Abstract
This case describes St. Lucy School, a K-8 elementary school in a mid-sized urban center. St. Lucy has traditionally served African American students. In the past 10 years, the neighborhood has experienced a significant shift in population, such that many Latino/a families are now entering the school. In response to these changes, the school administration made the decision to transition into a fully bilingual school. As the school has begun to treat the Spanish language as an asset, however, tensions have arisen regarding why African American English (AAE) has not been—nor is currently—treated as an asset as well. In addition, there are tensions around the varieties of Spanish used, revealing different attitudes and beliefs about non-standard varieties of Spanish.
Keywords
Introduction
St. Lucy School, a K-8 elementary school in a mid-sized Mid-Atlantic urban center, traditionally served African American students of low to moderate incomes. As part of a recent demographic change in the past 10 years, the neighborhood has experienced a significant shift with many Latino/a families entering the school. Historically, the smaller school community area—like much of the mid-sized urban center, then and now—was an enclave for immigrants. During the late 19th century, and into the mid-20th century, it was a haven for working-class Greek and Italian immigrants because of its low cost of housing that proximity to the harbor where many immigrants worked. During the 1970s through 1990s, European families began leaving the city and moving into the surrounding counties, a phenomenon that has happened historically in cities across America, often referred to as White Flight. From 2000 to 2005, the demographics increasingly began to change from a community of Caucasian and African Americans to one that reflects more of a Latino/a presence.
Today, the community in which the school is located is a haven for immigrants from Africa, Mexico, Central America, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. It continues to be a working-class neighborhood and the children at St. Lucy school are a direct reflection of this. Although there are students that come from the surrounding counties to Mid-Atlantic urban center, 80% to 85% of students live within walking distance and come from the surrounding school community neighborhood area. In response to the increase in the Latino/a population, the school administration made the decision to transition to a two-way dual-language (Spanish/English) immersion school in 2010.
The principal faced multiple challenges in meeting the needs of the school’s growing Latino/a population while also serving the existing African American population. As more and more Hispanic families were enrolling, the principal believed it was necessary to transition to a model that would be beneficial to the growing Hispanic population as well as the existing English-speaking population already enrolled. This spurred the choice to move to the two-way dual-language model. Without this transition, it would have been a tremendous instructional strain on the teachers at the time, the majority of whom did not speak Spanish nor were trained in teaching English as a second language (TESOL). Economically, the school needed a change. Even though the two schools combined, due to one Catholic school being closed, enrollment continued dropping. Thus, the school was operating on a shoestring budget. The funding at that time did not account for an English as a second language (ESL) instructor. Even if it were in the budget, sending a majority of the school’s population to one part-time ESL teacher would have been neither feasible nor instructionally sound. These factors were presented to the stakeholders—parents, board members, and parish community—to convince them of the need to change direction to make the school more viable. It took time and many months of discussions and research to prove to the school community that a dual-language (English/Spanish) immersion program was the right decision.
The school was invited to join a network of 12 Catholic schools across the nation embarking on a similar journey of adopting a dual-language immersion model, the two-way immersion network of Catholic schools (TWIN-CS). Each of the schools was paired with a mentor, or expert in the area of bilingualism and biliteracy development. In this case, the mentor was a newly hired assistant professor of literacy at a local Catholic university and created a school–university partnership among the Archdiocese and the University. Thus, the mentor was also invited to think through the challenges facing the dual-language implementation. All members of the leadership team, including the principal and faculty mentor, met over the summer to participate in a combined networked professional development opportunity.
In the 2011-2012 school year, the school served approximately 129 students, and the school demographics were 56% Latino/a, 34% African American, 4% multiracial/Other, 3% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1% White. Ninety-seven percent of students received free and reduced price lunch, a proxy for socioeconomic status. As word spreads of the dual-language program, the population of the school is becoming increasingly more diverse both racially and socioeconomically. The school’s enrollment is currently growing; however, the school is still considered a small school serving 186 students with the racial composition being 55% Latino/a, 33% Black, 8% White, and 4% Other. In addition, 56% receive free and reduced price lunch. It is interesting to note that while the school demographics remain similar to the beginning of the program, the socioeconomic diversity is growing as more upper- and middle-class families are opting to send their child to the dual-language immersion program.
