A teacher´s tensions in a Spanish first grade two-way bilingual immersion program

This study describes a bilingual teachers tensions in a Spanish first grade two-way immersion classroom. Drawing on Hatchs (2002) inductive analysis, in the form of domain analysis, the study data came from two teacher interviews during the 2009-2010 school year. Findings indicated that the bilingual teacher holds strong beliefs about the importance of providing students with opportunities to explore the minority language (Spanish). Yet the teacher struggles with various linguistic and academic tensions while accomplishing such task. This study calls attention to the struggles of juggling English and Spanish in the setting of two-way bilingual immersion contexts.