The Bridge – it’s been an area of growth for me since I began teaching in Two-Way Immersion five years ago. For a while it really intimidated me. I wasn’t sure what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. It was definitely an aspect of teaching unique to teaching for biliteracy, so coming from a monoliteracy setting I had never heard of it before. AND…. I am not fluent in Spanish! All of these circumstances could have easily become excuses NOT to Bridge as the monolingual English teacher in a two-teacher model, but I knew I couldn’t ignore it. The first year I dabbled in it. Each year I did a little more reading (thank you, Teaching for Biliteracy by Beeman and Urow!) and a little more implementing and each time I implemented the Bridge, I did it in a slightly different way. I gradually became more confident in the process, and I soon realized the power of the Bridge. Yes, for our students to be bilingual and biliterate, we need to Bridge!

As the English medium teacher, I have two linguistic spaces in my classroom, the English areas (a majority of the classroom) and the Bridge area, where we have both English and Spanish. Students need to know where they can go for resources for writing and reading about content areas in either language, so it is important that a space for the Bridge is clearly defined.

Let’s back up a minute. What is this essential piece to teaching for biliteracy that I am referring to as The Bridge?

According to Karen Beeman and Cheryl Urow, authors of Teaching for Biliteracy, the Bridge is “the instructional moment when teachers bring the two languages together… to undertake contrastive analysis and transfer what they have learned from one language to another.” (p. 4)

The Bridge Basics:

• Occurs AFTER the unit summative assessment.
• All unit content has been taught
• Bridge Spanish content to English
• Bridge English content to Spanish

During the Bridge we:

• Transfer vocabulary and phrases and written passages (varies by grade level and purpose)
• Participate in age-appropriate metalinguistic analysis of languages and the relationships between them
• Extend learning using the bridge content academic language and apply it to other language (we do NOT reteach)
• Focus on language instruction – not concept instruction

Woah – contrastive analysis, metalinguistic analysis. What is this? I teach kindergarten and first grade, not high school rhetoric! What does THAT mean? And what about the fact that I am NOT fluent in Spanish, let alone trained in how to teach it? How do I help my students analyze the languages?

It’s okay. You CAN do it! And I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I actually love Bridge times now!

Contrastive analysis is – in simple terms – comparing and contrasting the two languages. It is fascinating! I have learned so much about both English and Spanish by teaching the Bridge; things that I probably was taught (or maybe not) through various English courses in high school and college. Phonics, spelling patterns, connections to Latin roots, how words are related, syllabification, cognates and false cognates, and so much more!

Here is our Bridge space, including the Bridge list and the metalinguistic analysis that took place with this particular list. This metalinguistic focus: cognates.

One thing I love about teaching in primary grades is empowering my students to use language like scientists, like sociologists, and like mathematicians use language. They love it, too! Well, let me tell you how proud I am now to include using language like linguists. I will never forget the time one of my first graders turned to our administrator, who was walking through the classroom during a Bridge lesson, and said, “We’re doing our metalinguistic focus because we’re bilingual!”

As a monolingual teacher in a Two-Way Immersion program, I approach the Bridge as a learning opportunity for ME. At the end of a unit, both my teaching partner and I have the class create a list of pertinent vocabulary, phrases, or ideas related to the unit.

“Boys and girls,” I say, “we have just finished our unit on urban, suburban, and rural communities (for example). Señorita Yossen needs to know what we have been learning! What are some of the important concepts that we could teach her about communities?”

From here we create the list, in English, in my classroom. When they are in Spanish in the afternoon, they are creating a list to “teach me” about what they have been learning about in Spanish science. These lists are created “by the children,” but I put that in quotes because, really, my teaching partner and I have discussed ahead of time the language we want on the lists.  We will guide the list creation to include what will support our planned contrastive analysis and extension activities. The students usually come up with most of them, and they feel empowered as the ones who will teach their “other” teacher all about it!

The lists are then exchanged, and the next class session, I put on my “bufanda magica” (magic scarf) to show that it is time for me to speak in both English and Spanish! I now have the list students created during Spanish class.

“Ok! I need your help! Señorita Yossen shared this list with me, but I don’t know all of these words and phrases. Can you help me become more bilingual?”

See how NOT being fluent in the other language is okay so far? The kids teach me! I love it, they love it. Of course, Señorita Yossen and I have planned ahead of time so that I come prepared with a list of what the words all mean, in case the kids have misconceptions or don’t know the academic vocabulary in English. This is another reason why my partner and I plan together ahead of time. Plus, my partner teaches me how to pronounce the words in Spanish as well, which I do my best to do accurately. However, when I make mistakes (which happens often), the kids are quick to correct my pronunciation – another thing they love to do!

Here is the Bridge list we created from that particular unit.

One moment from a recent Bridge was a perfect example of how our kids are using the Bridge to make connections within the content and between the languages. We were in the process of creating a Bridge for the concepts from their Spanish science unit on insects. We got to the term “ojos compuestos.” One of my first graders explained to me, “There’s more eyes inside of one eye.” She didn’t know the academic vocabulary for that in English (not sure that many first graders would), but she certainly had an understanding of what “ojos compuestos” were and how to explain them to me so I could understand it. I, then, got to teach the class the English equivalent, compound eyes, so that they can build their academic vocabulary in English as well. What a powerful exchange!

This was a great Bridge from English to Spanish that we did at the end of our first math unit. My first graders taught Señorita Yossen how to use a Number Rack so that she could then teach our kindergartners how to use them. They felt so important!

I invite you to check out my video of the insect Bridge. It is only one part of the Bridge – the part where they teach me the vocabulary. It is authentic and has some mistakes, and every time I watch it I think of things I could have done differently or better (more use of Total Physical Response, for example). However, it will give you some ideas of how I manage the Bridge introduction without being fluent in Spanish.

At La Cosecha Conference in Albuquerque in early November 2017, I spoke about how I do the Bridge in my classroom, and many people asked for more details. We English medium teachers need more ideas on how we can support biliteracy! In my next few blogs I will take you through a Bridge week in my classroom.  First, I will break down the planning pieces, including how we choose the metalinguistic focus, then how we plan for and incorporate the extension activity. Feel free to check out my La Cosecha presentation here: T4B Bridge presentation Dana Hardt and come back and read more about the Bridge week in my upcoming blogs. And please note that I am going to share with you how my teaching partner and I have worked out to collaborate on the Bridge.  I know there are other ways as well, and I look forward to you sharing how you and your partner plan for and implement the Bridge.  Thanks for joining me on the journey!