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BILINGUAL
EDUCATION: NINETY QUESTIONS, NINETY ANSWERS by
Stephen Krashen SOME FUNDAMENTALS 1. What are the goals of bilingual education? We need to distinguish two distinct goals of bilingual education. The first is the development of academic English and academic success, the second is the development of the heritage language (HL). Both are worthwhile goals, and both are accomplished in quality bilingual education programs for the same price. Most of the debate has been about the first goal. (Notes and references at end.) 2. What is "academic language"? Academic language is the language
of school, business, politics, science, journalism, etc. In school, it is the
ability to read and understand story problems, write book reports, and read
complex social studies texts. It is contrasted with "conversational" language,
the everyday language of the playground. Children may be able to pick up
conversational language fairly quickly, in a year or two, but it takes much
longer to acquire academic language. If a child has developed high levels of
academic language in the first language, it is much easier to develop it in the
second language. Someone who is used to reading academic texts in one language
will find it easier to read similar texts in other languages, compared to
someone without this experience. The conversational-academic
language distinction was made by Prof. Jim Cummins of the University of Toronto
to explain why some children sound fluent in the second language but still have
problems in school; they have acquired conversational language but not academic
language. 3. Aren't bilingual programs mostly concerned with maintaining the ethnic culture of the family? No. While some bilingual programs
encourage development of the heritage language after English has been mastered,
the major goal is the rapid acquisition of English and mastery of academic
subjects. 4. How can teaching children using their first language help them acquire the second language? It doesn't make sense. One would think that the more
English children hear and read, the faster they will acquire it. This is not so.
When we give children a good education in their first language, they get two
things: knowledge and literacy. Both the knowledge they develop in the first
language and the literacy they develop in their first language help English
language development enormously. The effect is indirect, but powerful. 5. How does subject matter knowledge help English language development? The knowledge you learn using
your first language makes what you hear and read in English much more
comprehensible. This results in more language acquisition and more learning in
general. The positive effects of background knowledge on language acquisition
and on learning in general have been thoroughly documented, and the concept
makes common sense. Consider the hypothetical case of a limited English proficient high school student enrolled in a history class, a student with clear limitations in English. But let us assume that she knows something about history. She has studied history extensively in her own language: She knows about World Wars I and II, knows where Istanbul, Addis Ababa, Copenhagen and Bangkok are, knows something about Louis XIV, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and
Fidel Castro. Clearly, this student will do well, possibly even better than many
native speakers. Thanks to the background knowledge she developed through her
first language, history in English will be more comprehensible. 6. How does developing literacy in the first language help? Developing literacy in the first language is a shortcut to English literacy. A simple three-step argument explains why: 1) We learn to read by understanding what is on the page. 2) If (1) is true, it is easier to learn to read if you understand the language. 3) Once you can read, you can
read. When you are literate in one language, it is much easier to develop
literacy in another. Literacy transfers across languages. 7. How do we know that literacy transfers across languages? Several ways: (1) We know that the process of reading is similar in different languages; readers of different languages use the same strategies while reading. (2) We know that learning to read happens similarly in different languages. For example, vocabulary development occurs in the same way in Chinese and English, with readers picking up a bit of the meaning of the new word each time they see it in print in a meaningful context. (3) We know that those with more
reading competence in the first language learn to read better in the second
language (correlational studies). 8. Isn't the transfer of reading ability limited to cases where the alphabets are the same? No. Transfer has been shown to
occur from Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese to English, and from
Turkish to Dutch. In fact, whenever researchers have looked for evidence of
transfer, they have found it. 9. How can transfer occur when alphabets are different? Just because someone can read in English does not mean they can immediately start to read in Chinese. The point is that anyone literate
in any language will find learning to read in another language easier
than someone not literate in their first language. A literate speaker of Chinese
will have an easier time learning to read English than an illiterate speaker of
