Writing in L2 in the Chilean school. A characterization of Spanish-language writing by students of Haitian origin in 5th grade

Abstract

Many immigrants have joined the Chilean school system. An important group, of Haitian origin, has Spanish as a second language (L2). This study aims to characterize the written performance of students of Haitian origin in 5th grade, in order to provide evidence to inform pedagogical practices and policies for teaching writing, from a perspective of justice and inclusion. Forty-two students participated and produced brochures on environmental issues present in the science curriculum. The texts were double-coded according to a code book of emerging linguistic phenomena. Mainly transcription problems, syntax phenomena and lexical phenomena were identified. In addition, the texts were rated along with the full sample of each course, through a holistic rubric focusing on higher order skills. The results show an array of performances. Correlations suggest that those who perform better in the communicative aspects are those who manage to overcome the difficulty of transcription. This highlights the need to intervene with explicit teaching so that students can automate the transcription processes and grammatical elements of Spanish. The article concludes with teaching guidelines that address the phenomena described with a linguistically sensitive perspective and with a socio-cultural approach, moving away from the deficit perspective. Challenges are pointed out to value the use of the L1 and bilingual resources and identities in the classroom.