Billingual Education
There was a thoughtful column about bilingual education in Sunday's Seattle Times by syndicated columnist, Esther Cepeda. From her column:
Education policy has rarely garnered our collective attention as it does now.
One aspect that needs more attention, though, is the question of how best to educate students whose native language is not English. It's a politically charged topic that rarely focuses on research and instead pits those who don't want to spend resources on instructing children in any language other than English against those who believe bilingual education is a civil right.
Okay so let's stop there because there are a couple of issues. One, should the American public education system be educating children in their native language and two, is it a civil rights issue?
Ms. Cepeda argues that it hurts the whole educational system's performance if non-native speakers struggle because of language barriers.
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics says that between 1979 and 2008, the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English at home increased from 3.8 million to 10.9 million, or from 9 percent to 21 percent of the population in this age range.
Right now each state individually decides how to educate English-language learners based on the tenets of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, which sought to ensure a quality education for students with limited English skills. Programs range from those in which students are fully immersed in English-language classrooms with various "English as a second language" programs, to classrooms where a student is taught completely in his or her native language with additional English-language instruction for an eventual transition to English-only classrooms.
Now, of course, in any urban area you can have many languages. SPS provides services in many languages. What becomes a more defining point is when you have a concentration of one language like Spanish in states like Texas, Arizona and California.
She points out that if there is a critical mass of students speaking one language, they tend to get placed in a native-speaker classroom while a single student with a non-English language might be immersed in an English-speaking classroom.
I recently attended a bilingual and dual-language education conference where Diane August of the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics shocked participants by citing several recent studies to verify anecdotal evidence that goes back generations: Preschoolers who are immersed in English without extensive native-language support learn English as well as those in bilingual or other native-language-supported classroom.
She does point out that this is probably worthwhile for younger students but they have no verifiable data for middle and high school students. (I would also point out that there are students who not only are immigrants but may have not had much formal schooling. That is another whole challenge and one that our BOC - Bilingual Orientation Centers - were created for.)
One thing to tease out from this article is embracing the varied cultures that live within our borders while hoping that immigrants learn English and appreciate their new country. Foreigners came here and adopted U.S. culture and language in order to assimilate. For example, when my husband's uncles immigrated from Italy, they all took the American version of their names (Raffaele became Ralph). They wanted to fit in, not stand out. Now, of course, they lived in the Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn so it's not like they didn't stick with what they knew. But they did know if they wanted to be successful, it was English and assimilation.
My own experience growing up on the Arizona-Mexico border showed me that graduated immersion might be one way to go. Meaning, one school year in a non-native-speaking class but taking PE with native speakers. After that, it's immersion. I think that long-term bilingual ed may be a crutch and we want to get larger numbers of students up-to-speed, they need to be with native speakers. Of course, it also may mean we need more teachers who speak Spanish and Chinese (the top 2 non-native languages in the U.S.).
This, of course, is not just an education issue. Immigration reform seems to be quite important to many conservatives but just what that looks like and how it will play out in our schools is hard to predict.
Education policy has rarely garnered our collective attention as it does now.
One aspect that needs more attention, though, is the question of how best to educate students whose native language is not English. It's a politically charged topic that rarely focuses on research and instead pits those who don't want to spend resources on instructing children in any language other than English against those who believe bilingual education is a civil right.
Okay so let's stop there because there are a couple of issues. One, should the American public education system be educating children in their native language and two, is it a civil rights issue?
Ms. Cepeda argues that it hurts the whole educational system's performance if non-native speakers struggle because of language barriers.
The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics says that between 1979 and 2008, the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English at home increased from 3.8 million to 10.9 million, or from 9 percent to 21 percent of the population in this age range.
Right now each state individually decides how to educate English-language learners based on the tenets of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, which sought to ensure a quality education for students with limited English skills. Programs range from those in which students are fully immersed in English-language classrooms with various "English as a second language" programs, to classrooms where a student is taught completely in his or her native language with additional English-language instruction for an eventual transition to English-only classrooms.
Now, of course, in any urban area you can have many languages. SPS provides services in many languages. What becomes a more defining point is when you have a concentration of one language like Spanish in states like Texas, Arizona and California.