Chinese. The facilitating effect of first language literacy may not be
immediate. 10. Transfer sounds fine in the research, but does it really happen? Here is an example, one of many:
Lorraine Ruiz taught a second grade class of Spanish speakers in the Alum Rock
School District in California, all LEP or non English speakers. The children had
aural comprehensible input in English, but much of the curriculum was in Spanish
and reading was taught in Spanish. Ms. Ruiz had a classroom library with books
both in English and Spanish. At the beginning of the year, the children could
not read the English books, but by the end of the year they could. The children
themselves were amazed. One child asked Mrs. Ruiz, "When did you teach us to
read in English?" The explanation is that Ms. Ruiz helped them learn to read in
Spanish, and once you can read, you can read. This example is not an isolated
one. 11. Are children in bilingual programs forbidden to read in English until they master reading in their first language? No. There is no reason to prevent
children from reading in English until they reach a certain level in the primary
language. The key concept is comprehensibility. Children can be encouraged to
read in English as soon as texts can be made comprehensible. Reading in the
first language will make this happen sooner, because literacy transfers across
languages, and the concepts children learn through reading in their first
language will make English texts more comprehensible. 12. What are the components of a well-designed bilingual program? 1. Providing subject instruction in the first language, without translation. 2. Developing literacy in the first language. 3. Providing comprehensible input
in English. 13. What is sheltered subject matter teaching? Sheltered subject matter teaching
is a form of content-based language teaching designed for intermediate level
language students. In sheltered classes, students are taught subject matter
through the medium of the second language, in a comprehensible way. The focus of
the class is on subject matter, not language. For example, limited English
proficient students in a sheltered math class should all be intermediate level
ESL students. The class is taught in English, and students are tested on math,
not English. 14. Does sheltered subject matter teaching work? Studies done with intermediate,
literate foreign language students consistently show that sheltered subject
matter teaching works. Students in these classes acquire as much or more
language as those in regular intermediate classes and learn impressive amounts
of subject matter at the same time. The kind of language they acquire, moreover,
is "academic language," the kind needed for school success. 15. Is sheltered subject matter teaching used in bilingual programs? Yes, it is used as a bridge
between instruction done in the primary language and the mainstream. A limited
English proficient student will first have math in the primary language, then in
a sheltered class, and then in the mainstream. The use of the sheltered class in
this way makes sure that instruction is comprehensible at all times, and helps
prepare the child for the mainstream. 16. Don't bilingual programs teach only in the first language? No. Some critics of bilingual
education have claimed that bilingual education requires that children spend
five to seven years mastering their native language before they can learn
English. This is not correct. English is introduced immediately. According to
one study of bilingual programs, by the time children are in grade 3, 75% of
their subject matter is in English, and it is 90% by grade 5. Even in late-exit
programs, 50% of the day is in English by grade five. ESL begins from the first
day, and subjects are taught in English as soon as they can be made
comprehensible. 17. Why wait? Why not teach all subjects in English from the very first day? Because they would not be
comprehensible, even when presented in sheltered classes. It is nearly
impossible to teach complex subject matter in a language students do not
understand. A more efficient strategy is to give beginning students high quality
ESL to build English competence, and high quality subject matter teaching in the
primary language. When subject matter in English is introduced after children
have some English and some subject matter knowledge, it is much more
comprehensible and progress is faster. If you were going to France to
study computers, and knew no French and knew nothing about computers, it would
make sense to first develop some knowledge of French and, at the same time,
learn something about computers in English. It would be a bad idea to plunge
into computer science classes in French right away. THE RESEARCH CONTROVERSY 1. What does the research say about the effectiveness of bilingual education? When well-designed bilingual
programs are compared to all-second language alternatives, children in bilingual
programs acquire the second language as well or better. Also, when
socio-economic status (poverty) is controlled, children with some education in
the host country do better than those who received all their education in the US
(natural experiments). 2. What are some examples of
studies showing the success of bilingual education in the United States? Mortensen (1984) compared grade
4,5 and 6 Spanish speaking students in two programs, a bilingual program with
transitioning to English reading in grade 3, and a monolingual English program.
