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How do Elementary Students Perceive the Utility of Dual-Language Children’s Books? An Exploratory Study in French Immersion

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Introduction
In Canada, since the 1960s, French immersion has allowed Canadian youth to learn French as a second language (L2). Despite the overall aim of this programming to support the development of bilingual individuals (Association canadienne des professionnels de l'immersion, 2020), research suggests that French immersion classrooms may discourage the use of English in class because it would limit exposure to the L2 (Cormier, 2018). However, some scholars, coming from a wide variety of educational contexts, have argued that using a first language (L1) in the context of learning an L2 may assist with the learners' linguistic development (Cummins, 1979;Galante, 2018;Hamers, 2005). This research, which notably contends that "L1 is an important cognitive tool which helps learners organize their thoughts, focus their attention, and scaffold their understanding and production of L2" (Swain & Lapkin, 2013, p. 113), has also found an important echo in French immersion research (Ballinger, 2013;Dagenais, 2008;Lyster, Quiroga, & Ballinger, 2013).
One way to use L1 as a cognitive tool for L2 learning is via dual-language children's books; these books, which contain both the L1 and L2, can allow the reader to engage with both languages concurrently to build meaning (Armand, Gosselin-Lavoie, & Combes, 2016;Simoncini, Pamphilon, & Simeon, 2019). While some research has explored the utility of dual-language children's books (Brouillard, Dubé, & Byers-Heinlein, 2020;Gosselin-Lavoie, 2016;Robertson, 2006), there is a need for a more specific examination of how dual-language books are perceived by students to assist with L2 development. Therefore, in this paper, we report on a study designed to answer the following question: how do French immersion students perceive the utility of duallanguage children's books?
Theoretical Framing and Literature Review On a theoretical level, this study is anchored into the growing literature focusing on translanguaging, which will first be addressed in this section. Our focus on translanguaging will lead to the presentation of dual-language books, and we will thus review the scientific literature on the utilities and disadvantages of using them in the classroom. Lastly, we will conceptualize perceived utility value and highlight the few studies that have previously examined how L2 readers perceive the utility of dual-language books.

Translanguaging as a Form of Scaffolding
The theory of "translanguaging" has been used to refer to the synergy and negotiation of multiple languages in order to build meaning (Doiz, Lasagabaster, & Sierra, 2013). Scholars focused on translanguaging contend that individuals have a unitary and plural linguistic repertoire, and they argue for the study of people's dynamic linguistic and semiotic practices. In the field of education, Canagarajah (2011) notes that translanguaging occurs when a learner strategically utilizes their entire repertoire to develop new language skills. Other researchers have identified purposes and advantages of translanguaging as a teaching tool (Blackledge & Creese, 2010;Garcia & Wei, 2014): it could be employed, among other utilities, to challenge language hierarchies in the classroom, to improve links and co-operation between the home and school, and to assist with the integration of fluent speakers and language learners within a classroom community. Further, translanguaging can be used to scaffold the learning of a language and to deepen one's knowledge of the subject matter; scaffolding here refers to the temporary assistive role that translanguaging can play in gradually building independence in an individual's use of a target language, in lieu of the assistive role that an educator might normally take (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976).
As Domke (2019) mentions, studies grounded in translanguaging frequently focus on the bilingual individual's translinguistic strategies and practices as they engage in language production, whether orally or in writing. As such, fewer studies have looked into translanguaging practices and strategies in reading, though it has been argued that such strategies can be used to support reading comprehension (Hungwe, 2019;Vaish & Subhan, 2015). To study how translanguaging can help L2 readers, Domke recommends the use of dual-language children's books; the present study responds to this recommendation as a context of inquiry.

Dual-Language Children's Books and their Utilities
Dual-language children's books are books in which two languages cohabit to different degrees and are intended to be read in a simultaneous manner (Semingson, Pole, & Tommerdahl, 2015). They can also adopt a wide variety of formats (Perregaux, 2009): books with the complete text in two languages, books published in different versions for each language, books that switch between languages, and books that are written in one language, but interspersed with words or phrases in another language (Ernst-Slavit & Mulhem, 2003). As we will see in the methodology section, in this article, we are going to focus on two of these formats: books with the complete text in both languages, which we will call translated texts, and books that switch between languages, which we will refer to as integrated texts.
Many scholars have also looked into the utilities related to the use of dual-language children's books for emergent bilingual readers. On a sociocultural level, because there are many languages that appear in these texts, some have argued that such books can provide opportunities for certain learners to recognize themselves in them when they read, whereas others can be exposed to situations, environments, and cultures that are different to theirs (Fleuret & Sabatier, 2019;Leaman, 2008). This has also been noticed in the context of French immersion by Moore and Sabatier (2014). On a cognitive and linguistic level, scholars have found that dual-language children's books, because they mobilize the learner's full linguistic repertoire, can help strengthen their linguistic knowledge and enhance their linguistic awareness (Robertson, 2006). Naqvi, Thorne, Pfitscher, Nordstokke, and McKeough (2012), for example, showed that the use of translated duallanguage children's books could help young learners gain increases in graphophonemic knowledge in the language of instruction. Gosselin-Lavoie (2016) and Brouillard, Dubé, and Byers-Heinlein (2020), who conducted studies among plurilingual preschoolers, found that the use of different formats of dual-language books could help readers learn new vocabulary in both L1 and L2. Overall, as Taylor, Bernhard, Garg, and Cummins (2008) argue, through dual-language books, readers can transfer conceptual knowledge and skills from one language to the other, and compare concepts across languages. Dual-language books, in other words, can thus provide translinguistic scaffoldingthe reader can rely on their knowledge and skills in one language to make sense of passages written in the other.
Research is starting to show quite an impressive variety of utilities related to the use of dual-language books, both on sociocultural and linguistic levels. That being said, some scholars have put forward cautions and noted a few potential disadvantages to using dual-language books. For example, because translated dual-language books present two versions of the same text in different languages, Yow and Priyashri (2019) contend that the two languages within the same text may compete for the reader's attention "and impose an increased cognitive load on the visual processing abilities" (p. 2). To our knowledge, this assumption has yet to be proven empirically and, to this day, the utilities of dual-language books have been empirically more highlighted than their disadvantages.

Perceived Utility Value of Dual-Language Children's Books
The studies that we have reviewed thus far have mostly looked into the utilities of using dual-language books to support the learning of the languages found in the book and to expose the reader to linguistic and cultural diversity. This body of research is growing and relevant, but left aside the socio-affective relationship that readers develop with this Language and Literacy Volume 23, Issue 1, 2021 Page 52 novel type of books as they engage with them. For this reason, in this article, we will not specifically examine the utilities of dual-language children's books; we will rather focus our attention on the readers' perceived utility value of dual-language books. Perceived utility value, defined as the individual's subjective perception of the usefulness of a tool or activity to their current or future life, is considered as a notable aspect of the expectancyvalue theory of school motivation (Barron & Hulleman, 2015;Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). It can thus play an important role in how readers engage with and comprehend text (Chambers Cantrell, Rintamaa, Anderman, & Anderman, 2018). Perceived utility value is determined by how the individual assesses the relevance of the activity in a specific setting (e.g., a classroom), to reach certain goals (e.g., improving their reading skills).
Presently, few studies have zeroed in on the perceived utility of learners regarding dual-language books. Glazer, Harris, Ost, Gower, and Ceprano (2011) interviewed 15 Hispanic students across grades 2, 5, and 6 schooled in English in the state of New York about their perceptions of translated dual-language (English/Spanish) books. Students mainly noted the necessity to have dual-language books, mostly because they can be accessible to readers who know different languages. They also mentioned that they can connect family and school languages, and acknowledge different cultures and languages. In another study (Multilingual Resources for Children Project, 1995), teachers in the United Kingdom perceived that dual-language books can build an awareness of multiculturalism, increase the range of reading material for students, and allow some students to read with family members that may speak another language. However, some teachers noted that the presence of both languages can encourage students to rely only on their L1, and avoid learning and reading in the L2. In the same study, children provided their perceptions of dual-language books; they mostly perceived the books as a tool for introducing students to a new language, doing collaborative work with others, and exploring a new language and how different languages compare in their structure.
Together, these studies demonstrate that translanguaging with dual-language books is perceived to offer both positives and negatives to learning a second language. Further, they provide evidence that children, even those in the elementary grades, can articulate what utility and inutility they perceive in regard to dual-language books. In both studies focused specifically on the perceived utility value of dual-language books (Glazer et al., 2017;Multilingual Resources for Children Project, 1995), perceptions were broadly focused on how these books could be utilized within the classroom (e.g., introducing beginners to a new language, doing collaborative work). What is less known is how students perceive the utility value of dual-language books for making-meaning, when they actually read them, and more generally for learning how to read in the languages at play in the books. Moreover, the perceived utility value of different types of dual-language books by young readers has yet to be explored in the literature. In light of this gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore how students who are schooled at the elementary level in French immersion perceive the utility value of two types of dual-language French-English children's books: translated and integrated.