The model at St. Lucy School is a 50/50 model meaning that students receive half of the instruction in the target language and half in the heritage language. This decision was made as a result of having a diverse, heterogeneous school population. The school started with the PreK/K class as the first class and because there is only one class per grade level, the teachers teach two grade levels in the target or heritage language (English/Spanish). In addition, native Spanish speakers were being hired both as teachers and teaching assistants to implement the model. School personnel are increasingly becoming diverse. As each school year adds a grade level, more native Spanish-speaking teachers are being hired to be able to implement the program. With all the changes due to reconfiguration of schools and the decision to implement the dual-language program, teacher turnover and staffing has been a concern. Moreover, administration required all teachers to have ESL certification or seek it within a probationary period of 3 years to meet the needs of the student population. In the first year of the program, two new teachers were hired who spoke Spanish to get the program off the ground. Staffing continued to change; prior to implementing the dual-language program, 100% of the faculty were native English-speaking, and currently 60% of the faculty are bilingual and come from diverse countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Puerto Rico.
By adopting a two-way immersion, the administration sought to adopt a more inclusive environment, while the academically rigorous curriculum would allow for biliteracy as well as bilingual language development. These three goals compose the three main tenets of effective bilingual education, namely, (a) sociocultural integration, (b) grade-level language proficiency, and (c) academic achievement as defined by the school for all students (Brisk, 2006; Scanlan & López, 2015). Research has shown that two-way immersion settings benefit both English learners by allowing students to develop English while developing the heritage language, and native English speakers as they interact with real speakers of the foreign language (Alanís & Rodríguez, 2008). Alanís and Rodríguez (2008) argue, “The program provides an atmosphere that allows students to acquire a second language and learn about another culture without sacrificing their individual identities” (p. 306). Thus, many two-way immersion bilingual programs are taken to have more multilingual language ideologies—ideas, notions, feelings about language-in-use shaped by the sociocultural context in which they occur—that guide the curricular and instructional decisions made at the school level (Kroskrity, 2004; Razfar & Rumenapp, 2011).
Case Narrative
While the new mission of St. Lucy was to encourage bilingualism among the students, parents, the faculty, and staff, this mission was met with some tensions as not all stakeholders truly understood what it meant to be a dual-language immersion school. Academic excellence, faith formation, and valuing diversity had been part of the former mission. However, the new mission went further, incorporating the tenets of effective dual-language immersion. More than just valuing diversity, this meant valuing language proficiency, including the process of becoming bicultural and biliterate and achieving academic excellence in both Spanish and English. Some of the native English-speaking parents as well as some of the faculty and staff did not understand the nuances of the new mission and what it meant to embrace the decision to become a dual-language immersion school. Parents were overheard saying, “Why fix things, if it’s not broken” and office staff worried that the Latino/as were “taking over.”
Soon the leadership team (comprising the principal, two dual-language faculty members, and a middle school teacher) noticed underlying assumptions about diverse language use among faculty and students. Some were based on comments made by native English faculty and staff members about the language use of non-native English-speaking faculty. Others were about non-standard uses of languages—particularly African American English (AAE)—by students on the playground and in the classroom. Issues swirling included whether teachers should use standard English with each other while in common spaces such as the teachers’ lunch/workroom, thus privileging English over Spanish and AAE. On the playground and in the hallways, members of the leadership team overheard native English-speaking teachers correcting students’ use of AAE, positioning the use of AAE as deficit rather than as an asset. As more work was being done to help all school community members value Latino/a students’ language as an asset, the leadership team saw the need to ensure that AAE was also valued equally.
The leadership team decided to meet with the faculty mentor during the summer months to strategize addressing these issues at the first faculty meeting of the new school year. Some of the questions that were raised included
What could we do to help faculty and staff see that sociocultural integration means honoring and valuing the language(s) of all the students and the community, including use of AAE and varying dialects of Spanish?
How could we build support for the program model at the school and help all stakeholders understand that academic language proficiency in English and Spanish did not have to exclude other non-dominant forms of language?
How could we communicate effectively about the goals and mission of the school so that greater buy-in and understanding could be developed? And relatedly, how could we help stakeholders understand that the decision to be a dual-language Spanish/English immersion school should not be seen as developing competing agendas about valuing and honoring cultures and languages?
During these meetings over the summer, the leadership team discussed ongoing professional development for faculty and staff on what it meant to restructure for culturally and linguistically responsive schooling (Miramontes, Nadeau, & Commins, 2011; Scanlan & López, 2015). The leadership team created an action plan that utilized a template that discussed an action plan in relation to the tenets of effectively educating bilingual learners. The template included goals for each: promoting sociocultural integration, cultivating language proficiency, and supporting academic achievement. They decided to focus the first faculty meeting on sociocultural integration, as this was one of the tenets they saw as foundational to achieve better results with the other two tenets.
First Faculty Meeting
One member of the leadership team, Kimberly, the middle school teacher, and the faculty-in-residence, Marisa, volunteered to help create an activity for the opening faculty meeting of the year. They wanted to address some of the concerns of the whole leadership team in relation to accepting languages and creating an environment in which all students felt welcome regardless of differing dimensions of diversity, including race, language, class, sexual orientation, and religion. They came up with an activity involving scenarios that were similar to those that were heard the previous year.
As the teachers began to enter the room, there was lots of excitement with the anticipation of a new school year and teachers were chatting about how they spent their summer and the plans and ideas they had for the new school year. Kimberly began the meeting by welcoming the teachers back and introducing the purpose and objective for the meeting: building a professional learning community around sociocultural integration through courageous conversations (Singleton & Linton, 2006). She provided a summary of a professional development session that the leadership attended earlier in the summer and talked about how the faculty needed to come together to explore our beliefs and biases to “embrace the difficulty of the work to move forward” (Wong, 2013). Kimberly continued, As we come together to engage in this work and build our learning community, as I like to say, we need to put on our “big girl” panties, to engage in what might be uncomfortable conversations so that we can discuss issues as we move forward in building a welcoming and supportive environment for our students, and each other to be able to achieve the academic success we seek.
At this point, Kimberly and Marisa introduced the “I AM” poem and the sentence frames that would help identify personal experiences, attitudes, and beliefs that affect teaching and learning. An “I AM” poem is an autobiographical poem that reveals personal information about the writer to the reader. The purpose of doing an “I AM” poem here was to generate personal responses and identify experiences about linguistic identity and schooling to build community to support a professional learning community, one of the goals St. Lucy team set during the summer meetings. Marisa read her “I AM” poem aloud, then the teachers were given time to complete their own templates and share their experiences with each other. After faculty shared their “I AM” poems in pairs, members were invited to share out with the entire group. One of the teaching assistants, Marlene, shared, I really liked this activity. For example, my name is Beatrice, but my nickname is Marlene and it comes from my grandmother and in my country someone called this is because they are small and cute and my grandmother gave me this name and my family uses this name with me, so that’s where my nickname comes from and now other teachers understand why I want to be called that and not go by my other name.
Tension builds
Kimberly and Marisa felt like the day was starting well. After completing this activity and learning more about each other, Kimberly introduced the next activity examining scenarios to be discussed. One of the scenarios used an excerpt from Valdés’ (2003) work in which she argues for examining the intricacies of code-switching and of students acting as interpreters as a measure of cognitive strength and agility rather than as a deficit. Kimberly asked the faculty to think about the excerpt and respond to the following questions:
What strikes you about the language processing, use, choices depicted in the above excerpt?
What might you do if you had to discuss a serious issue with a parent with whom you do not share the heritage language?
What might you do in the above scenario?
Then another scenario was presented in which two students were overheard on the playground arguing over a ball and one student was overheard saying, “That ball, it’s mines.” Teachers were asked to discuss in pairs and to think about how they would respond to this situation and to explain their response.
The ensuing discussion produced varying responses to the different scenarios. In the first scenario about code-switching, teachers seemed to have similar reactions and recommendations about recognizing the bilingualism as an asset. One teacher, Ruth, drew attention to the context of the scenario as inappropriate as students should not be placed in a position of having to translate for the parent in a disciplinary and/or other sensitive issue involving the student. A teacher in the dual-language program, Magdalena, commented on the skills necessary to be able to code-switch so quickly and offered that instantaneous translation is very complicated and advanced, and that this would be a sign that the students at the school had achieved high levels of bilingualism.