In the bilingual program, literacy development was done at first in the first
language, subject matter was taught in the first language, and ESL was provided.
According to Mortensen, subjects in the two programs lived in "close proximity"
to each other, and were from a similar socioeconomic background. Mortensen reported no
statistically significant differences between the groups on a word attack test,
but the bilingual education students were significantly better on a test of
comprehension skills. de la Garza and Medina (1985)
compared children (grades 1-3) in a bilingual program to English-dominant
children in an all-English program, a very severe test. Eighty percent of the
bilingual education children were classified as limited English proficient, but
94% of the comparisons were English-dominant. The first language was used 75% of
the time in grade 1, 70% in grade 2 and 50% in grade 3. Reading instruction in
the bilingual classes was done in Spanish, and language was alternated weekly or
monthly in subject matter classes, with instructional language "contingent upon
the L2 proficiency of the LEP student" (p. 251). Children in the bilingual
program scored as well as the English-speaking comparison students and even
outperformed them in the second grade vocabulary test. In addition, the
socio-economic class of the English speaking children may have been higher (37%
free lunches, versus 76%). 3. What is an example of a "natural experiment" informing us about bilingual education? Gonzales (1989) compared English
reading scores for sixth grade Mexican-American children born in Mexico who had
received at least two years of their education in Mexico and Mexican-American
children who had received all of their education in the US in English. A ll
children were of low socio-economic status. The Mexican-born children did better
on a test of English reading, and were only slightly worse in English
conversation; both groups were near the ceiling of the conversation test. 4. Why is this an important result? The Mexican-educated children had
"de facto" bilingual education, literacy and subject matter teaching in their
own language. This is strong evidence for bilingual education, because these are
the components good bilingual programs provide. 5. What is an example of a
study showing the success of bilingual education in other countries? In Appel (1984) 26 Turkish and 31
Moroccan children ages 7 to 12.6 were placed in either bilingual or "regular"
classes in Leiden in the Netherlands. The bilingual group had special
instruction in Dutch for 20% of the time, and also had all subjects taught in
the primary language for the first year, but "as soon as the immigrant children
were able to understand and speak some Dutch, they joined Dutch children for a
few hours a week in activities (gymnastics, music, and crafts) which were meant
to encourage their integration into Dutch life" (p. 30). In the second year, the
program was 50% primary language and 50% Dutch, and in year three all
instruction was in Dutch. Comparison children had all instruction in Dutch, with
20% of the day in "special instruction." The children from the bilingual
education group did slightly better than comparison students on tests of oral
Dutch, but the differences were not statistically significant; the bilingual
group did significantly better on a test of reading comprehension in Dutch. Appel noted that "In general, it
can be concluded that the amount of time on minority-language teaching in the
transitional bilingual school ... did not harm or hinder the second language
acquisition of the Turkish and Moroccan immigrant workers' children. At the end
of the research period, these children were even somewhat ahead in oral and
written second-language proficiency as compared to children who were instructed
entirely or almost entirely in Dutch" (p. 50). The impact of bilingual education
was apparently not limited to language: "In the first three school years the
mean percentage of 'problem children' in the (regular) group was nearly twice as
high as in the (bilingual) group (24% vs. 13%). Social-emotional problems were
exhibited in aggressive behavior, apathy ..." (p. 57). 6. What happens to graduates of bilingual programs? Several studies confirm that
those who completed bilingual programs do well. Of course, critics may argue
that these are the survivors, the gifted or otherwise exceptional few who
survived despite bilingual education. But the reports of such "survivors" are
very consistent and include substantial numbers of children; we are not simply
dealing with a handful of students. They demonstrate, at a minimum, that
bilingual education is not a pathway to failure. 7. Is there published data showing graduates are successful? Here is an example: In
Burnham-Massay and Pina (1990) graduates of bilingual education were compared to
native speakers of English in their district. The former bilingual education
students had had reading and language arts in their primary language, and a
"natural approach" to ESL and sheltered subject matter teaching. Math and other
subjects were taught in Spanish when bilingual teachers were available; when
staff was not available, children received help from paraprofessionals and
cross-age tutors in their primary language. The bilingual ed graduates
equaled native speakers of English in reading comprehension in grades 5,7 and 8.
In grade 9, 81% of the graduates passed the High School Proficiency Test,
compared to 82% of the native speakers of English. In grade 12, all the
bilingual education graduates passed. Burnham-Massey and Pena also
provide us with evidence that shows that we are not simply dealing with a few
exceptional survivors. They present data on 39 children who were in the
bilingual program continuously from grade 1 to grade 5: reading scores climbed
gradually from the 19th percentile to grade 1 to the 46th in grade 5, suggesting
that the students in this study are not simply the exceptions. 8. Aren't these simply isolated, sanitized model programs? No. Whenever bilingual education
has been put to the test, it has done well. 9. What is "immersion"? The term "immersion" can mean one of several approaches: 1. Doing nothing, or submersion (sink or swim). 2. Providing comprehensible subject matter instruction in the second language, with little or no first language help ("structu red immersion" is one version of this; it may or may not include some help in the child's first language). 3. Bilingual education as done in
North America for language majority children acquiring a second language
(usually Spanish in the US or French in the US and Canada). Sometimes referred
to as "Canadian immersion," these programs are really forms of bilingual
education, as they provide both subject matter teaching and literacy in the
primary language. 10. Don't method comparison studies show immersion to be better than bilingual education? If by immersion we mean "structured immersion" (see previous question), the answer is no. The only report claiming this is by Rossell and Baker (1996). Among the methodological errors were these: 1. Programs used were inaccurately described. In some cases, programs labeled "immersion" or "submersion" were actually bilingual education. In several other cases, investigators provided little or no description of the bilingual program Some kinds of bilingual education are better than others. 2. Several comparisons were really comparisons of different versions of Canadian immersion. In other words, they were comparisons of different forms of bilingual education. (see "What is immersion?" above). 3. Many successful programs were excluded from the analysis because pretests were not used, but there is no reason to assume that pretest differences existed. Some comparisons that Rossell and Baker included should have been excluded, as they violated their own criteria for inclusion. 4. Some comparisons were inaccurately reported. 5. Some studies included a very
small number of children. 11. Have other reviews been done? Yes, and they are supportive of
bilingual education. The most recent was done by Prof. Jay Greene of the
University of Texas at Austin. Greene used more precise statistical tools than
those used by Rossell and Baker, and concluded that the use of the native
language in instructing limited English proficient children has "moderate
beneficial effects" and that "efforts to eliminate the use of the native
language in instruction ... harm children by denying them access to beneficial
approaches." 12. Didn't Greene look at old studies, irrelevant today? There is no correlation between
year of publication of the studies Greene analyzed with the results of his
analysis. The most recent study analyzed was published in 1991. 13. Didn't Greene only find 11 studies worthy of inclusion? Yes, but he only included studies
in which there was control for pre-treatment differences. Numerous additional
studies supporting bilingual education did not do this, but there was no reason
to suspect such differences exist. 14. Wasn't "immersion" shown to be superior to bilingual education in El Paso, Texas? No. The program labeled
"immersion" was a version of bilingual education. Children had 60 to 90 minutes
per day of instruction in their primary language. 15. Wasn't immersion shown to be superior to bilingual education in McAllen, Texas? No, The program labeled
"immersion" was a version of bilingual education. Children had significant
amounts of instruction in Spanish reading. The goal of the program, according to
the district, was biliteracy. Test scores were only available for kindergarten
and first grade. 16. How did the famous "Ramirez study" come out? In this study, a weak form of
bilingual education was compared to all-English structured immersion.Use of the
primary language (Spanish) in the early-exit bilingual program was limited
primarily to initial reading instruction. In addition, teachers were not highly
proficient in Spanish. There was no significant difference in English reading
scores after three years of instruction. 17. Wasn't ESL shown to be better than bilingual education in New York City? Exit rates were indeed higher
among students in ESL than in bilingual education. According to a member of the
New York City Board of Education, Luis Reyes, children in the ESL program were
of higher social class. 18. Is there evidence that social class(SES) matters? There is no question that
socio-economic status (wealth, in other words) is a strong predictor of school
performance. High socio-economic class means higher redesignation rates (exiting
