Where's Your Partner? Pairing Bilingual Learners in Preschool and Primary Grade Dual Language Classrooms

Children working alone is a common instructional strategy in some early childhood classrooms. According to foundational work by Johnson and Johnson (1986), however, cooperative teams employ higher levels of thought and retain information longer than children who work individually. Children engage in discussion, take responsibility for their learning, and become critical thinkers when they work and learn together. Teachers of dual language learners can pair children throughout the day in a variety of cooperative learning strategies. The bilingual pairing strategies provided in this article are easy to implement on a regular basis and can be adapted to any classroom setting. They allow children to express themselves in meaningful and nonthreatening contexts and challenge each other's ideas as they engage in conversations about abstract concepts found in the academic curriculum.