Why Isn’t Matthew Speaking Spanish?
Understanding language choices in a Dual
Language classroom
Bernard Koontz
Highline Public Schools
ABSTRACT
This paper explores how young children make choices to speak
Spanish, or not, in Dual Language classrooms. The author
reviews literature related to language choice and identity
formation. Through multiple interviews and observations,
next steps are identified that relate to building students’
metacognitive skills in order to build internal motivation and
drive to develop language skills.
B
efore dinner, I ask my six-year old son, “¿Qué estudiaste hoy?” He answers me in
English, understanding my question in Spanish through context, repetition, and
perhaps some emerging oral comprehension. I try a harder question, “¿Todavía
estás estudiando las nubes, ó ya cambió el tema?” Frustrated with me, he snarls back animal
noises. I persist and repeat the question, to which he answers appropriately, again in
English. This kind of dialogue repeats in my house at least three or four times a week as I
explore how my native-English speaking son is learning Spanish.
My role as a school district administrator is to support Dual Language programs
implemented at two schools, and expanding to two more. Dual Language is a critical, and
high profile, initiative in the school system I work for, a mid-size urban school district in
the Pacific Northwest. It is a key strategy to promote overall academic achievement of our
students learning English as a second language. Of course it yields a wide range of benefits
for all students who participate in. As I support various aspects of the program, ensuring
Spanish language skills are fully developed has emerged as a key topic. Despite hard work
in aligning curriculum, identifying materials, developing assessments, and much more, we
hear less than robust use of Spanish in the classrooms, from both native Spanish and nonPage 142
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013
native Spanish speakers. Obviously, robust use of both English and Spanish is needed for a
program to develop biliterate students.
My professional life, and my life as a father, overlap in this area, and compel me to seek
understanding and work towards answers of what I can do to provide guidance to ensure
our Dual Language programs fully support and embrace the use of Spanish. Having a sixyear old son, I fully understand the importance and potential of the student’s role in the
learning process. While teacher moves, materials, and program model all play critical roles,
my little boy reminds me that he makes minute-by-minute choices that shape his learning.
For this reason I was drawn to look at language decision making, and how it relates to
language learning, from the student’s perspective. I explored the following questions:



What motivates students to use, or not use, Spanish?
How do students decide to speak Spanish or English?
What do students understand about language learning?
Together, these questions help me to explore and understand a central question around
why students are not speaking more Spanish.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Research on Dual Language is a rapidly growing field. To explore questions on student
experience and language decision making, I narrowed my focus in reviewing literature to
recent research on language identity, ideology, and decision making. These articles
provided me with multiple perspectives and theories from which to better understand how
my son is learning, as well as all the other students in our Dual Language program.
Jin Sook Lee, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has written extensively with
a number of partners on language learning in Dual Language settings. In her work with
Laura Hill-Bonnet and Jesse Gillispie, she challenges the notion that strict separation of
languages is advantageous, which is often an assumed condition for Dual Language
classrooms (Lee, 2008). Rather, she describes the need to create and foster “interactional
spaces” where students can develop their bilingualism. She discusses the danger of
developing “thickened identities” for Spanish and English that can develop through
practices that create strict Spanish and English spaces. Rather than fostering the use of
Spanish or English, Lee found this resulted in students understanding themselves as either
a Spanish speaker or an English speaker – but not as bilingual. Following this, she suggests
classrooms need to teach how to be bilingual – not just able to speak to languages, but to be
able to make decisions about language use across two languages. She makes it clear that
bilingualism is more complex than being a monolingual speaker in two languages.
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 143
In another work with Anne Marie Coyoca, Lee addresses language brokering and develops
a typology to analyze it (Coyoca, 2009). To define the term, she uses Tse’s definition for
language brokering: “interpretation/translation between culturally/linguistically different
people within mediating interactions” (Tse, 1996). Most research on language brokering
has been in adult contexts. Lee’s research explored the topic in Dual Language classrooms.
She presents a typology to understand language brokering events, which included:



Unidirectional Brokering – student A seeking student B’s assistance
Reciprocal Brokering – student A and student B seeking assistance from each other
Distributed Brokering – students A seeking assistance from multiple students
By analyzing student discourse through these three typologies, opportunities and
limitations were identified for language learning. Specifically, continued unidirectional
brokering events can have negative consequences.
Teachers can look for and foster opportunities for
the dominance of English
reciprocal brokering, in which students work together
in a more balanced relationship, and avoid developing
is makes language
rigid or limited identities.
learning experience
In another work, Lee continues to examine language
fundamentally different
brokering, specifically looking at identity and learning
opportunities in Dual Language classrooms (Lee,
for native English and
2011). She directly explores how identities are
native Spanish speakers
formed, and how thickened identities can limit
student’s use of their second language. Dual Language
can provide a context for shifting “who is able.”
However, this doesn’t always happen. Rather, a “double bind” can be created, described
here: “…they [students] often need assistance from a language broker to access the
information necessary to participate in a learning task but by receiving help from a broker
they are often placed in a position in which they are unable to be perceived as being able by
others.” This, of course, has negative repercussions for how the student understands
herself and her ability to be bilingual. From this, Lee again identifies the need for the
teachers to foster opportunities for students to work together in balanced relationships.
Dinah Vok and Maria Angelova examine language ideology and language choice in Dual
Language classrooms (Volk, 2007). To define language ideology, they use a MartinezRoldán and Malavé’s definition: “beliefs and attitudes shared by individuals regarding the
use of a particular language in both oral and written form in the context of power struggles
among different groups” (Martinez-Roldán, 2004). They identify the cultural capital
associated with English and its dominance. Because of this, they explain how learning
English as the dominant language in the US is a different process than learning Spanish as a
Page 144
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013
“foreign” or less dominant language. In most of the US, Spanish is not spoken extensively
or exclusively outside the school setting – the dominance of English makes the language
learning experience fundamentally different for native English and native Spanish
speakers.
Minda Morren López from Texas State University explored language ideologies with Dual
Language program students through discussions based on children’s literature (Lopez,
2011). She analyzed several discussions with students, and uncovered that students want
to talk about their experiences learning languages – “young students need to have the space
to discuss their experiences of language and language use.”
Susan Ballinger and Roy Lyster from McGill University examine teacher and students
language use in Dual Language classrooms (Ballinger, 2011). They identify a trend that
students will choose to use Spanish in teacher interactions, but not with student-student
interactions. They further discuss the problematic nature of teachers appearing
“ambivalent” about students’ use of Spanish – if the teachers are OK with the kids not
speaking Spanish, they are receiving a message that it is not important for them to use
Spanish with each other.
In reviewing this literature, I was struck by the how the strongly the themes resonated with
my own experience. I found the concepts of language ideology, language brokering,
thickened identities, and interactional spaces very compelling in understanding student
experiences I observed. The concepts work together in the figure below:
Language
Ideology
Interactional Spaces, with
Language brokering
occurring
Student entering a Dual
Language program
Threat of
Thickened
Identities
This figure graphically depicts how these concepts work together. As a student enters a
Dual Language program, she moves into a series of interactional spaces that require her to
receive input and produce output in two different languages. She will take different roles
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 145
in language brokering, based on her fluency in the two languages, her content area
knowledge, and her overall linguistic ability to pull ideas from one language to the other. In
the interactional spaces, there is a threat she will create a thickened identify for herself and
others, as “Spanish speakers” or “English speakers,” which can limit her self-concept as a
strong bilingual. The end result is her language ideology which will shape how she
understands language use, and ultimately makes decisions about her own language
learning.
This set of concepts, in relation with one another, provides me with a way to understand
what I observe in my son’s experience, as well as in the classrooms I visit and the successes
and challenges teachers share with me. By focusing on these four key concepts, I am able
to frame my understanding and ground it in a broader body of research on the topic.
CONTEXT
While I have daily opportunities to understand how my son understands language learning,
and what motivates his decisions, the father-son relationship obviously complicates how I
would collect and analyze data. Nevertheless, this is part of my experience and learning,
and plays a role in informing how I understand and explore the questions. While my son is
not the subject of this study, it remains an important reference point for my understanding.
For this study, I chose to work in Maria Garcia’s 2nd grade Spanish-language classroom at
Summit View Elementary School. Summit View has experienced a demographic shift over
the last 10 years, with a dramatic increase of Latino students, as well as an increase in
poverty levels. It is a K-6 elementary school in its 5th year of implementing a 50:501, twoway, Spanish-English Dual Language program as a strand within the school of over 600
students. Summit View is supported by the school district in the implementation of the
Dual Language program as a key strategy in increasing the overall achievement of ELLqualified students. Much of the program design has been informed by the Gomez and
Gomez model from Texas. Each grade level has a Dual Language teaching team of a Spanish
teacher and an English teacher.
I chose Garcia’s classroom for a few reasons. She shared my interest in understanding
students’ language decisions. In her third year of teaching at Summit View, she consistently
uses practices to encourage students to use Spanish throughout the day, making content
accessible and providing multiple opportunities to learn and practice language. Her
rapport with students, classroom management, organization and delivery of instruction are
all very strong. Because of this, there were multiple teacher-directed tools and strategies in
1
50:50 refers to the percent of time spent in the program in Kindergarten; some programs begin with higher
rd
percentages in the non-English language, and move to 50% by 3 grade
Page 146
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013
place to support students’ use of Spanish – this allowed me to easily focus on how and
when the student made language choices.
Within Garcia’s class, I selected Matthew to observe. I observed the whole class, and
watched for non-native Spanish speakers that attempted some Spanish language use, and
easily engaged in discourse. I chose this criterion because for the purpose of this study I
wanted a student that would produce ample language to analyze. Matthew came to school
in Kindergarten as a Tagalog-English bilingual student with typical development of other 5
year olds.
METHOD AND ANALYSIS
I observed Garcia’s class 13 times for 60-90 minutes over 6 weeks. Typically I observed a
whole-class lesson on science topics that lasted about 30 minutes, followed by 30 minutes
of partner and team work. After that, students moved to work with partners in Bilingual
Centers for 30 minutes. After the first few sessions I began to conduct informal interviews
with Matthew during the Bilingual Center time. I also interviewed his native-Spanish
speaking partner, and occasionally other students in the class. I did not audio record the
observations or interviews, but took extensive notes, capturing key dialogue and tracking
language use carefully. As described above, the focus of the study was intentionally not on
the teacher, but rather on the student. Because of this, my direct interaction with the
teacher was limited.
A few sessions into the work, Matthew became very interested in the small, red, fauxleather bound notebook I took notes in. Following this interest, I provided Matthew with
his own small, red, faux-leather bound notebook to take notes in as well. This provided me
an opportunity to set Matthew up to collect additional data when I was not present. While
this did not yield significant data, it provided a regular point of engagement during our
interactions.
In the last four sessions, in addition to the interviews in the last 30 minutes of my
observations, I began to address Matthew directly during instruction – sometimes asking
him questions to understand what was motivating him, and in other cases giving him direct
guidance in how to navigate the linguistic landscape.
To analyze the data, I reviewed my notes with three objectives:

Quantify Spanish and English language use for Matthew, disaggregated by
interactions with peers and with the teacher

Identify trends of what was happening when he chose to use Spanish
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 147

Uncover themes in interview responses of how Matthew understands his own
language use.
These three lenses inform the findings described below.
FINDINGS
The majority of Matthew’s language utterances were in English. I defined an utterance as
any time he spoke aloud. Some utterances were single word responses, others were multisentence explanations or requests for information. Of 144 utterances I documented, 86%
(124) were in English. Of the 20 utterances in Spanish, 65% (13) were interactions with
the teacher. When asking the teacher a question, 50% (6) were in Spanish. When
responding to a question from the teacher, 32% (7) were in Spanish.
Table 1: Language Choices
Interactions Asking
with peers
questions
Responding to
questions
Interactions Asking
with
questions
teacher
Responding to
questions
English Spanish
83
6
20
1
15
7
6
6
124
20
This suggests a difference in the interactional space between Matthew and Ms. Garcia, and
Matthew in his peers. Ms. Garcia never engaged in English with Matthew, while his peers
almost always addressed him English. Ms. Garcia’s persistent use of Spanish appears to
create a space where Matthew is more likely to engage in Spanish, whereas the space
between his peers is not yielding that result – only 6% of his utterances to peers were in
English, whereas 38% of utterances to the teacher were in English. Beyond consistent use
of Spanish, Ms. Garcia also employed a number of techniques that appeared to encourage
Matthew’s use of Spanish, including:

