictory language ideologies may be due in part to influences outside of the school context, such as the overall society as well as parents and caregivers. In her writings on how readers interact with text, Rosenblatt (1995: 89) acknowledged that readers bring to a reading their ‘moral and religious code and social philosophy primarily assimilated from family and community background’. Because of this, Rosenblatt (1995) urges readers to examine cultural, social and personal factors that come into play with their responses or transactions with literature.

Pepita Talks Twice/Pepita habla dos veces

Since ideologies are sets of beliefs that are evident in talk and practices, I needed to examine multiple expressions of students’ ideological stances. I also wanted to examine them across time. In early March, the first strategic literacy lesson was conducted, using Lachtman's (1995) bilingual book Pepita Talks Twice/Pepita habla dos veces. The book has been described as one that ‘focuses on young Pepita's bilingual language prowess’ (Lems, 2001/2002: 29). Early in the story, Pepita is depicted as a language broker² who ‘talks twice’ but tires of it and decides only to speak in English. When her dog runs into the street and does not respond to his name in English, Pepita decides to break her promise and calls his name in Spanish. She realizes the importance of speaking two languages. The story ‘shows how bilingual skills allow children to move seamlessly from one culture to another, experiencing the best of both as they go’ (Baxter, 1998: 3).

Pepita's written responses: ‘Yo puedo hablar tres veces’

The prompt students were asked to respond to was: ‘Yo soy como Pepita porque… I am like Pepita because…’ or ‘Yo no soy como Pepita porque… I am not like Pepita because…’. The student responses in relation to language are outlined in Table 4. The most common theme in the written responses was that of language ability. Students were acutely aware of their proficiencies in English and Spanish. Two-thirds of the students discussed their ability or inability to speak proficiently in either English or Spanish. Six wrote that they spoke one language better than the other. Two students even included a third language – German – as an additional language they could use. One student took up the title of the story and responded, ‘Yo puedo hablar tres veces’. When I asked him what that meant, he replied that he could speak German in addition to Spanish and English (fieldnotes, 15 March 2007). Ability or proficiency may be an integral aspect of language ideologies if ideologies are viewed as practices or enacted language use (Gal, 1992). For emerging bilinguals, their abilities or perceived abilities may impact on their practices, particularly in a dual-language setting where, in the first few years of the programme, most students are just beginning to become proficient in one of the two languages taught.

Table 4.

Most frequent written responses to Pepita

	Yo SOY como Pepita porque…	Yo NO SOY como Pepita porque…
	I am like Pepita because…	I am not like Pepita because…
Language ability	9 responses	5 responses
	4 Spanish dominant	2 Spanish dominant
	2 bilingual	3 English dominant
	3 English dominant
Ayudando	6 responses	2 responses
Helping or serving as language brokers	2 Spanish dominant	both English-dominant students
	1 bilingual
	3 English dominant

Many of the students (8 out of 21) responded in some way about their roles as language brokers or as helping others through their language expertise. Of the eight students, six included language brokering in their affirmative responses, how they were indeed similar to the protagonist. Two students indicated that they were not like Pepita because they did not engage in language-brokering behaviours. Language brokering is a behaviour that bilinguals engage in to assist those who are less skilled or monolingual in communication, and can increase the broker's metalinguistic and metacommunicative awareness (Olmedo, 2003; Orellana et al., 2003). Although language brokering as a theme could be explored in depth, it is offered here as an example of language ideologies by showing children's sets of attitudes and practices towards language and language users.

In the story, Pepita translated for others who did not understand the language. In this class, the six students who answered affirmatively that they engaged in language brokering were from various language backgrounds. Most often the students wrote about helping their family members understand what people were saying. For example, Juan wrote,³ ‘Yo y mi papá fuimos a comprar comida. Yo le pregunté al señor que dijiste y me dijo lo que dijo a mi papá./My dad and I went to buy food. I asked the man what he said and he told me what he said to my dad.’

