Calero, Maria. Bi-Literacy Strategies for Second Language Learners.

June 7, 2019

Project # 1
My Ideal Classroom
My ideal classroom’ s design is the result of different great ideas, programs, and studies

that year after year I have been learning and trying it out in my own classroom. This diagram

shows my 4th grade Bilingual classroom this past year at Katy ISD (Bear Creek Elementary

School). Katy offers the simultaneous bilingual program 50/50 with team teaching. I teach

Language Arts and Social Studies in my room to two different group of kids.

At the beginning of the year I always think about how I am going to design my room to

make it easy for students to move around, collaborate with each other, and interact with the room.

I want to give them the opportunity to have lots of visual support and vocabulary around the room

to address their academic and linguistic needs. The seating arrangement in the middle comes from

a program I learned long ago at SBISD -Gomez & Gomez- and I kept the way they suggest

arranging students’ desks. A way to promote collaborative thinking and learning, they suggest the

use of tables of 4 students and sit a high student surrounded by two medium students, and one low

student surrounded by the two medium students. That way, when they will work with a partner,

they appropriately share with no frustration. This has work for me over the years.

On the right of the room I have cabinets, so I found that it is the perfect space to have an

interactive ABC word wall -student generated- in English and Spanish. Because is a 50/50 model

I balanced instructional materials and other classroom print in both languages. I have my ABC

color coded Blue (Spanish) and Red (English), implementing “The Katy Way”. Other districts use

those color in an opposite way. Intervention Table is there with the writing wall where I add the

anchor charts I do with students in class and important parts of speech content material. Nothing

on the walls is bought. I made everything with my students.

Calero, Maria. Bi-Literacy Strategies for Second Language Learners. June 7, 2019

Next to that bulletin board, there is a green chalk board that I use for Social Studies Content

Wall. This is constantly changing, anchor charts and vocabulary is exposed there, depending on

the topic we are studying. Next to that green board, there is a small bulletin board that is perfect

for Cognates. Starts empty and throughout the year is constantly changing as well. Under those

walls I have the library with plenty of books in both languages, separated by genres and language.

There, I locate the flexible seating for students to sit comfortably and read independently.

The left side wall is my Language Arts wall. It has three colors. Blue which is the Spanish,

Red for English, and I use yellow for Bridging. Anchor charts and content vocabulary is on that

wall, normally categorized by genre. Under that wall, my kidney table is located, technology

station is there with computers and iPads for kids, and my teacher corner on the side. I have the

white board on the other wall, with a carpet common area for students to sit and take notes, listen

to read aloud, shared writing/reading or work with a partner.

I believed that it is important to have a functional classroom where teacher and students

interact with each other, quality teaching and learning occurs, and there is equity and availability

of instructional material in both languages to promote bilingualism, biliterate and multicultural

children as Soltero (2016) expresses.

References

Gómez, R and Gómez, L. (1995) The Gomez and Gomez Dual Language Enrichment Model.
Retrieved from http://www.gomezandgomez.com/about-us.html
Soltero, Sonia.W. (2016) Dual Language Education: Program Design and Implementation.
Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH.