Alondra's Biliteracy Development Across Domains

 Alondra Reyes Ponce’s language development has been influenced by numerous factors.  She has been a student in the U.S. for five years and knows that her family came here for the sole purpose of offering her and her brothers a better education.  Alondra takes this seriously.  She has lofty goals and is a highly motivated student.  She invests herself wholly in her learning and values the information her teachers share with her.  She has been taught these values by her parents who attach great importance to her education, literacy and being bilingual.  Alondra began her journey to becoming bilingual at the age of seven.  The majority of her learning has been in English which is evident in the patterns and work she demonstrates in both English and Spanish. 

In analyzing Alondra’s language development there are clear patterns that have presented themselves.  Across the domains of reading, writing and oral language development, Alondra’s academic skills are strongest in English. This seems logical given that she has had more formal instruction in her L2 over the last five years.  Alondra speaks to her teachers in English, including me, even though I am bilingual and her reading and writing analyses demonstrate higher level skills in her L2 as well. 

With the limited amount of formal academic Spanish instruction that Alondra has received, her literacy skills in her L1 are remarkably strong.  Though not as strong as her reading and writing skills in English, Alondra shows the potential to maintain and improve the base skills she has with appropriate practice.  At home and in her free time Alondra likes to read and write in Spanish keeping her heart and mind connected to reading and writing in her native language.   

Specific patterns or in this case lack thereof are found across the domains.  Throughout the three there is very little evidence of code-switching.  Alondra code switched the most when we spoke in Spanish.  She interjected a few words in English as we talked about favorite pastimes and daily life.  She told me she prefers to speak to her friends in Spanish:  “A veces, digamos, most of the time me gusta más hablar con ellas en español.”  Throughout six pages of hand-written text, (2 in English and 4 in Spanish), Alondra only used one instance of code switching when she stated “mi escuela es bilingual”.    

More evident is the use of cross language transfer in Alondra’s oral and written language.  Alondra’s written and oral language assessments both demonstrated use of cross language transfer. Alondra’s misuse of the preposition of in both her oral and written language is a clear example of this transfer.  During her oral language assessment, Alondra told me:  “I am reading a book of a girl who finds out her sister is sick.”  She also wrote in story in English: “I told my mother of it right away.”  Another example of language transfer found in Alondra’s English writing is her misuse of “after” for later.  “After her mother and her mother’s friends came to see Alondra.  She was covered in Atole.”  The writing Alondra shared in Spanish showed no evidence of language transfer, however, the sentence structure and vocabulary usage was more simplistic. 

Alondra’s vocabulary usage is richest in English in both reading and writing.  When I asked Alondra which language she prefers to read and write in she told me Spanish, but added, “but I do both more in English.”  Interestingly enough, the story that Alondra is writing at home just for fun, she is writing in English.  The vocabulary is not outstandingly rich, but does offer a variety such as “poke a hole” and “amazingly”.  Syntax errors also made an impact on Alondra’s writing in English.  She needs further practice using past tense verbs for example.  In Spanish, Alondra’s writing sample was an affidavit which used less descriptive and more redundant vocabulary, such as bueno/a and me gusta repeatedly.  There were less syntax errors if discourse pattern is taken into consideration as many sentences were run-on.  During her reading analysis it was evident that Alondra’s comprehension of the texts in both languages was strong.  However, she shared that she found the words in Spanish more challenging because they weren’t words she uses very often.  In English she was able to tell me what the words petticoats, rueful and tolerantly all meant which was very impressive for any student her age.  Alondra told me that she found the text more difficult in Spanish due to vocabulary she wasn’t very familiar with.  It did not diminish her comprehension, but did impact her fluency. 

In the article Teaching Literacy in Spanish by Escamilla, she states that letters and letter combinations that have the same sound create spelling problems for Spanish speakers.  The “Monster Letters” were Alondra’s biggest obstacle in her L1 writing. I believe this can be directly linked to Alondra’s lack of direct instruction, and practice reading and writing in Spanish.  How is her language meant to develop without guidance and reassurance?  As motivated as this young lady is she cannot do it all on her own.  For her, English language development is another story. 

The improvement in Alondra’s MAP reading scores (783 in 2010 and 878 in 2011) are a testament to the  impact that her language development has had on her reading and writing skills.  Alondra’s strong ability to read, write and speak confidently in English are all directly impacted by her language development over the last five years in English.  Instruction in her L2, along with Alondra’s positive attitude and strong work ethic, has paved a road to her continued success in the three domains.  According to the article “Struggling Learners and Language Immersion Education” Brown & Yule, 1983; Collier, 1987, 1992; Cummins, 1981)  “Academic-transactional language and literacy skills are fundamental for long-term school success and take … usually between five and seven years (to develop).”   Alondra is a testament to this statement.       

Though it was not discussed during our 30 minutes sessions, as Alondra’s resource teacher, I have observed that Alondra’s exposure to new academic terms in English far outweighs her exposure to the same academic vocabulary in Spanish.  This concerns me.  As I see Alondra’s skills continue to flourish and grow in her L2, what is happening to her literacy skills in her L1?  At the middle school level no formal instruction is offered to Alondra and her classmates in Spanish.  As a student in the transitional stage of writing, according Rubin and Carlin, and at the instructional level for reading, according to Colorín Colorado, instruction and guidance is what Alondra needs to her to the next level of her Spanish language development.  Thankfully, this thoughtful and hard working young lady will sustain her own literacy skills by reading and writing outside of school until she makes it to the appropriate programming at the high school level.