Methodology
Because little research has been conducted on how readers perceive the utility of dual-language text, this study is descriptive and exploratory.

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Volume 23, Issue 1, 2021 Page 53 Participants A total of 16 French immersion students (ages 8-10) across Grade 3 (n = 12) and 4 (n = 4) in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan participated; they were spread almost evenly across two separate split-grade classes. Two participants began French immersion in Grade 1, whereas all other participants had exclusively been enrolled in French immersion throughout their years in school. Participants spoke mainly or exclusively English at home, though French and Urdu were also mentioned by some participants as languages that they used with their parents. Their teachers also mentioned that they had never used dual-language books in class prior to our research.

Procedures
This study is part of a larger one which aimed to identify the reading strategies that French immersion students use while reading dual-language text (Thibeault & Matheson, 2020). As part of this research project, each participant read the first parts of two duallanguage (French-English) children's books out loud in individual sessions with one of the researchers. These sessions, which lasted between 20 and 40 minutes, allowed students to familiarize themselves with concrete examples of dual-language books and verbalize their reading strategies. In order to understand the participants' overall perceptions about the books, we also asked each of them a set of questions after they read parts of each book. Four of these questions focused specifically on the utility they perceived in regard to these books: (1) Did the presence of two languages help you understand what you were reading (How?/Why not?), (2) How do you think a book like this could help you learn how to read in French?, (3) How do you think a book like this could help you learn how to read in English?, and (4) How do you think a book like this could be used at school? For this paper, we will thus show the findings that came from our participants' answers to these four questions, which we audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim.
The two books we selected for this study were chosen for three main reasons. First, we considered them to be at an appropriate reading level for our French immersion participants. Second, both books explore the relationship between animals; put together, they thus create what Tauveron (2002) has called a thematic literary network. Such networks, as she argues, can help students make connections between the books they read because there are similarities in the subjects that are presented in each text. Third, and most importantly, they differ in their format. As such, all participants first read parts of a translated dual-language book, followed by parts of an integrated dual-language book. The translated book we used is entitled Enchantée! Pleased to Meet You! (Brunelle & Tondino, 2017), and it uses a style that includes the same information in both French and English. On the left page, the French text is written in pink on the upper part, and the same passage is written in English in blue at the bottom of the page, with an accompanying image on the right page. It tells the story of how Soso, a teacup Chihuahua, meets Frieda, a mouse, and how they become friends. The integrated book we used is entitled Chez Betty & Cat at Home (Jacobs & Duvernois, 2016), and alternatively, it uses a style that includes different information in French and English. Told from the perspective of an English-speaking cat named Cat and a French-speaking dog named Betty, both characters tell the story together by talking about the same ideas and events, but from different perspectives. Page 55

Data Analysis
To analyse the data, we first separated the interview transcripts related to our four interview questions in two documents, one for the answers provided to the questions after we asked them in regard to the translated book, the other focusing on the answers provided for the integrated text. We then conducted an inductive analysis (Thomas, 2006) based on the interview transcripts found in both documents. This analysis led to the development of a matrix with a series of codes (see Appendix A); the matrix provided a holistic overview of the data as it relates to the four questions that we asked our participants for both books. Using this set of codes, we were also able to identify broad themes and see how they applied for each type of dual-language book. We were notably able to classify codes related to perceived utilities and codes related to perceived inutilities for each text type. We were also able, in the utilities category, to re-group codes that addressed translanguaging as a scaffolding tool to make meaning out of the text. After the initial coding was complete, quotes representing each code that researchers deemed particularly pertinent were highlighted in order to be inserted in the results section of this paper.