from special programs into the "mainstream") and much faster development of
English, regardless of the measure used and regardless of whether bilingual
education is available; for one of the groups studied by Hakuta, Butler, and
Witt, by grade five 75% of the children in the highest SES group were
reclassified as English proficient, but only 40% of the lowest SES group had
reached this level. 19. Why does social class have this effect? Wealth provides "de facto"
bilingual education: Children who come from higher SES families have had
superior education in the primary language before immigration. Even for those
who came early, or were born in the host country, there are profound advantages,
including educated caregivers who can provide help in the primary language,
tutoring, and more access to print, both at home and in the form of better
school and public libraries, in addition to the more obvious advantages of
wealth (creature comforts). SUCCESS WITHOUT BILINGUAL
EDUCATION? 1. Don't many immigrant children do well in school without bilingual education? Those who succeed in school
without bilingual education often had a good background in their first language,
before they came to the US. They had "de facto" bilingual education in their
home country. Fernando de la Pena wrote about
his experiences in a book published by US English. He came to the US at age nine
with no English competence and did well. But he had been in the fifth grade in
Mexico in a good school system and was thus literate in Spanish and knew subject
matter. When he started school in the US, he was put in grade 3! His superior
knowledge of subject matter helped make the English he heard more
comprehensible. Cases like this one are very
different from many of the children we see in school today, children of poverty
without a good education in their first language, not at grade level when they
arrive, and without high levels of first language literacy. Those who did well who started at
kindergarten often had the benefit of an English speaking neighborhood, books in
English, and help in the first language at home. Also, some knew at least some
English before they arrived at school. The most famous case of this kind
is Richard Rodriguez, the author of Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez was the only
Spanish-speaking child in his class in elementary school, and became a voracious
reader, a route not available to many limited English proficient children
because of lack of access to books. 2. Weren't many immigrants
financially successful without bilingual education? It is frequently argued that many
immigrants who arrived in the United States in the first part of the twentieth
century succeeded economically without bilingual education. It is established,
however, that immigrants did not do all that well in school during this time. In
fact, very few native speakers of English did well in school in those days: In
1910, only 13.5% of the total population had graduated high school; today that
figure is around 83%. If immigrants did so poorly in
school, how did they succeed economically? In the first part of the 20th
century, education was not a prerequisite to economic success. It is now. Years
ago, there was work in manufacturing and agriculture that did not require high
school or college. Today, nearly all work that leads to a decent living requires
education: US government figures show that those who are not high school
graduates earn under the poverty level, on the average. As Dennis Parker has
stated it, the $15-20/hour job in the steel mill has been replaced by the
minimum wage job at the hamburger stand. CALIFORNIA AND PROPOSITION 227 1. What happened at the Ninth Street School? According to the media, immigrant parents at the Ninth Street school in LAUSD boycotted the school in order to get their children out of bilingual education. Here is what really happened: 1. All of the parents had signed forms consenting to bilingual education and they never asked the school to enroll the children in the alternative English-only program. The principal invited the parents to discuss the program with her; the parents were advised by the organizer of the boycott, Alice Callaghan, not to do this. The Ninth Street school has a record of allowing parents choice of programs. 2. The bilingual program provided two hours of English per day, with more English provided as children were ready to learn subject matter in English, and scores in English had improved 35% in the last four years. 3. More than one year after the boycott, with the children now in English-only classes, only 2 out of 74 were tested as proficient in English, a redesignation rate of less than 3%. 4. The media repeated the Ninth
street story, without the above facts, many times. It did not emphasize that
parents in Santa Barbara and Orange protested when bilingual education was
dropped. 2. Didn't LA students "take to immersion" according to the LA Times? That's what the headline said
(January 13, 1999), but that's not what the article said. About five months
after 227 was implemented, the reporter conducted 13 (!) interviews in the Los
