Doesn’t it feel good? You’re implementing the Bridge! Your students have experience transferring vocabulary across languages! They are applying their academic vocabulary from one unit in one language to literacy in the other language. They are even consciously comparing and contrasting their two languages through your guided contrastive analysis! (OK, maybe you’re just doing parts of this, but remember every step toward full implementation is a good step!)

Getting the process of the Bridge going in your classroom is such a satisfying – and important – part of teaching for biliteracy. And then comes the question of “HOW DO I KEEP THIS GOING?”

Our beautiful anchor charts and the Bridge lists, the evidence of Think Alouds, student participation, bilingualism, and biliteracy….what happens to them AFTER the Bridge extension for that unit closes?

One of our goals is to keep those anchor charts alive! Don’t let them become wallpaper! Your kids own them – and with some thoughtful placement, gentle encouragement, and intentional referencing, those charts will stay alive in your classroom all year long.

Let’s talk first about placement of your Bridge anchor charts. I wish I taught in a gymnasium where walls were gigantic and beckoning for more student-created posters to plaster on every square inch (plus one of those rolling ladders they have in libraries to access those extra high books!)….  Alas, I have a very standard-sized classroom that – because of the program design at my school – is shared by two grade levels (I teach first grade in the morning while kindergarten is in the Spanish medium classroom, then switch for the afternoons). One wall is consumed by school and district mandates (math Number Corner, schedule, objectives, Activboard), one has cubbies and my desk, another has cabinets and the bathrooms and sink, three have doors interrupting the flow, and one is consumed by dramatic play and our Word Wall (Perhaps I should rethink the Word Wall? Definitely keeping dramatic play!). Wait, how many walls is THAT? And how do I find space for my Bridge??

Both of our classrooms have a location for the Bridge that has this same bridge picture and labels in English and Spanish.

Well, I MAKE space for that Bridge. Remember, when setting up for your bilingual classroom, you need to plan for three linguistic spaces: English, Spanish, and the Bridge. Because I am the English medium teacher, I really only need to plan for TWO spaces.  A majority of my classroom is dedicated to the English content, and I must make a space for the Bridge. My Spanish teaching partner also has two linguistic spaces in her classroom: a majority for the Spanish content and a space for the Bridge.

When you dedicate a space for the Bridge, keep in mind that the children need to have the ability to access it throughout the year!! When they cannot physically access the charts, the charts will become the wallpaper that we are trying to avoid. Remember: Keep those charts alive! On just a few occasions I have moved a Bridge list to a spot where the kids cannot reach it – but that’s actually because they access it ALL THE TIME. They need to be able to see it from wherever they are sitting in the classroom. For example, when we Bridged colors, my students wanted to see that list on a daily basis, so I put it in a spot in the classroom where everyone could see it all the time so they could use it in their daily writing and reading.

Why do my kids need to have access to the other charts? Remember: they are keeping them ALIVE! We are constantly adding to the lists through the year – them more often than me. The kids need to be able to touch them, move them around, write on them, and find what they need from past lists and charts.

I keep my Bridge lists above my metalinguistic charts because the Bridge lists are accessed for vocabulary and often spelling, and students know they can grab a chair to find the list they need. It’s not ideal, and next year I would like to make a more efficient change here so that both the Bridge list and the metalinguistic charts are at lower levels.

The important part about having the metalinguistic charts so accessible is that my students are CONSTANTLY adding to them! I get interrupted regularly:

Adding one of our High Frequency Words to the chart.

During Interactive Read Aloud:   Student:  “I saw and heard the word apple! Can I add it to the Sounds “A ” Makes chart under /a/?”

During Independent Reading: Student:  “Look, Mrs. Hardt! This word _______ looks exactly the same in English as it does in Spanish! Can I add it to our cognate list?”

During Dictation: Me: “I’ll give you a hint, boys and girls. When we spell the word place it would have a spot on one of our metalinguistic charts.”