Results
The results are organized into four different sections. The first two will address the perceived utilities and inutilities of the translated dual-language book, and the last two will focus on the perceived utilities and inutilities of the integrated dual-language book.

Translated Book: Perceived Utilities
Participants perceived a wide variety of utilities related to the translated duallanguage book. The most common utilities are related to the use of English to comprehend passages written in French. In other words, most participants recognized that the translated text had the potential to provide translinguistic scaffolding, especially when it came to supporting their comprehension of French vocabulary. One student, mentioning that "English is like my first language and I learned it first. So, I know all the words in English and I don't know all the words in French," notes that they can rely on their knowledge of the English words in the text if they encounter a term with which they are unfamiliar in French.
Whereas most participants agreed that the translated text was able to provide support in their reading of French passages, some also mentioned its potential for offering scaffolding in English. One student, for example, mentions that the lexical benefits for English and French can be reciprocal: "In both texts, always in one language, I didn't understand, and sometimes I understood better in French, sometimes it was in English." It is noteworthy, however, that instances where French was mentioned as a scaffolding tool to understand English are much fewer than the ones where students talk about the scaffolding potential of English to read French passages. In fact, some of the few participants who noted the scaffolding utility related to the use of French to comprehend English passages did not refer specifically to themselves; they talked about a hypothetical francophone reader who could rely on French passages to understand the ones in English: "Like if you're French and you learn English, you can like read the French one and then the English one." When asked about how a book like the translated text could be utilized at school, some participants pointed out that it could be used as a tool to introduce a second language to beginners: "It should like be in a short book so that like, like little ones can read short books and they… most of them know the English but don't know French so...if the English is there, they can understand it." In more general terms, without explicitly mentioning the translinguistic scaffolding benefits of translated dual-language text, some participants also mentioned that it could be used because both English and French, the languages predominately taught in French immersion, are present in the book. As one participant said, such books could be useful "[b]ecause it has the two languages that you usually speak at school."

Translated Book: Perceived Inutilities
When it comes to the inutilities underlying the translated text, it is important to begin by stating that participants perceived a very limited amount of them. A few noted that they thought their language skills were already developed enough to fully comprehend the text without the support provided by passages in the other language. One student, manifesting the absence of such a need for them, simply said: "I know a lot of French already." Another student argued that a book like this could not be used at school because students would get in trouble: "If you are in a French class, you read it in French and then in English because you will get in trouble, I think." The student goes on saying that "Well the grade 3 are allowed to read in English 1 but not eum… because we have English also because that's probably the only place we can read or like outside. We can read outside but in the class we… but the grade 2's have to read in French." Though only one student mentioned this in their interview, it is interesting to note that they are aware of the politics of monolingualism that prevail in French immersion classrooms and that, because of them, a dual-language translated book would not have utility at their school.

