Partnership Helps Expand Pre-K Dual Immersion Opportunities in Arizona

Last year,
an innovative partnership between the Helios Education Foundation and two inner city K–8 school districts in
Arizona led to the establishment of the state’s first public two-way language immersion (TWI) pre-K. The newly established pre-K programs
arose from collaboration between Helios, Creighton
and Osborn Elementary
School Districts, Childsplay Theatre
Company, and Arizona
State University.

With the two
districts just over a mile apart, they naturally share similar demographics.
Both are minority-majority school districts (90 percent) with between 13 and 25 percent of students classified as dual language learners (DLLs) and over 90
percent receiving free and reduced lunch. On average, the student populations are made up
of a majority Hispanic/Latino (76 percent) population, followed by African
Americans (8 percent), Caucasians (8 percent), Native Americans (6 percent), and
Asians (1 percent).

The ideal
design of TWI is to enroll roughly equal numbers of native Spanish- and English-speaking
students so that the students can engage in learning language both from the
teacher and from each other. As such, both districts attempt to enroll an equal
number of Spanish and English speaking students. In total, the two school
districts’ pre-K programs serve approximately 243 students across 12 classrooms
and five schools in the central Phoenix area.

The project
partners aimed to explore the opportunities dual immersion education provides,
especially when it comes to improving early language development and
pre-literacy skills. The new initiative enabled participating schools to
provide young preschoolers with a new pathway to the cognitive and social
advantages of becoming bilingual and biliterate.
Over the long term, the project seeks to improve opportunities for the children
to become proficient readers by the end of the third grade. The recently
released policy brief, Using
Dual Language Strategies in the Early Grades, An Early Examination of Helios
Education Foundation’s Initiative to Increase Literacy, outlines the program model, participants,
and early lessons learned by the participating districts.

In
Creighton, the TWI pre-K is the first of its kind. Osborn, on the other hand, has
a nearly twenty-year history of hosting K–6 dual immersion programs. As a
result, the pre-K classrooms now serve as a feeder program for those well-established
programs. Although initially started as two-way models, Osborn’s elementary
school programs are currently restricted by Arizona’s “English-only” policy for
DLLs. Therefore, they currently operate as one-way dual immersion programs in
which only former DLL students now classified as fluent English proficient are
permitted to enroll (for a more detailed description and analysis of this controversial
curricular model see here, here, here, and here).

Because early
childhood programs are not subject to this law, the TWI pre-K programs are
breaking new ground in providing equitable access to dual immersion education for
Arizona DLLs. In Osborn, this is one pathway to improve emergent literacy skills
to the point that by kindergarten their DLL students will be more likely to have
access to their dual immersion program.

According to
the Helios Foundation’s Dr. Karen Ortiz, two goals of the dual immersion project
are “to improve the way early childhood educators teach language and literacy
in DLL classrooms and to establish a continuum of pedagogy in pre-K to promote
kindergarten readiness in all students.” Dr. Ortiz added that one reason for
putting out an RFP for early childhood dual immersion programs was “to address
the challenges in developing emergent literacy skills” amidst Arizona’s
linguistically diverse child population.

Rooted in research on the benefits of dual immersion education and the literature on
DLL best practices, the two districts set out to meet the goal of implementing a
TWI program to improve “language acquisition and literacy for both native and
non-native English speakers” in their schools.

The
implementation process includes two other local partners: Arizona State
University (ASU) and Childsplay Theatre Company. The ASU team is providing
ongoing evaluative research on the early implementation phases and achievement of
the children enrolled in the pre-K programs. Childsplay, on the other hand, is
providing a well-established Early Years Educators at Play (EYEPlay) professional
development program to guide the early childhood educators in integrating drama
based early language and literacy learning strategies into their TWI classrooms. 

According to
Dr. Sultan Kilinc, a member of the ASU research team who specializes in early
childhood pedagogy, the Childsplay model focuses on the “multisensory
connection between vocabulary, stories, and experiences in the child’s world”
by combining drama-based teaching practices such as pantomiming and group story
building with “specific language and curricular objectives” (i.e. receptive language,
expressive language, and problem solving). When combined with the TWI model, it emphasizes key vocabulary in
both languages through scaffolded activities that encourage high levels of
child creativity and participation.

Research on Childsplay’s EYEPlay program has found that this model
bolsters early language and pre-literacy teaching practices and builds more inclusive
learning environments that support all students including DLLs and students with
disabilities. Its success in early childhood classrooms lies in the
participatory nature of the drama-based curriculum, which allows students to
demonstrate their knowledge both verbally and kinesthetically in their first or
second language. This environment provides students with more opportunities to
engage in learning activities, while at the same time positioning the
young learners’ home languages and cultures as assets to be shared not only
through teacher directed learning, but also as the children play and learn from one another each day.

In their first implementation year, the TWI pre-K programs learned
valuable lessons from each school and classroom. Specifically, the ASU research
team’s initial inquiries have found that the participating pre-K programs reported
greater student engagement and improved reading comprehension. At the same
time, the participating schools struggled with finding qualified bilingual/biliterate
educators, establishing new teaching dynamics between the often monolingual teacher leads and their
bilingual teaching assistants, and in securing a solid level of understanding
about the purpose of the dual immersion project at all levels — administrative,
lead teachers, and paraprofessionals. 

However, it
is evident the opportunities this unique partnership is creating for Arizona’s
youngest learners far outweigh the challenges. In a state with an unfortunate
history of restrictive language polices, these trailblazing districts are exemplifying
a different path for improving access to early childhood literacy and dual
language learning for both DLLs and non-DLLs alike.