A Description of Literacy Instruction in a First Grade Two-way Immersion Classroom

Resumen

This study describes a bilingual teacher during whole group Spanish instruction in a two-way immersion first grade classroom. Inductive analysis, as domain analysis, was used in the study. The data came from four literacy lessons and two teacher interviews during the 2009-2010 school year. Findings indicated that the bilingual teacher promoted opportunities for students to use and develop language. Her teaching practiceswere based on a Contextualization/Problematization/Decentralization framework, which served as an instructional framework and pedagogical combination to student language production. The bilingual teacher provided students with a context for language comprehension, presented students with problems that needed solving, and decentralized her role for students to become autonomous problem-solvers and negotiators. This study adds to the extant literature about effective teaching practices to foster language opportunities for students to build and practice the minority language in two-way immersion classrooms in the United States.