Ambientes bilingües de aprendizaje mediados por estrategias de andamiaje para fortalecer la comprensión oral en inglés en grado sexto en Bucaramanga

Abstract

This study adopts a sociocultural perspective on language learning to examine the scaffolding strategies that support the bilingual practices of sixth-grade teachers at a bilingual school in Bucaramanga, Colombia. The research emerges from a problem identified in the institutional context: faced with students' difficulty in understanding instructions delivered in English, some teachers resort to immediate translation into Spanish as a contingency solution, which reduces opportunities for sustained exposure to the target language. Starting from the premise that effective bilingual instruction involves the strategic use of multimodal scaffolding (including gestures, visual supports, and contextual cues) this study seeks to identify the techniques teachers employ to deliver oral instructions in English without translating, to analyze how these strategies support student comprehension and participation, and to examine how they influence the learning process. The study focuses on sixth-grade classrooms, where the transition to full content instruction in English presents particular challenges for students with heterogeneous levels of linguistic competence. To address this, a qualitative approach was adopted using three data collection instruments: a non-participant classroom observation guide, a focus group interview with students, and a written questionnaire directed at teachers. This methodological triangulation makes it possible to contrast observed classroom practices with the perceptions of those who teach and those who learn, contributing concrete evidence to a gap that remains open in bilingual pedagogy research.