In the second scenario with the issue of the use of AAE, there was more tension. One pair stated that they would not correct or draw attention to the comment at all; given the context of the situation, they felt the language use did not warrant intervention. However, they might intervene in relation to helping solve the dispute over the ball. Another pair of teachers shared that they would recast, or rephrase, the sentence using the “grammatically correct” way of stating the word. Another pair agreed that they would correct the statement, because it was not “grammatically correct.” Patricia, one of the teachers in this pair, stated that she felt it was her “job” to correct inaccuracies so that the student could learn how to say it correctly. As more teachers responded, the diversity of stances toward the culture and language of students began to become more apparent, revealing an underlying tension about how to handle such situations.
Kimberly began to wrap-up the discussion by stating that given the context of being on the playground and that the school’s mission was to honor the languages of students, that this would be one way of honoring students’ language and allowing them to use non-standard varieties during the day. Patricia, who had been sitting quietly, began to tear up and stated that she “felt she was just doing the best she could” and felt she was being “targeted” because of her position in correcting the grammar.
Where do we go from here?
At the conclusion of the session, teachers were asked to reflect on what they would take away from the session to the new school year Positive responses were abundant. One reflected that she would “teach to validate students’ culture and language and let them know that there’s a place for their language as well as academic language in the classroom.” Another wrote, “We will be more aware of the ‘love language’ and work to show how they can also develop their academic language.” These responses indicated that there was some understanding around validating the languages of all students within the community.
However, underlying these positive affirmations, Kimberly and Marisa saw uncertainty about how to move forward. Some faculty members’ comments reflected grappling with how to address different Spanish dialects, translations, and “acceptable” usage. Teachers in the two-way immersion classes were concerned that non-native English speakers would learn non-standard varieties of Spanish or “incorrect” versions of Spanish. In addition, teachers grappled with what variety or regional dialectal version (Caribbean, Central/South American, or European Spanish) to use when translating documents that were going to be sent home to parents and were not sure which Spanish variety would be most understood by all parents.
Embedded in these comments were underlying sentiments about the race, class, and socioeconomics. For example, when asking whether parents would understand one teacher’s translation, there were hints of suggesting that parents’ dialects might be inferior or uneducated varieties. There were also disagreements about what Spanish was more “grammatically correct,” again a proxy for standard Spanish varieties. As Kimberly and Marisa processed the feedback, they wondered aloud, “Where do we go from here?”
Teaching Notes
These incidents around language use at St. Lucy highlight how intricately connected race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors are tied together and how these affect educating for equity in achieving effective two-way immersion schooling. These incidents also demonstrate how biased perceptions, interpretations, and implementation of school programs and curriculum, and more specifically the issues of what languages are privileged, even when one of the main goals of the school is to create sociocultural integration. At the heart of these incidents are language ideologies and their impact on sociocultural integration.
Researchers have found that this is a growing area of concern emerging as more two-way immersion programs are being implemented (Hornberger, 2004; Macedo & Bartolomé, 2014; Valdés, 1997). Valdés has suggested that bilingual teachers in bilingual programs need to be cautious about teaching Spanish to heritage speakers in two-way bilingual programs that emphasize standard varieties of Spanish and how this positions students’ Spanish varieties, much in the same way as researchers discuss validating the varieties of English in mainstream classrooms. In two-way immersion programs, this gets more complex as it affects how students’ view their own home languages versus those being officially taught. Hornberger (2004) notes, As monolingual language ideologies continue to exert their sway, both nationally and internationally, we need bilingual educators to be conscious advocates for the language rights and resources of language minority students and speakers of endangered, indigenous, immigrant, and ethnic languages, wherever they may be. (p. 169)
This scholarship suggests that teachers need to be aware of the nature of monolingual language ideologies and how language ideologies affect instruction in such contexts. Teachers must become more flexible in their views of language and language use and adopt more holistic views of language, such as describing language as a verb or process rather than as an object or something tangible that can be possessed (Garcia, 2009; Hornberger, 2004; Razfar & Rumenapp, 2011).
