Abstract
This dissertation aims to investigate teaching practices of young Portuguese heritage learners biliteracy development in a Junior Kindergarten/Kindergarten Portuguese/English bilingual setting in Boston, Massachusetts. The proposed analysis is based on (i) the field of bilingual education for minorities, (ii) heritage language teaching, and (iii) dynamic assessment, an approach to assessment and instruction based on Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of Zone of Proximal Development. More specifically, the study uses a dynamic assessment lens (Poehner, 2008) for understanding mediated interactions of young heritage learners. A case study methodology is employed to collect and analyze the data of three Portuguese heritage learners during the Writer’s Workshop conferences that took place in the second half of the school year. The collected data includes interviews with the participants, field notes, students’ artifacts, and audio recordings of the dialogic interactions between the teacher and the three heritage learners. The research has implications for heritage language teaching, learning and development through an understanding of learner’s beginning writing and the forms of support necessary to maintain and extend this control in a bilingual setting. The results also shed light on coherent pedagogical practices that can inform heritage language learning theories.