Look who’s talking now: Examining language use with dual language learners in preschool classrooms

The Language Interaction Snapshot (LISn; Sprachman et al., 2009) was used to measure the quantity and quality of language interactions in English and Spanish in 143 preschool classrooms serving Spanish-speaking dual language learners. Both teachers (n = 112) and assistant teachers (n = 92) were included in analyses with a total of 461 Spanish-speaking children. We report the amount of English and Spanish as well as types of language scaffolding used by teachers and assistants. We also disaggregate by classroom language model (Spanish, bilingual, or English instruction) and explore the amount of Spanish and English specifically used by Spanish-speaking teachers and assistants. Seventy five percent of cycles had no language coded and of the rest English was the most frequently used across all classroom language models including with Spanish-speaking teachers and assistants. Implications for improving classroom language environments for DLLs are presented as well as future research directions.