Integrated Book: Perceived Utilities
Perceptions were more diverse for the integrated text than they were for the translated one. While some students did mention that a text like the integrated one could provide translinguistic scaffolding for the reader, these instances were overall fewer than their counterparts for the translated text. One participant noted more specifically that it could provide clues for French vocabulary: "The cat is saying a completely different thing but they are saying kind of similar things […]. So, yeah it helped for some of it. So, like when they were on the couch, on the sofa, I didn't know what 'canapé' meant, I thought they were saying canape or something. When I read her paragraph and they were sitting on it I knew that meant 'couch'". This quotation is interesting because we can see that the participant understands the book's format, and therefore that passages in one language are not equivalent to passages in the other. Despite this, the participant was able to make the languages communicate with one another and, as such, understand some of the unknown French words. In the same perspective, a few students mentioned that the presence of two languages was useful in this book because passages in one language provided elements of context to better comprehend passages in the other: "Sometimes the English side helps me like what is going on more in the book, and sometimes the French helps because the English side hasn't really explained more." Even if fewer students mentioned the translinguistic scaffolding that could be provided by the integrated text, students did mention that the book had other types of utilities. For example, a few students mentioned that the presence of French passages in the integrated book could help them learn how to read in French: "It is also in French, the French parts can help me." This passage is interesting because it refers to a participant who implies that the book could help them learn how to read in French because some of its content is written in French; however, this participant, like the others who mentioned the presence of a known language as a way to perfect their reading skills in said language, does not seem to think that the English parts could provide elements of scaffolding to comprehend the French parts. Lastly, some students mentioned that a book like this could help them deploy some of the more traditional monolingual reading strategies, such as using pictures to make meaning.
When asked about how they think a book like this could be used at school, some students noted that it could be a relevant tool to use because it contains the two languages that are taught in French immersion. Another participant, moreover, mentioned that a book like this could be used as a tool for assessment: "Maybe if you are a teacher and you wanted to test somebody because that might be a good book to test somebody with." Lastly, a few students mentioned that by teaming up students who had different skills in different languages, they could help each other in the meaning-making process because one needs to understand both languages in order to fully comprehend the integrated text: "It should be used for like reading in partners. It could help like if one person is bad in English, he can try just the French side and the other person that is bad at French maybe could do is bad at English could maybe read the English side."

Integrated Book: Perceived Inutilities
Like with the translated text, the amount of inutilities perceived by our participants for the integrated text is much fewer than the amount of utilities. For a few participants, as we have seen with the translated text, the presence of two languages in the book did not represent a specific utility because they considered their language skills in English and French to be strong enough to read monolingual books in either language. For others, the presence of English and French in the integrated book had no utility because, unlike the ones in the translated text, the passages in one language were not a translated version of passages in the other. In this vein, one student explained that the presence of English and French was not helpful because "they don't mean the same thing. They are different, they were like different, the whole thing is different."

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore how elementary school-aged students in French immersion perceive the utility of two types of dual-language French-English children's books: translated and integrated. Participants identified numerous instances of how the dual-language books that we used provided utility in the form of translinguistic scaffolding (Domke, 2019;Perregaux, 2009). More specifically, students predominately argued that passages in English could help them comprehend the ones in French, whereas reverse perceptions, where French would support reading in English, were less present in the data. This could potentially be explained by considering the participants' grade level (grades 3 and 4), and the fact that they are schooled in French immersion in the anglodominating province of Saskatchewantheir level in English is more likely superior than their level of French.

