Creating Bilingual Books to Facilitate Second Language Learning

This article describes a pilot study conducted by teacher candidates (TCs) at an elementary level charter school in Buffalo, New York. The TCs, undergraduate and graduate level college students, enrolled in an English Language Arts/Social Studies methods course block, wrote bilingual English/Spanish information texts and used them in conjunction with a variety of trans-languaging strategies to support Hispanic-American children's acquisition of English while broadening their understanding of grade specific topics in the Social Studies Core Curriculum. Following guided listening and/or reading instruction with the bilingual informational texts, the children were give photocopies of the books for take-home reading practice. A questionnaire was administered post-instruction with the books to examine the efficacy of using the bilingual texts to motivate and increase students' engagement in learning English and gaining knowledge of American culture. Also noted was the extent to which the bilingual books were shared with family members when the books were taken home.