She points out that if there is a critical mass of students speaking one language, they tend to get placed in a native-speaker classroom while a single student with a non-English language might be immersed in an English-speaking classroom.
I recently attended a bilingual and dual-language education conference where Diane August of the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics shocked participants by citing several recent studies to verify anecdotal evidence that goes back generations: Preschoolers who are immersed in English without extensive native-language support learn English as well as those in bilingual or other native-language-supported classroom.
She does point out that this is probably worthwhile for younger students but they have no verifiable data for middle and high school students. (I would also point out that there are students who not only are immigrants but may have not had much formal schooling. That is another whole challenge and one that our BOC - Bilingual Orientation Centers - were created for.)
One thing to tease out from this article is embracing the varied cultures that live within our borders while hoping that immigrants learn English and appreciate their new country. Foreigners came here and adopted U.S. culture and language in order to assimilate. For example, when my husband's uncles immigrated from Italy, they all took the American version of their names (Raffaele became Ralph). They wanted to fit in, not stand out. Now, of course, they lived in the Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn so it's not like they didn't stick with what they knew. But they did know if they wanted to be successful, it was English and assimilation.
My own experience growing up on the Arizona-Mexico border showed me that graduated immersion might be one way to go. Meaning, one school year in a non-native-speaking class but taking PE with native speakers. After that, it's immersion. I think that long-term bilingual ed may be a crutch and we want to get larger numbers of students up-to-speed, they need to be with native speakers. Of course, it also may mean we need more teachers who speak Spanish and Chinese (the top 2 non-native languages in the U.S.).
This, of course, is not just an education issue. Immigration reform seems to be quite important to many conservatives but just what that looks like and how it will play out in our schools is hard to predict.
Comments
She read a lot of comic books upon arrival in the USA as one way to pick up English. Eventually she gained registered nursing credentials in WA State and worked as a school nurse for many years.
She has been a very harsh critic of extended bilingual programs. Check the Seattle OSPI test scores for Limited English speaking students.
There was a time when immigrants from Eastern Europe entered NYC schools at the grade in which they could speak English. Yes 13 year-olds and older in grade 1. Many progressed rapidly up the grades as they became proficient in English as well as other subjects.
It seems that with "the de facto doctrine of social promotion" these days that far too many students progress up the grades despite lacking knowledge and skills.
I was really pleased, in this post, to see an appeal to using evidence of success to make decisions rather than "more of what some would like to have work"....... whether "it works or not". Seattle Math under MGJ is a suitable example of ideology trumping evidence in decision-making.
Let us make "Results" important and dump the going nowhere "Ed Elite Philosophical" approach.
It is not a Best Practice if it does not work, no matter which PhD in Education tells us so.
Also -- if you know anything about bi- or tri-lingual language learning in places like Switzerland (where children "go to school" in one of three languages, depending on where they live), I would love to hear that as well.
In Singapore there is also a multilingual model.
Math instruction is always in English but other classes could be in Tamil, Mandarin Chinese or Malay. Slightly less than 50% of students come from primarily English speaking homes.
Like you I do not know much about this issue.
-- Dan
What the column references is purely anecdotal. I can say from my own experience of family and friends (and many bi-lingual professors at UW and their children) is that children can learn one (or more) languages when they are young. I know a family where the mom is Mexican, the father German and obviously, they live in the U.S. The kids speak all three languages. I read once that Arnold Schwarzenegger only spoke German to his kids when they were young so they would be bilingual. I think among bilingual families this is well-known but has there been research?
Two things that are lacking under the new CBA this year. This year IA's have a doubled case load so there are fewer IA's and they have more to do. Gone is the Chinese IA, no Somali IA, and my Spanish IA is in class about 2 days a week at most. The ELL teacher also works in 2 other classrooms in addition to mine. Not surprisingly more than half of my ELL students are failing the course. There is simply not enough time and human power to work with these students in the way they need to master two subjects (English and science.) At this point I am asking my former ELL students to tutor their friends that I have this year to make up the difference.
I think full inclusion can be a fantastic way to teach, but not without sufficient support. What is the saddest about this year is there could have been funds to support full-inclusion if downtown wanted to, but apparently excellence for all means something different to me than it does to Central admin.
--Special ed parent
Signed, proud special education parent