I teach in a dual language second grade classroom in an urban district. My classroom is made up of a very unique population, where as half my students are Spanish speaking children and the other half of my class are English-speaking children. The students spend a week in my classroom receiving content-based instruction in English. They then switch classrooms with another group of students with an equal make-up of language dominance who have spent the week learning content embedded instruction in Spanish. This switch happens every week, forming our full immersion program in the second grade.
Since I have these second language learners in my class, I emphasize interaction between the students, and guided discourse or instructional conversations, with an expert, possibly the teacher or another adult in the classroom. Instructional conversations in the classroom are just that, a conversation between the students and teacher with an instructional goal (Goldberg, 1991). However the design and delivery of the conversation is not a simple as that. An instructional conversation (IC's) needs to be carefully constructed by the teacher to draw on the students' experience, knowledge and language ability. When children are given the time to manipulate and experiment with the language they gain a deeper understanding of the content and language structure. Interaction also lays the foundation for valuable written production. Using a variety of photographs to center guided conversations for students to compare and discuss can be the perfect catalyst for interaction.
Effective pedagogy for teaching second language learners requires that teachers use a variety of teaching techniques while imbedding language in content. This unit follows this theory. Students will work in small groups, participate in carefully guided conversations and work on cooperative activities as they develop skills to critically examine photographs. Taught early enough in the school year, these skills have the potential to provide the students with strategies they can use