Building Better Bilingual Habits
The default mode in US education is monolingualism.
I want to lay out a common scenario I find in my interviews and observations of bilingual teachers. And by “bilingual teachers” I mean teachers who work in bilingual/Dual Language classrooms and who are also bilingual speakers. You are a US-born Latina who speaks both English and Spanish pretty regularly, but your default language is English. In other words, you prefer to speak in English. You begin noticing that when you are stressed (which is often as a teacher in pandemic times), you switch back into English constantly, even on Spanish-instructional days. This "bad habit" makes you feel even worse about your teaching practice, and your supervisors aren't giving you much grace either. It’s a funny thing to be a bilingual teacher in US contexts of schooling. Most educators- even the bilingual-certified ones- almost always think about their lives through monolingual lenses, because that is the dominant perspective here in the US. In other words, Americans have a monolingual bias that filters through our decision-making at every turn. This matters because when teachers are socialized into a society that devalues multilingualism and cultural diversity, the forces acting upon them refiy an “English-First” or “English-Only” mentality that makes behavior change that much harder to enact…which brings me the notion of habits. I think a lot about habits because as a single parent with a toddler, working every day to climb our way out of the pandemic, I yearn for a sense of stability so that I can predict (with some amount of certainty) how to plan, execute, and move through the daily grind. Habit-forming and habit-adjusting is my way of setting up systems and structures with intention such that when my over-stimulated brain is at capacity, I can default to better-attuned systems. Good habits also just make us intrinsically feel better about ourselves! Who doesn’t want that? 
Crowdsourcing: Bad Bilingual Habits
Which leads me to the present topic of looking at Bilingual habits in the context of teaching and learning with Multilingual Learners. I was invited to speak at a conference with Latinx administrators and figured this was a great audience to pitch my ideas about habits-as-theory-of-change. As I prepared for the talk, I polled my LinkedIn community on what kinds of "Bad Bilingual Teaching Habits" they observed. A range of responses flooded my feed, but here were the top 4:
When stressed out, a teacher defaults to whichever language feels easier.
A suspiciously quiet classroom
Throwing a list of tier 3 words on the board and hoping students will learn them through osmosis.
Confused use of language objectives
Let’s look at an example to drive these points home. Let's say you think a silent classroom is best so you spend a lot of effort shushing your students during instructional activities. How would you ever know if a newcomer who's asking his friend "how do you say "por" (multiply) en inglés?" isn't doing his darndest to be able to complete the task, because your gut-response is that if the kid is talking, he’s being disruptive? Or consider if you have some intermediate MLLs in your classroom that, if they don't routinely hear rich language models (because their classmates are mostly silent), then their language acquisition may experience further delays.To bring this back to habits and my theory-of-change: teachers are humans and humans are hard-wired to improvise whenever their cognitive resources are depleted. It’s through improvisation that lies on a bedrock of GOOD HABITS that a bilingual teacher can poco a poco make small adjustments that result in meaningful changes in her pedagogy. I define good bilingual teaching habits as those that are (1) simple to understand and use, (2) backed by cognitive, mindfulness and bilingual education research, and (3) that aim to build confidence and competence in teacher pedagogy over time. I define good bilingual teaching habits as those that:
Are simple to understand and use
Are backed by cognitive, mindfulness and bilingual education research
aim to build confidence and competence in teacher pedagogy over time
So, how can I build better bilingual habits?
With this approach in mind, I offer some pathways to help you become the kind of bilingual teacher you’ve always aspired to be. Let’s dig in! 1. Be intentional with your language choices and stick to it!
In my discussion with the Latinx administrators during the conference, one story emerged as a powerful example of what happens when a teacher is intentional with her language choices. This was a high school math teacher who was observed to translanguage with the greatest of ease. Her students trusted her languaging decisions, and she nimbly went across English and Spanish while providing linguistic scaffolds, but kept her modeling and assessment predominantly in one language. This teacher was above else intentional with her language teaching, and this created an enriching and supportive learning experience for her MLLs. (I’d add that the students’ math scores were consistently in the top percentile of her district at that time.) 2. Build metalanguage practices into your weekly routines.
Metalanguage, or a language used to talk, notice and think about how language builds meaning, is a tried-and-true way to empower your MLLs in any type of learning activity. From using The Dictado 3x a week to conducting Close Readings of grade-level texts, these kinds of language-centered activities will have your MLLs chatting about and noticing language in a way that deepens knowledge-building across the content areas. 3. Curate a list of mantras to fall back on when you struggle. Here are a few that teachers report working well for them!
When I catch myself switching to my preferred language, I will repeat myself in the other language. I will hold myself accountable for (1) one day, then (2) one week then (3) one month.My goal today is to listen for and celebrate whenever I hear my students use new words I’ve taught them. Can I do it 10 times today?I'm reminding myself that participation looks different for different children.This is why I became a teacher: (insert your “why” statement here).
TL:DR
Changing habits is a “slow but steady wins the race” kind of process. I encourage you to choose one GOOD HABIT from the list above and to focus on that AND ONLY THAT for a 30-day period. Check back with me at LillianArdell@languagemattes.org (or DM me on my socials) to share and celebrate what changes you found in your teaching! And if you’re into thinking about habits-as-theory-of change, leave a comment below and then grab a free resource on Building Better Bilingual Habits. What I know from working with hundreds of teachers over 20 years is that you can become the type of teacher that inspired you to enter the profession all those years ago, by changing one habit at a time.