Term Paper on "Problems With Bilingual Education"

Term Paper 8 pages (2340 words) Sources: 10 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Bilingual Research Journal (BRJ)

According to its website, this is "a journal that is published three times each year and covers a wide range of topics relating to bilingual education, bilingualism in society, and language policy in education. The journal contains three sections: research and essays, the traditional formats of scholarly discourse; research in practice, which documents the experience of teachers and other practitioners; and book reviews"

Website guidelines for submission available at http://brj.asu.edu/submit.html

Problems with bilingual education -- a review of current literature and a call to action

Ideally, research, not rhetoric should determine the most effective way to teach children within the American educational system. Yet the current debate over the best way to conduct bilingual classes for children has been largely dominated by the latter rather than the former. Organizations such as 'English First' have created effective but misguided lobbying campaigns to unite fearful citizens under the banner of patriotism. It urges that that: "congressional staff, state legislators and scholars nationwide" must know that English-only programs are a voting issue ("What is English First,"2007, English First Website). While the goals of the organization are simple, to make English America's official language and eliminate multilingual programs in school, the actual process of second language acquisition is far more complex for ESL students. Contrary to the English-only ideal, current research, imperfect and limited as current studies on different approaches to bilingual education may be, support the idea that a transitional, rather than an immersive approach is the superior strategy to pursue with children. A slow transitional approach best suits ESL student's long-term academic needs. Short-term proficiency to meet narrow standards of literacy that do not render ESL students on academic par with native English speakers in all subjects, not just language arts, should not be the goal of bilingual education.

The stakes of the debate

Opponents of bilingual education programs often harken back to the early 1900s, when children of immigrants entered schools in large numbers and being raised in a bilingual home was seen as harming school success. At that time, children were discouraged from speaking their native language at school. English immersion was the order of the day, and critics of bilingualism maintain, students who did not speak English readily learned it and entered the educational mainstream" (Cromwell, 1998, "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I"). This argument is often posed in terms of the cliche: 'my mother came over on the boat from Italy, and learned English the hard way (through immersion) why shouldn't other children have to suffer in the same fashion? Why the passionate fervor for immersion, even on a popular level when we are in fact a nation of immigrants? It is not simply xenophobia, perhaps, rather "most people feel like experts when it comes to language. Our reactions are often visceral. Perhaps that's because our speech defines us ethnically, socially, and intellectually. it's tied up with a sense of who we are - and who we are not - evoking some of our deepest emotions (Crawford, 1997, "Bilingual Education").

However, the debate about the methodology bilingual education should not be if children can simply learn English through immersion, which clearly many can, but if immersion is the most effective way to impart English to new immigrants, and if insisting upon immersion impedes the acquisition of more sophisticated English language proficiency and other academic skills later on. According to University of Southern California professor Stephen Krashen quality not quantity of English-language exposure is the primary factor in language mastery that extends beyond pure acquisition of new vocabulary and grammar. "According to Krashen's research, the second-language input must be comprehensible in order for students to learn that language" and apply it to academics (Cromwell, 1998 "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I"). Pure immersion makes the classroom is just noise at worst, or confusing for the ESL child in comparison to his or her English speaking peers at best.

Immersion vs. other methods of instruction

What are the available methods of instruction for English language learners? Immersion, the method predominantly practiced in the United States, is when students learn in English, and only in English, often in the company of native English speakers -- they may or may not, depending on the district's financial resources and philosophical approach have additional resource room support. When teaching in such a classroom, teachers may try to use simpler language that is tailored to the ESL students while learning academic subjects, or they may not depending on the numbers of such students in the classroom (Cromwell, 1998, "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I"). A less scientific, but apt term for the process of immersion might be 'sink or swim.' In other words, students learn, or they fall behind.

In defense of this methodology, it is deployed by private, professional language organizations such as Berlitz, to teach adults and children how to acquire a second language. However, because ESL students are often coping with the psychological and emotional difficulties of adapting to a new country, as well as learning difficult academic, non-language related subjects such as science and math, this analogy is hardly apt to make regarding their experiences. "To devalue a minority child's language is to devalue the child - at least, that's how it feels" to the child when the child is forced to sacrifice the language of his or her parents almost immediately upon entering the new, American school system (Crawford, 1992).

What is often unacknowledged in the immersion vs. other methodologies in the ESL debate is that, although recent state initiatives have attempted to defend 'local control' of school boards and their right to practice immersion strategies, the unique challenges faced by bilingual students were recognized in 1968 by Congress when it passed the Bilingual Education Act "to provide for the growing number of linguistically diverse students who, because of their limited English proficiency, were not getting an education equal to that of their English-proficient peers" noting when the "inability to speak and understand the English language excludes national origin minority group children from effective participation in the educational program offered by a school district, the district must take affirmative steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to open its instructional program to these students" (Cromwell, 1998, "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I"). In other words, not even the stated philosophy law of the land supports immersion as its dominant philosophy. Title III and Title V of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act monitors federally-funded programs and sets goals and accountability standards for bilingual programs but it does not specify an immersive approach, although helping bilingual students meet all academic standards (and not merely basic proficiency in English) is the stated goal of the act (OELA, 2007).

It is, one sociolinguist states, unsubstantiated notion that all children will easily 'pick up' a second language rapidly if immersed' in it, arguing that "for generations, this philosophy served to justify policies of educational neglect - assigning minority students to regular classrooms, with no special help in overcoming language barriers. Disproportionate numbers failed and dropped out of school as a result. This is one reason that the U.S. Supreme Court in Lau v. Nichols (1974) actually ruled that not to take into consideration the unique educational needs of bilingual students was illegal discrimination (Crawford, 1997, "Bilingual Education").

A less popular, although more effective approach (sociolinguists argue) that can used with bilingual students is that of transitional bilingual education, which offers students some instruction in their native language for non-linguistically related subjects while still offering concentrated English-language instruction to improve grammar and vocabulary, although this strategy often includes English-only portions of the day that are spent with native English speakers in literature, social studies, health, etc. "At least in theory, students make a transition from transitional bilingual programs to mainstream English programs within a few years" (Cromwell, 1998, "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I").

Finally, developmental bilingual education in contrast to the two, abovementioned strategies, attempts to build on students' skills in their native language as they learn English as a second language, almost in a method that is similar to how English speakers acquire second languages within a traditional curricular format (Cromwell, 1998, "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part I"). But representatives of ESL students and parents have found such developmental programs problematic, alleging that their children are cloistered in special programs. According to one survey of 600 Hispanic parents of school-age children, 63% of Hispanic parents preferred that their children be taught English alone and 81.3% wanted their children to be taught academic subjects in English. But this data was drawn from a relatively small sampling, and although immersion may appeal to parents, there is no guarantee that it will produce the expected results of academic proficiency in other subjects (Cromwell, 1998 "The Bilingual Education Debate: Part II").

Still, even if the developmental method of instruction was most desirable, it is also not very practical: "Often there are not enough children from the same language group… READ MORE

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