Dual language immersion : the educational practices that contribute to the success of English only kindergarten students in learning Spanish

The focus of this study is to learn what the formal and informal educational practices are that contribute to the success of English-only (EO) kindergarten students participating in a two-way immersion (TWI) program in learning Spanish. In order to research this topic I conducted a case study of two EO kindergarten students. Over an eight-week period I worked with each student once a week in a small group lesson. Throughout each lesson, I observed which teacher scaffolds proved to be most effective in helping the students not only learn Spanish, but also be able to access the content of each lesson. In addition, I audio-taped each lesson so that I could later listen to each lesson and collect evidence of student learning in order to validate that the teacher scaffolds that I had used were indeed effective. Furthermore, I interviewed the parents of these two EO students in order to learn what techniques they use with their children at home to help them learn Spanish. I also spent a lot of time observing these students interact with other students during recess and exploration to see how their classmates helped them in learning Spanish