Skip to main content
Article
The experience of co-teaching for emergent Arabic-English literacy
Qualitative Report
  • Anna M. Dillon, Zayed University
  • Kay Gallagher, Zayed University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2019
Abstract

© 2019: Anna M. Dillon, Kay Gallagher, and Nova Southeastern University. In this paper we explore teachers' experiences of co-teaching within a new bilingual (Arabic/English) model in public Kindergarten schools in the United Arab Emirates. The main objective was to understand teachers' experiences with intercultural teaching for biliteracy in this context. We interviewed six pairs of co-teachers. These co-teachers represent six of the nationalities of teachers working in public Kindergartens in Abu Dhabi, thereby representing a cross-section of the cultural context of teaching in the reformed public schools. The data highlight teachers' varied co-teaching practices and point to aspects such as classroom management and translanguaging as aspects of classroom practice which are enhanced by co-teaching. Teachers' experience of co-teaching and well-formed co-teaching relationships can contribute to the development of sound pedagogical practices while a lack of administrative support can create conditions which are not conducive to co-teaching. The data also show that supportive bilingual scaffolding and flexible translanguaging are seen as effective components of co-teaching to support emergent biliteracy.

Publisher
Nova Southeastern University
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Co-teaching,
  • Dual language programme,
  • Early biliteracy,
  • Linguistic ethnography,
  • Scaffolding,
  • Translanguaging
Scopus ID

85073050761

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
Yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3972
Citation Information
Anna M. Dillon and Kay Gallagher. "The experience of co-teaching for emergent Arabic-English literacy" Qualitative Report Vol. 24 Iss. 7 (2019) p. 1556 - 1576 ISSN: <p><a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/1052-0147" target="_blank">1052-0147</a></p>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kay-gallagher/5/