Angeles Unified School District, and concluded that children were picking up
"verbal English at a surprising rate" but also reported that there were concerns
that children were falling behind in their studies; many teachers were
questioning "whether most of the youngsters have acquired the language skills
necessary to comprehend math, reading or history lessons in English." One
teacher noted that children were picking up "social English," not academic
English, that new concepts still had to be presented in the primary language,
and that "we won't have as many readers in our class as we did last year" (under
bilingual education). Other teachers said that they had to "water down" core
subjects. This is just what one would
expect would happen. Children will pick up conversational language with any kind
of program. (No comparison was made with conversational English spoken by
children in bilingual programs.) The challenge is to help them develop what
Cummins calls "academic language," the language of school. According to the
article, there were problems in this domain. Apparently, the headline writer did
not read this far into the article. 3. Can SAT9 scores measure the success of Prop 227? Using SAT (Stanford) 9 scores to compare LEP children's growth in different districts is scientifically invalid. a. The same children are not used each year; new ones enter, and those who acquire enough English are reclassified. Comparisons are not pretest-posttest comparisons. We have no idea if the groups we are comparing were at similar levels at the beginning of the year, b. We don't know what kind of program was in place in all comparisons. If a district claims to use bilingual education, we don't know what kind of program it was. Some kinds of bilingual education programs are more effective than others. c. There is no control for other variables that can influence test scores. Some of these variables are factors outside the school, such as poverty and the amount of print in the environment. In-school factors include legitimate program changes, such as such as increasing the amount of real reading children do, and providing services where none existed before. Sheltered immersion, the Proposition 227 solution, is far better than doing nothing. There are also illegitimate ways of increasing test scores, such as teaching directly to the test, providing students with actual items or very similar items in advance of the test, and selective testing, i.e. not allowing low scoring children to take the test. Such procedures are analogous to trying to warm a room by lighting a match under the thermometer. Scores go up, but there is no real progress. d. Tests scores generally rise
each year with commercial tests. This is why tests need to be recalibrated every
few years. It is not clear why this happens, but it does. The SAT9 was
introduced in California in 1998.This general tendency for commercial test
scores to increase accounts for half of the increase in reading scores in grades
two and three in the SAT9 reading test since1998, and all of the increase in
grades four through seven. It also suggests that SAT9 reading scores in
California have actually declined slightly in grades eight through eleven. The only scientifically valid way
to determine whether the presence or absence of bilingual education makes a
difference in test scores is by doing a controlled study. In such a study,
groups differ only with respect the to use of the child's first language, and
are otherwise identical or very similar. Studies done before Proposition 227
consistently showed that bilingual education was successful in helping children
acquire English. 4. If SAT9 comparisons were
valid, wouldn't they show that 227 was a success? The Stanford 9 increase cannot be
attributed to Proposition 227. Prof. Kenji Hakuta and his associates of Stanford
University have reported that scores rose in districts that kept bilingual
education and scores rose in districts that never did bilingual education. There
is no clear scientific evidence linking increases in test scores to dropping
bilingual education. 5. What about Oceanside? The Oceanside School District is
the most often mentioned example of the success of 227. Oceanside
enthusiastically embraced English immersion and claimed that test scores for
their limited English proficient students have risen dramatically since 1998.
But this does not demonstrate that 227 was a success. No real comparison was
made between limited English proficient students in the Oceanside all-English
program and students in a quality bilingual education program. Oceanside had a
bilingual program before Proposition 227, but we have no idea as to the quality
of this program. The Oceanside district has not responded to requests to provide
details. Also, we have no details about other changes and interventions that
took place in Oceanside. Finally, the Oceanside analysis is what researchers
call "post hoc." It is easy to look at the many districts and schools in
California and find one that fit one's predictions. One can just as easily find
SAT9 cases that support bilingual education and do not support all-English.
