A community cultural capital approach: bilingual teachers’ perceptions and impact in their dual immersion classrooms

2018-08-02This study applies the community cultural capital and sociocultural theory frameworks to find out dual immersion teachers’ perceptions of the most effective practices in educating culturally and linguistically diverse students. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the research where data is lacking, by exploring bilingual teachers’ perceptions. The three research questions investigated were: What do bilingual teachers report as their approach to learning and language acquisition in their Spanish-English dual language immersion classrooms? What do bilingual teachers perceive as the impact of their approach to learning and language acquisition on their culturally and linguistically diverse students in their Spanish-English dual language immersion classrooms? What non-economic resources do these bilingual teachers identify in their approach to learning and language acquisition in his or her Spanish-English dual immersion classroom? The site and the participants were purposefully selected for this study. The researcher selected one public elementary school and interviewed eight teachers. The researcher used a qualitative methodology with interview protocol. Interviews were recorded and later transcribed. Themes that emerged were teacher-student connection, teaching strategies to teach language learning, effective teaching practices to teach language and ensure student language acquisition, intervention to secure that students are gaining access to the curriculum in both languages, professional development, instructional pedagogies, cultural and linguistic pedagogies, and the six capitals of community cultural. Three main implications are the adequate and relevant professional development for bilingual teachers, the understanding of dual immersion programs by school administrators, and the scarcity of materials for dual language teachers