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Volume 23, Issue 1, 2021 Page 58 Many participants mentioned specifically that both texts could assist with understanding vocabulary, though the translated text was perceived to provide more support because students were able to match up words with their translation. As far as the integrated text is concerned, some students did perceive the translinguistic potential of using passages in one language to make sense of passages in the other, though such perceptions were less frequently manifested in the analysis conducted. As some students were able to identify, information in one language could be used to indirectly assist with meaning-making in the other language by way of contextual clues. The data, however, shows that participants did not rely on this strategy often. Overall, when it comes to comprehending the vocabulary found in these dual-language books, our findings are coherent with studies that have shown the lexical benefits of using dual-language translated books (Brouillard, Dubé, & Byers-Heinlein, 2020;Gosselin-Lavoie, 2016), but shed an interesting light on the perceptions of French immersion readers as they engage with the integrated type of dual-language books.
Participants, when asked how dual-language books could be used at school, did seem to distinguish between the two types of text in terms of their value and utility; in comparison to past research on the perceived utility of dual-language children's books, our participants identified many of the same utilities, including introduction to a language, the potential for collaborative work (Multilingual Resources for Children Project, 1995), and their ability to use the text because it contains familiar languages (Glazer et al., 2011). Though past research has identified that dual-language books can serve as both a context for collaborative work with a target language and for introducing students to a language, some of our participants identified different educational purposes for the translated and integrated texts. Specifically, concerning the utility of dual-language books in school, it seems that our participants' identified utilities for each type of text point to translated texts as a context for learning the language, and integrated texts as a tool for learning with the language. For example, the translated text we used was identified as a useful tool for "people who don't speak French," whereas the integrated text we used was identified as a "good book to test somebody with" and a tool for partnered activities. Our study thus builds upon past research by showing that children can not only identify utilities of dual-language children's books, they can also be sensitive to the different utilities that different formats can offer.
Our study also allowed us to identify the instances of inutility that were perceived by participants in regard to dual-language books. These instances, however, were a lot less present in our corpus than instances of utility, which is generally in line with the many studies that have focused on the benefits of dual-language books (e.g, Gosselin-Lavoie, 2016;Naqvi et al., 2012). Whereas some scholars have argued that dual-language books may be cognitively demanding for readers because, as they engage with them, they must alternate from one language to the other (Yow & Priyashri, 2019), our students' perceptions do not seem to confirm this idea. In fact, as previously mentioned, students mostly noted that the bilingual aspect of the books provided translinguistic scaffolding. Moreover, the Multilingual Resources for Children Project (1995) showed that some teachers may be afraid that, with translated text, some students would focus exclusively on the language they know best; again, our data does not seem to confirm these perceptions. This, however, may be due to the fact that students had to expose their perceptions to an outside researcher and, as such, did not dare to mention that they would focus on a specific language when Language and Literacy Volume 23, Issue 1, 2021 Page 59 they read. When it comes to inutility, some students in this research mentioned that the presence of two languages in the book was unnecessary to understand the text. This limited number of students mentioned that their language skills in French and English were good enough, and that they did not have to rely on the other language. One other student also thought they would get in trouble at school if they were to read a dual-language book. Even if this was only mentioned by one participant, it does seem to reflect politics of monolingualism that often prevail in French immersion classrooms (Cormier, 2018). Lastly, specifically for the integrated text, some students said that they were not useful because the passages in one language were not equivalent to passages in the other. We believe that this shows the importance of accompanying students as they engage with duallanguage children's books.

Implications and Limitations
The findings of the present study suggest some clear implications for classroom teaching. The fact that Grade 3 and 4 students were able to identify value in using duallanguage books suggests that teachers should make these learning resources available to students. Further, some students in the present study mentioned different utilities for the translated and integrated text in terms of the type of value it could provide in building L2 reading skills; this finding suggests that teachers should be purposeful in how duallanguage books are used as a learning tool in terms of the unique value each type can provide the L2 learner. Finally, teachers should consider dual-language books as a scaffolding tool that students may or may not need. Some students will have L2 capabilities that exceed any value that one type may provide. Other students will need teachers to explicitly identify how the types of text are different, and how these students might use each type to improve their command of the L2.
Though our participants' teachers had never used dual-language books prior to this research, it was not clear whether or not, outside of class, our participants had read duallanguage children's books before engaging with them in our study. Further, we did not allow participants extended periods of time to process our questions and report about their perceived utilities as they were asked questions directly following each reading. With more time both to engage with each text and think about how they could be used, participants may have come up with different responses. In a similar vein, our participants were limited to reading an example of each type of text; with a greater number of examples for each type, our participants may have had more to report about their perceived utilities of these types of books.

Conclusion
In conclusion, if research has shown a wide variety of utilities related to the use of dual-language books in classrooms, students in our study also seem to perceive these utilities. As such, in light of the perceptions that were documented in this article, it would be important to implement reading programs that gravitate towards dual-language books in French immersion classrooms, and show young readers how they can engage with this text. Such programs, in turn, would contribute to the deconstruction of language hierarchies in the classroom and help students perceive their knowledge of English as a cognitive tool that can help them engage with French. Future research, moreover, might look to use a longitudinal approach, where participants could be asked about their perceived utility following initial introduction to this type of text, and then again later after they have used a variety of types of dual-language children's books for an extended period of time. This approach would allow for the examination of how perception of utility changes, and particularly how this change may occur with language development.