| In two-way bilingual education (TWBE) programs, minority and majority language students come together to learn academic content, achieve dual-language proficiency, and develop cross-cultural friendships. Previous research has examined various aspects of TWBE, including program implementation, student attitudes toward bilingualism, and the quantifiable academic success of program participants. This study sought to answer questions surrounding the nature of native/non-native speaker collaboration in a TWBE classroom, namely: (1) What types of utterances characterize the NS/NNS collaboration? (2) What language(s) is used for NS/NNS collaboration? (3) Does the collaboration of the NS/NNS pairs differ in the English and Spanish language environments? (4) Why do students use English for much of the collaboration that occurs in the Spanish classroom? (5) To what extent does a reversal of status roles take place in the NS/NNS pairs when students change language environments?; The setting for the study was a 3rd-grade class in a Spanish-English TWBE program. Audiotaping of pair work during math time, along with observations and interviews with students and teachers, were methods used to examine the collaboration that occurred between two NS/NNS pairs as they worked together in both language environments.; In the English classroom, students used only English for their collaboration, which focused primarily on math content. In the Spanish classroom, students used Spanish and English, and more collaboration focused on language. The use of English allowed for mutual participation and the expedient completion of academic tasks. While a reversal of status roles was observed in part, such reversal was complicated by individual students' characteristics, language use in the classroom, and the inability of native Spanish speakers to serve consistently as language resources.; TWBE students must be viewed as individuals with varying degrees of bilingualism and academic skills. Moreover, being a “native speaker” does not guarantee that a student will possess unlimited language knowledge or think it necessary to act as a resource. Finally, teachers must set language objectives for academic tasks because students prioritize academic content learning and the maintaining of cross-cultural friendships ahead of second language learning. |