Several districts that kept bilngual education, such as Oceanview (not
Oceanside), did well in 2000., while scores for limited English children at
Bennett-Kew, an all-English school, dropped i n three out of four grades, and
did so dramatically in grade 4, from 32 to 21. Only controlled studies can tell
us which of several programs is superior. 6. What do redesignation rates
show about the success of Prop 227. Redesignation occurs when a child
knows enough English to participate in the mainstream. All studies, whether done
by advocates or opponents of bilingual education, show that this takes about
five years. When redesignation rates rose in Los Angeles Unified School District
recently, proponents of Proposition 227 claimed success. Redesignation rates in Los
Angeles did in fact improve: A tenth of a percent in 1999, and about two percent
since 1998. Proposition 227 has been in effect only two years, not enough time
to show an effect. Redesignation rates in Los Angeles Unified have been
increasing for the last ten years, from about four percent in 1990 to ten
percent in 2000. In the early 1990's, Los Angeles Unified greatly improved its
bilingual education program. It appears that bilingual education deserves the
credit for the improvement, not Proposition 227. If we accept that recent gains in
redesignation rates are a valid indicator of Proposition 227, data from other
districts shows that 227 is a failure: Some English-only districts had
redesignation rates below the state average, including Oceanside (6.6%, compared
to the state average of 7.6%), while some that kept bilingual education had
higher redesignation rates. Let's compare Santa Barbara and
Oceanview (not Oceanside), districts with the same levels of poverty. Santa
Barbara is English-only, while Oceanview kept bilingual education. In 1999, the
redesignation rate in Santa Barbara was 2.3%, in Oceanview, 7.4%. Let's compare Alameda and San Francisco, districts with the same levels of poverty. Alameda is English-only, while San Francisco kept bilingual education. In 1999, the redesignation rate in Alameda was 4.6%, in Oceanview, 10.6%. Controlling for socio-economic
factors, analysis of individual districts shows 227 to be a failure! 7. The co-author of 227,
Gloria Tuchman, teaches first grade in Santa Ana at the Taft school. Isn't the
Taft school very successful? Yes and no. Taft scored well
above the district norms in the SAT9 (second graders scored 58 in 1999, compared
to the district's 27), but Taft has a powerful advantage: It has far fewer LEP
students and has much less poverty. Nevertheless, redesignation rates
at Taft are not impressive. For the four years available from the State of
California on their Ed Quest website, Taft only clearly exceeds the district
rate for redesignation in one year, and redesignated fewer in two years. 8. What about the READ report? The READ organization, a group in
opposition to bilingual education, recently issued a report on oral language
development in several California districts (Orange, Atwater, Delano) who use a
sheltered English immersion approach for their limited English proficient
children (Clark, 1999). In our analysis of their data (Krashen and McQuillan,
1999), we concluded that after one year, a substantial number of students had
not reached "intermediate fluency," the minimum level thought to be necessary to
understand "modified, grade-appropriate" special subject matter teaching. In
Orange, for example, after one academic year 26% of LEP children were still at
the lowest level (out of 5) in English, and only 23% moved to "intermediate
fluency." Moreover, many of those who achieved this level were well beyond the
beginning level at the start of the year. In this and in several other
cases, success was claimed for "immersion" when no comparison was made at all
with similar children under bilingual education. 9. What about the Bennett-Kew
school? Aren't they English-only with an emphasis on phonics? And don't they
have great success? This is indeed a fascinating
case. The redesignation rate for Bennett-Kew is spectacular, especially
considering the SES of the students. But there are some problems. Bennett-Kew has a policy of
retaining low achieving kindergarten children for an extra year; according to
the Santa Cruz Sentinel article, 18% of first graders are in this category and
attend a special all-day "junior first" program "designed to shore up their
basic skills" - they do not, in other words, simply repeat kindergarten. Bennett-Kew children, according
to the Sentinal, are tested constantly: "Every few weeks, children take a test
to see how much they have learned, a small scale version of the
fill-in--the-bubble exams." This constant practice, in addition to possible
instruction on test-taking strategies, may pay off in higher scores, a kind of
