Dual Language Teachers’ Use of Conventional, Environmental, and Personal Resources to Support Academic Language Development

Abstract

This article reports findings from a study that investigated the ways in which first-grade dual language teachers drew on various resources to instructionally support academic language development among Spanish-English emergent bilingual students. Classroom observations, semistructured interviews, and document collection were conducted over a period of one school year. Findings indicate that: (a) teachers had differential access to personal and environmental resource streams; (b) teachers drew on multiple, interactive resource streams; and (c) there were some tensions within resource streams. Findings have implications for the preparation of teachers who will work in increasingly linguistically diverse classrooms in which academic language is much needed.