This case study can be used in a variety of ways to help school leaders grapple with these intersecting issues. Faculty can use the case to help both pre-service and practicing administrators to (a) examine their own beliefs and dispositions around race, ethnicity, and language; (b) identify what are the different intersecting factors and barriers that affect implementing effective schooling for culturally and linguistically diverse students; (c) develop further practical exercises and practices that involve enhancing linguistic pluralism and identity development; (d) review current literature on the intersection of race, ethnicity, language, and socioeconomic factors and the inherent tensions in implementing two-way immersion bilingual programs. Below we provide specific examples of how to use this case and build from it.
Book Discussion Readings
We suggest several readings that may support school administrators as they navigate the tensions between the three tenets of quality schooling of culturally and linguistically diverse students. These are excellent to be used in faculty book discussions.
Brisk, M. E. (2006). Bilingual education: From compensatory to quality schooling. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
This book describes the varying programs and models of bilingual education in the United States and provides clear steps toward developing quality schooling for bilingual learners.
Miramontes, O. B., Nadeau, A., & Commins, N. L. (2011). Restructuring schools for linguistic diversity: Linking decision making to effective programs (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
This book highlights the decision-making processes and organizing principles as a framework for developing strong instructional programs for culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
Scanlan, M., & López, F. (2015). Leadership for culturally and linguistically responsive schools. New York, NY: Routledge.
This book provides an avenue to explore both theory and practice as related to leadership for culturally and linguistically diverse schools. The book offers several structures, exercises, and activities to help provide support for anyone interested in transforming schools to effectively educate culturally and linguistically diverse learners.
Discussion Questions
What do you think about the different perspectives and positions that the teachers took in relation to the use of AAE on the playground? What should school policy be around the use of heritage languages?
What are some of the myths and misconceptions around African American Language? Around varying dialects of Spanish?
How can administrators, educators, and staff prepare students to be “college and career ready” and still honor students’ individual heritage languages?
What are some of the nuances that come up in the case study around multilingualism and language ideologies and how these impact schooling?
What are some of the underlying assumptions teachers have about the different student populations/ethnicities and the communities the school serves? How do these assumptions help or hinder student achievement?
What supports might the principal, leadership team, and the teachers need to develop effective practices that honor the languages and identities of the students and the community that the school serves?
In what ways can the parents be involved in the process of understanding and building an effective learning environment that provides opportunities to learn to all of its’ students?
How can students become the “teachers” of their heritage language?
Class Activities
1. Assign Macedo and Bartolomé (2014). Multiculturalism permitted in English only. International Multilingual Research Journal, 8, 24-37.
Divide the class into discussion groups and ask students to
Consider the misconceptions that contribute to linguicism and how this is lined to race and socioeconomic status,
Discuss how this article is linked to the case study,
Brainstorm ways that the leadership team and the professional learning community at the school could counter aspects of linguicism.
2. Conduct a Boalian Theater activity (Boal, 2002) depicting variations of the examples provided in the case around uses of language.
Boalian theater involves asking the spectators of scenes to become actors and becomes more interactive in that the spectators can freeze frame the dialogue and jump in to provide alternative dialogue/solutions to the original script. Participants can freeze frame at any point, even during another participant’s interaction, to interject a different response or way of viewing the scenario. In addition, participants can introduce new characters that may support other characters in changing the dialogue. The idea is to gain as many alternative ways of dealing with scenarios in an attempt to broaden repertoires for responding to the intersections of race, ethnicity, language, culture, and socioeconomic status.
For example, students in a class can reenact the first faculty meeting taking roles in relation to the different response to “That ball, It’s mines” and take the position of the varying teachers presented in the case, while spectators are invited to freeze frame and enter the dialogue to react to what one person was saying or to change the way the character would have responded. Another scene might be around translating materials to be sent home, where several teachers disagree about the wording of the material and the use of different standard and non-standard varieties of Spanish. Once the theater activity has finished, participants can be asked how they felt about the roles they played or how they felt about the different perspectives and viewpoints that were presented in the cases.
Additional Readings
González, N., Moll, L., & Amanti, C. (2009). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge.
Green, L. (2002). African American English: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hudley, A. H. C., & Mallinson, C. (2011). Understanding English language variation in US schools. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Nieto, S. (Ed.). (2014). Why we teach now. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Valdés, G. (1997). Dual-language immersion programs: A cautionary note concerning the education of language-minority students. Harvard Educational Review, 67, 391-429.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.