Prove it: the importance of children’s language ideology in dual-language programming / Demuéstralo: la importancia de la ideología lingüística de los niños en los programas de educación bilingüe

Abstract

This piece is about a pivotal moment in my development as a scholar in Dr. Luis Moll’s class. I was certain that young children held fully formed language ideologies. He said he was not convinced. For my final assignment, he told me to prove to him that the language ideology of children mattered in a dual-language classroom. And with this challenge, and the motivation of wanting to win, emerged an important research strand that shaped my scholarly trajectory. Taking on his challenge, the research I conducted in a Spanish dual-language kindergarten classroom demonstrates the inextricable connection between language ideology, identity and the language practices of young Spanish heritage learners in the Arizona borderlands. I show how the students’ view of their Spanish proficiency differed from the institution’s perception and how it challenged simple categorization. This work argues that the experience of Spanish heritage learners in the dual-language classroom is complex, particularly as it relates to language and identity, and by taking a child-centric perspective we can better understand their experiences in the dual-language classroom.