Developing language awareness for teachers of emergent bilingual learners using dialogic inquiry

This study endeavoured to awaken mainstream teachers’ awareness of language, specifically related to teaching emergent bilingual children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) in the Republic of Ireland. Because EAL learners spend the majority of the day in the mainstream classroom, mainstream teachers’ language awareness may have a significant effect on EAL learners’ long-term language development, social inclusion and ability to access the curriculum. This study used dialogic inquiry intended to awaken teachers’ language awareness through the use of guiding questions intended to explore personal theories, generate collective theories and ultimately compare these to established theories, following a grounded theory approach to professional development. Teachers’ beliefs, as expressed in such a dialogue process, and changes in awareness over the course of the inquiry are discussed in the context of four themes: first and second language acquisition, stages of language learning, use of the first language in the classroom and motivation in language learning. Findings suggest that a dialogic inquiry in the form of a teacher network has the capacity to lead to greater awareness among mainstream primary teachers related to the language acquisition process and linguistic context of their emergent bilingual students.