Student: “C-e!! C-e!! Place is spelled p-l-a-c-e because the c sounds like an s and the a is a long a! Can I add it to the list?” (I’m serious. This really happened. Teacher win!)

Of course they want to add to the list! They are aware of how completely awesome they are as developing bilinguals. Plus I let them use the Mr. Scents markers – green for Spanish, purple for English (because that’s what our school agreed on). AND THEY LOVE IT! Do what works and what motivates them. The point is, the charts are ALIVE.

What’s awesome about having charts that are alive and that the kids have ownership of is that they REMEMBER to use them. I see students head over to the charts during independent writing to check on how to spell a word. In my classroom they can choose to write in either English or Spanish during journal writing, and because my classroom does not have as many Spanish resources to help them, they will access the Bridge lists to help them with some Spanish vocabulary to enhance their writing.

Here is “Carlye”, checking her dictation paper with our Bridge list to see if she spelled certain words correctly.

When the “place” hint came up during dictation that week (see above), we promptly added it to the chart that week (we also had “decide” in our dictation that week, so we added that one too). When we practiced dictation later that week, I had a student get up from her table and head over to the chart with her dictation paper in hand.

Me: “What do you need, Carlye?”

Carlye: “I want to double check place and decide.”

Me: “Oh! You’re headed to the Sounds C Makes Chart! Good for you! Let us know what you find!”

I had a student this year bug me incessantly for the purple and green markers so that she could add pizza to the cognate lists (“When can I add it? When can I add it?”). She was even willing to stay in at recess to add them! I realized I needed a better system for chart additions. Now when students have ideas for the lists, I have them write them down on a sticky note with their name on it so that I can check them for accuracy. Once I have a chance to look at it, I place the sticky note on their table along with the markers, and when they have a moment they can go fill out the appropriate chart.

Adding more to the Sounds C Makes Chart

Usually the cognate list is the most popular because it’s easy to find examples and it’s empowering to find examples of your bilingualism. I had a first grade class one year fill up two large chart papers with cognates throughout the year. This year, for some reason, that Sounds C Makes chart has been the most popular, and I think it is because it is so useful! The kids LOVE that the spelling patterns and corresponding sounds are the same in English and Spanish. (The hard c and the soft c follow the same rules in English and Spanish!)  It also helps that I am remembering to reference it throughout the year; for example, when we have tricky words in our dictation.

One difficult part of having a two-teacher model is that our Bridge lists and metalinguistic charts are not the same in both classrooms, so students don’t have access to everything all the time either for their reference or to add to. We’ve solved the “adding” issue with the post-it system. If they come across something in Spanish when they are in the Spanish medium classroom that they would like to add to the charts we have in my classroom, they simply take a post-it, write down their idea, and share it with me when they are in my classroom.

These sticky notes landed on my desk after we did a recent Bridge. They thought about these words and wanted to add them to the cognate list. I checked by underlining in our school-determined colors for English (purple) and Spanish (green) . If a spelling correction is needed, I note it. Then the kids can add the words to the chart, as seen in the lower picture.

As for the reference challenge, the best we can do at this moment is to have our Bridge wall easily accessible to our adjoining door. If the kids are in the Spanish medium classroom and need something from a list in my room, they can quietly come over, check the list, and head back to Spanish. However, most of the Spanish vocabulary is accessible other places in that classroom, and they are never writing in English in the Spanish classroom, so interruptions are rare. Ideally we would have a copy of all Bridge lists and metalinguistic charts in both classrooms.

I hope this helps you wrap your head around the Bridge space and charts a little bit more. It’s not just one week and done. Remember: Keep those charts ALIVE! It takes time and intentionality to weave it in, but soon enough your students will take over for you. ¡Buena suerte!

Are there any other biliteracy systems you’d like to know about or questions you have about the English side of a two-teacher model? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and questions in the comments below, and for my next blog I will choose some to answer!