Literacy‐based Play with Young Emergent Bilinguals: Explorations in Vocabulary, Translanguaging, and Identity Work

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the findings from a formative study focused on language and literacy development in an international school's K5 classroom in South America. The teacher's pedagogical goal was to increase the amount of English used by students related to the social context of a restaurant. The intervention involved an integrated literacy and play‐based unit to introduce, reinforce, and support vocabulary development and opportunities for independent play related to the content/vocabulary. The authors analyze video recordings of the students' independent play three times a week for 6 weeks using two different theoretical and methodological approaches. The authors collected quantitative data related to English usage and codeswitching analysis, and qualitative data of students' interactions, translanguaging, and identity work. The quantitative findings reveal a significant increase in English usage during independent play. The qualitative findings explore the ways in which young bilinguals draw on all their linguistic resources and use translanguaging practices to navigate play and negotiate identity. The constraints and affordances of each approach are discussed as the authors present new theoretical contributions by utilizing codeswitching and translanguaging approaches to explore the pedagogical intervention and student identity work. This study provides implications for literacy and play‐based instruction for multilingual learners.