This case study explored the multilingual practices in a community-based Chinese heritage language (CHL) school. Research has shown that embracing multilingualism in K-12 classrooms enhances language minority students’ participation, and nurtures a better relationship between teacher and students (e.g. Martin, 2006). While studies have investigated multilingual practices in K-12 systems, researchers know little about multilingual practices in community-based educational settings, such as CHL schools. This is crucial because as these community-based CHL schools aim to help CHL learners maintain their Chinese language, the language use and practices in the classroom will highly impact the learners’ Chinese learning experiences.
This study examined multilingual practices in one community-based CHL school, and was shaped by two research questions: 1) What are the multilingual practices happening in instruction time? 2) How do the teacher and the CHL learners co-construct learning opportunities through multilingual practices? Fourteen hours of video-taped classroom observation data were collected in a third grade, Midwestern U.S. CHL school. The teacher-student and student-student interaction were analyzed using micro-ethnographic method to examine how the teacher and the students use both Chinese and English to socially construct learning opportunities through ongoing classroom interactions (Bloome, Carter, Christian, & Shuart-Faris, 2005).
Findings suggest that multilingual practices happened at two levels. At the structure level, the teacher designed a Chinese-English translation activity to check students’ reading comprehension of the Chinese text. At the discourse level, the teacher allowed instances for the students to momentarily switch back to English to answer questions to support participation. Whether students were allowed to use English or not was influenced by the teacher’s knowledge of students’ Chinese proficiency levels and learning needs, and her outlook towards students’ Chinese learning ability. The findings inform Chinese heritage language teaching and learning in general.
References:
Martin, P., Bhatt, A., Bhojani, N., & Creese, A. (2006). Managing bilingual interaction in a Gujarati complementary school in Leicester. Language and Education, 20, 5–22.
Bloome, D., Carter, S. P., Christian, B. M., Otto, S., & Shuart-Faris, N. (2005). Discourse Analysis and the Study of Classroom Language and Literacy Events. A Micro ethnographic perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