Rephrasing English responses in Spanish, with an implicit expectation that Matthew
repeats them

Offering multiple key words for answers after a question was asked

Asking one-word questions, rather than more complex questions
Page 148
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013
These intentional moves appear to create an interactional space that increases the
likelihood that Matthew would engage in Spanish.
With his peers however, the interactional space does not result in decisions to use Spanish.
There were very few instances when peers used any techniques to encourage Spanish use.
The few times they did, it was simply to say, “En español,” – when this happened, it was
usually shortly after the teacher or I encouraged the group to use Spanish. These efforts on
the part of students were short lived, and did not shift the habit of students to shift back to
English. I had expected to find instances of language brokering where Matthew would be
trying to engage peers for help in producing oral Spanish, but this did not happen in my
observation. His oral comprehension, supported by strong sheltered instruction, allowed
him to access the content he needed to understand to successfully in engage in classroom
activities.
After most of my observations, I conducted informal interviews with Matthew, seeking to
understand how he understands language learning and his own language use. In the last
few observations, I began to ask him questions while he was working with peers to better
understand his language choices. A consistent theme emerged in these conversations – he
was not a Spanish speaker, and to become a Spanish speaker, his teacher, and to a lesser
extent his peers, need to do things. This suggests a “thickened identity” of who he is as an
English speaker, and dependency on others to develop Spanish skills. I explored the idea of
how he learns language several times. I asked him to reflect on his language learning on
days I was not there. I used multiple metaphors to ask him about language learning. One of
these stands out as a clear example of how he understands language learning. It is
paraphrased here:
BK: Let’s talk about how you learn language. I want you to think about how you get
dressed. Who decides if you are going to wear a long sleeve shirt, or short sleeve short?
Blue or white?
M: I do.
BK: OK, and do you get dressed by yourself?
M: Yes
BK: Now let’s talk about getting your haircut. Do you cut your own hair?
M: No
BK: So somebody else does the work to get your haircut, but you’re the one that’s
different after, right?
M: Yes
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 149
BK: So, when you learn Spanish, which one is it like, getting dressed or getting your
hair cut?
M: Getting my hair cut.
BK: Tell me more about that.
M: The teacher does it.
BK: What does that mean?
M: She teaches me the word and makes me write them.
BK: What do you have to do to learn it?
M: Listen to the teacher.
This exchange is typical of conversations I had with Matthew about his language learning.
He demonstrated a dependency on the teacher for his learning of Spanish, without any
initiative on his own part. He never demonstrated a belief that he could take initiative to
learn Spanish.
In another interview, I further explored the topic with him, paraphrased here:
BK: Do you like to eat vegetables?
M: No
BK: Do you like to eat cookies?
M: Yeah
BK: If you were at home, and it was time for a snack, and there were vegetables and
cookies, which would your mom want you to eat?
M: The vegetables.
BK: Why?
M: They’re good for me.
BK: What would you do if your mom wasn’t there and you could choose by yourself?
M: Cookies!
BK: Are they good for you?
M: No
Page 150
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013
BK: Hmm…. So this reminds me of what happens in class sometimes. When it’s time to
work with your partner, you can choose Spanish or English, right?
M: Yeah
BK: Which do you usually pick?
M: English
BK: What if the teacher’s there?
M: Spanish
BK: Why?
M: Because it helps me learn Spanish.
BK: Do you want to do that?
M: Yeah
BK: So why does the teacher have to be there for you to speak Spanish
M: [shrugs]
This dialogue highlighted Matthew’s awareness of what he could be doing to learn Spanish,
but his apparent lack of drive and initiative to make the decision to try more. He is clearly
reliant on the teacher to “make him” speak Spanish.
DISCUSSION
I was drawn to this study to understand what motivates students to use, or not use, Spanish, as well
as their decision making process, and what they understand about language learning. I got to know
Matthew, an English-dominant speaker who entered the Dual Language program with a
positive attitude about wanting to learn Spanish. His Spanish classroom is a great
environment with multiple supports for accessing language. The strong teaching in the
classroom and his positive attitude would suggest a higher level of Spanish use, as would
the non-threatening atmosphere shared by the students. His oral comprehension appeared
strong, demonstrated by participation in non-verbal activities. His oral production,
however, is very limited, as described above. This brings us to the question: Why isn’t
Matthew speaking Spanish?
His motivations for actually speaking Spanish appear to be rooted in a belief that he should
respond to the teacher in Spanish, and through that, he will learn Spanish. This is
demonstrated in the analysis of Spanish and English utterances, as well as interview data
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 151
described above. His choices to speak in English with his classmates appear to be
unexamined, or are perhaps based in the belief that the teacher is the one that will initiate
and operationalize his Spanish learning.
The interviews suggest Matthew has limited awareness of how he learns language. He
believes the teacher will be the one to “make him” learn Spanish – in one response he said,
“I speak Spanish when Ms. Garcia tells me to.” He never articulated, or demonstrated, a
belief that he could take initiative to use Spanish, ask questions about it, or otherwise direct
his own language learning. Instead, he demonstrated a passive orientation to how he
would learn. Only when directly engaged by the teacher will he produce oral Spanish.
From this analysis, I can identify a few possible answers to why Matthew isn’t speaking
more Spanish:
1. He needs more direct expectations from the teacher and his peers to produce
Spanish
2. He needs to develop more metacognitive awareness around his own language
learning, and be encouraged to take initiative
The practical answer likely lies in a combination of the two answers. There is room in the
instructional landscape to raise expectations, and accountability for Spanish language use.
This however, will only work when the teacher is there to make it happen, and could have
the unintended consequence of reinforcing a thickened identity of Matthew as the Englishspeaker and the teacher as the one that will make Spanish learning happen. To ensure this
does not happen, Matthew needs to understand his own agency in developing language
skills. Empowered with this, he will make more choices to use Spanish as he strives to
learn the language. Together with raised expectations and accountability, this will likely
result in Matthew speaking much more Spanish. In my own my home, I also realize
parents can play a major role in setting the expectation for Spanish use at home and in
school, and to develop metacognitive awareness.
NEXT STEPS
As I reflect on the impact of this learning for our system of Dual Language programs, I see a
few possibilities for next steps. As a parent, I am also reflective of what I can do with my
own little boy to ensure his development as a bilingual student. Next steps for our system
could include:

Developing lessons on language learning that teachers can use with individual
students or whole groups, with explicit examples of how students can initiate their
own language learning
Page 152
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013

Incorporate regular language-learning reflection into the instructional landscape –
likely in literacy instruction – with the goal of developing students’ sense of agency
in their language learning

Identify and enhance existing teacher practices that raise expectations and
accountability for Spanish use

Share information with families on questions they can ask and conversations to
initiate with their children about their language learning
As Matthew continues in the program, along with my son, I look forward to pursuing these
next steps as we build a strong program to develop bilingual students.
Why isn’t Matthew speaking Spanish?
Page 153
References
Ballinger, S. & Lyster, R. (2001) Student and teacher oral language use in a two-way
Spanish/English immersion school. Language Teaching Research, 15(3) 289-306.
Coyoca, A. & Lee, J. S. (2009) A Typology of Language-Brokering Events in Dual-Language
Immersion Classrooms. Bilingual Research Journal, 32, 260-279.
Lee, J. S., Hill-Bonnet, L, & Gillispie, J. (2008) Learning in Two Languages: Interactional
Spaces for Becoming Bilingual Speakers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism, 11(1) 75-94.
Lee, J. S., Hill-Bonnet, L, & Raley, J. (2011) Examining the Effects of Language Brokering on
Student Identities and Learning Opportunities in Dual Immersion Classrooms. Journal of
Language, Identity and Education, 10(5) 306-326.
Lopez, M. (2011) Children’s language ideologies in a first-grade dual-language class. Journal
of Early Childhood Literacy, 2(2) 176-201.
Martínez-Roldán, C., & Malavé, G. (2004) Language ideologies mediation literacy and
identity in bilingual contexts. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 4, 155-180.
Tse, L. (1996) Who decides? The effect of language brokering on home-school
communication. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 16, 225234.
Volk, D. & Angelova, M. (2007) Language Ideology and the Mediation fo Language Choice in
Peer Interactions in a Dual-Language First Grade. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 6(3), 177-199.
Page 154
Highline Language Learning Research Journal Volume 4 April 2013