Between language as problem and resource: Examining teachers’ language orientations in dual-language programs

Using a case study methodology, the article examines the language practices of two third-grade bilingual, dual-language education teachers as they prepare their students for their state’s standardized assessment. Findings revealed that both teachers taught in between the contradicting tensions of the language-as-problem and -resource orientations that simultaneously valued bilingual language practices but also positioned bilingual education and development as problematic to success on an English state test. Without a more concerted effort toward Bartolomé and Balderrama’s “ideological clarity” among educators and recentering of a language-as-right orientation in bilingual education, there is a danger that the benefits of bilingualism and the opportunity for bilingual development may not be extended to subjugated language communities.