Two of the children, both English dominant, responded that they were not like Pepita and did not engage in language brokering. The reasons for the negative responses may be varied and complex. It is possible that the students may not have been in situations where they needed to engage in brokering behaviour, particularly if family members and friends did not need translation. Second, the students may not have felt proficient enough or empowered to help in a brokering situation. In both of these cases, it is possible that if they became more proficient in Spanish or they were in a situation where it was needed, they would rise to the occasion. It is also possible that the students may have felt that they simply did not want to engage in language-brokering behaviour. This could be for a variety of reasons, including those Pepita outlined in the story – being a language broker took more time and took children away from play. Or it could be that they did not feel that they needed to as members of the linguistic majority. The reasons for the children's responses are not always straightforward, which is one reason for capturing students’ responses over time and by various means.

In the following two examples of student responses to Pepita, I illustrate how, over time and through further analysis, ideological stances begin to become visible. The two students are Johanna and Cody, both of whom we have seen before in the literature discussion from October (Table 3). The previous example illustrated the hegemony of English. Cody's initial response was that English was the language spoken in the USA. Johanna offered the alternative view that both English and Spanish were spoken in the USA and, after some discussion, Cody agreed that Spanish was in fact the language spoken in class.

Johanna

Johanna was a Spanish-dominant student who had a younger sister who was three at the time of the study. She was born in the area and had attended school since pre-kindergarten. She was from a working-class background and her parents were both Spanish speakers. Her mother worked very long hours, including the night shift at a local business. I was not able to interview her mother because of her hectic schedule; however, during class one day, we had the following conversation.

423	Minda:	¿Quien esta aprendiendo inglés?
424	Johanna:	Mi abuela no sabe inglés
425		y ella usa sin barreras, inglés sin barreras.
426	Minda:	¿Si? Ella esta aprendiendo.
427		¿Y tu mama sabe inglés?
428	Johanna:	No le gusta,
429		ella dice que ella es Mexicana
430		y ella dice que no le gusta el inglés
431		que le gusta más el español.
432	Minda:	Ah ¿Y tu papá?
433	Johanna:	El aprendió inglés.
434		Yo le enseño a mi mama y no me quiere escuchar.
435	Minda:	¿Ella no quiere saber?
436	Johanna:	Siempre en la tienda hay muchos señores que hablan en inglés
437		y yo le digo de que numero es y lo que dicen.

Translation:

423	Minda:	Who is learning English?
424	Johanna:	My grandmother doesn't know English
425		and she uses ‘English without boundaries/Inglés sin barreras’
426	Minda:	Yes? She is learning.
427		Does your Mom know English?
428	Johanna:	No, she doesn't like it.
429		She says that she is Mexican
430		and she doesn't like English
431		that she likes Spanish better.
432	Minda:	Oh, and your Dad?
433	Johanna:	He learned English.
434		I teach it to my Mom and she doesn't want to listen to me.
435	Minda:	She doesn't want to learn?
436	Johanna:	There are always lots of people in stores who speak English
437		and I tell her what the number [price] is and what they are saying.

Johanna said that her grandmother was learning English through a popular programme (line 425) but her mother does not like English (line 428). According to Johanna, her mother ‘dice que ella es Mexicana/says that she is Mexican’ and so she does not like English, she likes Spanish better. Johanna even has the impression that her mother does not want to listen to her teaching English (line 434), even though there are many people around them and in stores who speak English (line 436). So Johanna assumes the role of language broker in order to help her mother understand what people are saying.

Although there were people in Johanna's family who were interested in learning English, such as her grandmother and her father, according to Johanna, her mother expressed a preference for Spanish. Here, Johanna's mother has created a cultural model of Mexicans as people who prefer Spanish, perhaps out of a desire to counteract English hegemony in the USA or perhaps due to her lack of proficiency in English. Johanna's interpretations of her mother's talk and actions may have influenced Johanna's ideological stances towards English and Spanish. But it is difficult to determine exactly how her mother's ideologies influenced her own – it is neither clear nor neatly linear. At this time, early in her academic career, Johanna appeared to maintain a positive stance towards both languages.

Johanna's response to Pepita reiterated her identity as both a Spanish and an English speaker and built a world (Gee, 1999b) of bilingualism through her statement, ‘Yo hablo dos idiomas/I speak two languages.’ She also shows identity and relationship building (Gee, 1999b) through her role as language broker with her mother. Johanna's ideological stances towards bilingualism, Spanish and Spanish speakers were positive. Her best friend in class was a bilingual girl and she was frequently observed engaging in literate activities in both Spanish and English (fieldnotes, 26 March 2007). Although Johanna's family had enrolled her in an additive bilingual programme, they may have sent mixed messages to her regarding becoming bilingual. Regardless of her mother's reported resistance to English and identification as a Spanish speaker, Johanna appeared to embrace a language ideology that favoured bilingualism.

Cody

Cody was an outgoing English-dominant student whose older sister was in the third-grade dual-language class at the time of the study. Cody was born in New York to American parents of northern European descent. He came from a privileged background and his mother, Kathy, was highly involved in the parent-teacher association and other school events. Although he was able to read and write in Spanish, Cody often professed that he preferred English. His mother remarked that unless they required him to read in Spanish at home, his literate activities were conducted exclusively in English (interview, 29 June 2007). Towards the end of first-grade, Cody remarked, ‘I can't wait to go to second grade where we will speak English!’ (fieldnotes, 14 May 2007). He was referring to the fact that there would be a higher percentage of English instruction in the second grade.

Unlike Johanna, Cody did not appear to have personal reasons to engage in language-brokering behaviour. In his response to Pepita Talks Twice/Pepita habla dos veces (Lachtman, 1995), he indicated that he was not like her because he does not help people. He also stated that he speaks two languages, but one is better (mejor). Upon seeing his writing, Mrs Kaiser immediately called me over to see that he had indicated one language was ‘better’. I asked him for clarification and he said, ‘English is better. I'm better at it and I like it better’ (fieldnotes, 13 March 2007). So not only was he better at it, but he liked it more. He may have liked English more because he was more skilled in it, or he may have liked it more because he lived in a world where English was dominant – except for when he was in school. This notion of English as better could be what Gee (1999b) calls political building – Cody saw the social status and power in English. Cody also wrote that one language was better because he had spoken it longer, for all of his life and because he was ‘ingles born’. He code-switched into ‘born’ in his Spanish writing. And his idea of being ‘English born’ is intriguing because it could be interpreted as a birthright. He was born into an English-speaking family and with it came a certain level of privilege that some of his classmates did not have. Cody's mother told me that he never engaged in activities in Spanish at home unless he was forced to and that he rarely demonstrated proficiency in Spanish to her, even when he was around other Spanish speakers (interview, 29 June 2007), illustrating that Cody understood that he had separate roles or situated identities (Gee, 1999b). At home, he did not need to use Spanish so he did not do so. At school, he was forced to.

Cody's ideological stances towards bilingualism, Spanish and Spanish speakers were not very positive, as indicated by his choices as well as his discourse. His best friends were English-dominant boys in the class and he rarely interacted with Spanish-dominant students unless he was told to do so (fieldnotes, 11 January 2007). Cody engaged in Spanish language activities at school because he had to, but rarely because he wanted to. Although his mother expressed strong support for bilingualism, she sent mixed messages to her children regarding language and language users. Cody may have arrived at his ideological stances on his own or he may have been appropriating aspects of the ideologies held by his mother and by the dominant society.

