Simultaneous and Sequential Bilinguals in a German Bilingual Program

Bilingual Programs in western Canada provide children with instruction in a non-official language for up to 50% of the school day, and the corresponding curriculum documents are based on the assumption that the prototypical student speaks English at home and is learning the minority language as a second language at school. However, recent changes in immigration patterns in Canada have resulted in diverse linguistic profiles of students for which the Programs were not designed. In this study, nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) is used to examine one elementary German Bilingual Program in which the historical bodies (ways of being) of students are emerging bilinguals (Escamilla & Hopewell, 2009) in the process of developing their identity and proficiency as bilinguals. Based on the nature of their bilingualism, their linguistic profiles can be categorized as (a) simultaneous bilinguals of German and English; (b) sequential bilinguals dominant in English; (c) sequential bilinguals dominant in German; or (d) sequential bilinguals with another home language. The interaction order (ways of doing) of a typical day in the Program, as well as the progression from grade one to grade six, reflects how bilingualism is expressed, supported and integrated in the social context of the school. Numerous discourses in place (ways of thinking) are identified: dialect tolerance, contextual language choice, development of bilingual language proficiency, educational enrichment, identity negotiation, holistic bilingual perspective and a tension between additive and subtractive bilingualism. Historical body, interaction order and the discourses in place converge as a nexus of practice that reveals the relationships among languages, language users and social contexts of this Bilingual Program (Hornberger & Hult, 2008). The results from this study challenge the assumptions of the curriculum, practices within the Program and discourses that do not integrate the diverse linguistic profiles of students. Although the curriculum documents are primarily written with students of one specific linguistic profile in mind, this study reveals that in the context of the German Bilingual Program educators recognize the diverse linguistic profiles of students, but tensions in policy and practice affect the development of bilingualism for all students.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Research

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Dresser, Roswita Aleida Helene

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• O'Brien, Mary Grantham
• Naqvi, Rahat

• Education--Bilingual and Multicultural

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27789

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:11023/178