| Sumario: | The purpose of this case study was to examine Utah's Grades 1-6 social studies standards and the instructional resources provided by the state for Chinese Dual Language Immersion (DLI) teachers to investigate how social studies instruction supported cultural learning for DLI students. A collaborative, Didaktik analysis of the standards and resources found that, in Grades 1-3 and 6, during which the partner-language DLI teacher is responsible for social studies, Chinese cultural knowledge or learning was not explicitly emphasized within the instructional resources provided in Grades 1-3. The one possible example found was in Grade 6, which included extensive materials for lessons on ancient Chinese civilization and culture. Despite this well-developed set of resources, it was unclear whether ancient China constituted a topic unique to the Chinese DLI program social studies classes or if this was a topic that might be learned by both DLI and non-DLI students across the state. Available resources explicitly encourage Chinese DLI teachers to teach American and Utah cultural traditions, but not necessarily the partner language's cultural traditions. The lack of focus on partner-language culture raises questions for both second language learning in DLI settings and DLI teacher professional development.
|
|---|