Discussion

The examples from the class discussions and students’ written responses reveal that young children are indeed in the process of forming ideological stances towards language and language users. Although their ideological stances are not static, these young emergent bilinguals were indeed engaged in the process of developing theories and sets of beliefs around language and language users. As the students were building their identities, relationships and connections in their first-grade classroom through language and literacies, they were expressing and formulating language ideologies in the form of discourses and cultural models (Gee, 1999b). The ideologies students expressed were not always positive nor were they static or fixed and it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict what language ideologies these students will express and enact in future years. Since ideologies are both mental representations and practices, the further formation of language ideologies in these emergent bilinguals will depend on many complex factors, both in and outside of school. But during the time of this study, the first-grade students responded to the various contexts they were in and the roles they were expected to play. Some saw, at first hand, the need in their own families for bilingualism as language brokers and cultural intermediaries. Others knew their bilingualism was unnecessary for survival and was just an added benefit to their privileged lives.

Although ideologies are often hidden through discussions around literature, teachers can find ways to make language ideologies more visible. This study suggests that teachers of young children should engage in conversations around language and language use, particularly when students are engaged in a complex learning environment such as a dual-language programme. Also, while most classrooms have a range of abilities and backgrounds, dual-language classrooms deliberately place students from diverse linguistic backgrounds together. Often, these students also have diverse socioeconomic, ethnic or racial backgrounds. The differences in language ability are most salient in the early years of dual-language learning when children are emerging bilinguals. During these early years, it is important for teachers to provide opportunities for students to talk about their experiences with language learning. Findings from this study show that students in dual-language settings want to talk about their experiences with language, as language users, and other bilingual experiences such as language brokering. There is adequate literature to engage in such discussions with young children and there needs to be more time allotted to talking about language and language learning. This is necessary because there are dimensions to language learning beyond learning a mere code – there are issues of power, dominance, equity and identity. As González (2001: 185) said, ‘Schools must be sites for the interrogation of knowledge production and not merely sites for its reproduction.’

Overall, most of the students in this study showed that they identified with the bilingual characters in books. They were in the process of building identities and relationships (Gee, 1999b) as bilinguals. They were also taking part in connection building (Gee, 1999b) as they responded to and reflected the hegemonic Discourses of English as the language of power in the USA. As Spanish speakers and learners, they sometimes resisted and other times reproduced the hegemonic forces of English.

In the cases of Johanna and Cody, they experienced contradictory language ideologies from multiple contexts such as home, school, media and society. Although both Johanna and Cody readily participated in discussions and assignments meant to provide opportunities for students to articulate their views, their responses differed in their positive or negative stances towards Spanish and bilingualism. Their ideological stances appeared to influence their literate lives as well. Johanna was an avid reader and writer in class while Cody appeared to engage in such activities only when asked to do so. Though their language ideologies were not the only factors influencing their choices, they may have had some influence on what Johanna and Cody chose to do in class.

This article has focused on students learning in a dual-language programme where there are complex linguistic, social and historical relationships between the children from diverse backgrounds learning Spanish and English. The children revealed their budding sets of beliefs and practices related to language and language users in this context, pointing to the complex issues of language acquisition in modern schooling. While students were working on becoming proficient in two languages, they were also creating their identities and beginning to understand issues of language and society through cultural models and Discourses. For educators working in multilingual and bilingual settings, the implications include the importance of setting aside time in the curriculum to include issues of bilingualism, language and language use, as well as providing time for young students to discuss their experiences as emergent bilinguals. These children wanted to talk and write about their experiences and, through their responses to discussions and literature, they showed that they were indeed beginning to formulate ideologies about language and language users. Yet these implications are important for educators working in other contexts as well. In this increasingly complex and interwoven global society, young students need to have the space to discuss their experiences of language and language use, and the ideological stances they are forming. Admittedly, it is difficult to trace children's ideological roots and to predict where they will lead. What is important to note is that young children are indeed appropriating and negotiating aspects of the language ideologies of dominant society, schooling, their families and their peers in complex ways.

Figure 2.

Johanna's written response to Pepita.

Figure 3.

Cody's written response to Pepita.

Footnotes

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