Princeton Review for elementary school children. Also, "youngsters who have
difficulty can get tutoring, which is provided by university students after
school four days a week." Finally, we have no clear
information about other programs and approaches that may be in place in
Bennett-Kew; Jeff McQuillan has pointed out that we do know that the advertised
causes of success, English-only and phonics, have not led to success in
controlled studies. 11. Didn't immersion succeed in Westminster? The Westminster School District
claimed that "after 18 months of instruction only in English ... pupils have
made better academic progress and learned more English than they did when taught
in their native languages" (Long Island Newsday, November 28, 1997). This
conclusion is not correct. Gains were modest (3 NCE points in one year) and no
comparisons were ever made with previous programs or with any other program. In
fact, Westminster actually increased the amount of first language support
provided to pupils, in the form of paraprofessionals. 12. Isn't one year enough to acquire another language? We had plenty of evidence before the 227 vote that one year was nowhere near enough to acquire a sufficient level of English to do well in the "mainstream." - Ramirez (1992) reported that after one year in an all-English "immersion program, only 3.9% of LEP children were "redesignated" and only 1.3% were mainstreamed. Even after three years, these percentages were still only 38% and 19%. - Mitchell, Destino, and Karan (1997) evaluated the progress of limited English proficient children in the Santa Ana district in an "immersion" program that was similar to what Proposition 227 requires. When they entered school, the children had "low intermediate" proficiency in English (2.18 on a 1-5 scale, where 4 = sufficient proficiency to survive in the mainstream). After one year, they showed some growth in English but were nowhere near what was required to do academic work in the mainstream: They moved from 2.18 to 2.84 in English, on a five point scale. Even after a second year of immersion, their mean English rating was only 3.24. - Krashen and McQuillan (1999) reanalyzed data from Clark (1999), and concluded that one year/180 days was not sufficient even to bring most students to the level where they could do well in special "sheltered " subject matter instruction, and fell very very far short of bringing students to the level where they would profit from being in the mainstream. - Goldberg (1997) described an all-English program for LEP childre in Pennsylvania who received a "language rich curriculum" in English in kindergarten, with 75 minutes daily of ESL. For those who started at beginner level, it took three to three and a half years until they reached the level in which they are able to "understand main ideas appropriate to grade level" even with additional ESL support. After one year, most were still at the "beginner" level in oral proficiency. This study was presented as evidence against bilingual education. - The Little Hoover Commission
published a very hostile and critical review of bilingual education in 1993.
They noted that "some experts believe that English can be academically
comprehensible for children in as little as two years, while others believe that
six or more years of assistance is necessary." Their minimum estimate is two
years, twice the amount that Prop 227 allows. The one-year time period is
wildly optimistic. It is contrary to the results of every study done in the
field in which programs very similar or identical to sheltered English immersion
were used. 13. Ron Unz claimed that only 5% of children in California learned English each year. Is this true? No. About 5% are redesignated
as English proficient each year. (Actual reclassification rates for
California for the last few years are as follows: 1995 = 5.9%, 1996 = 6.5%, 1997
= 6.7%; 1998 = 7%, 1999 = 7.6%) To be redesignated means to reach a high enough
level of English literacy to be considered fully English proficient. Children
know a great deal of English well before reclassification. Some districts
require that children reach the 35th percentile on tests of English reading to
be redesignated. Thus, many of the English native speaking children in these
districts would not be classified as proficient. Also, the five percent figure did
not represent the success of bilingual education. The figure was based on
all limited English children in California, not just those in bilingual
education. Only about 30% of limited English proficient children were in
bilingual education programs before Proposition 227 in California. 14. The "English for the Children" campaign claimed that "After 25 years of bilingual education, a quarter of all children in California public schools don't know English. Was this correct? This is not correct. A quarter of
the school children in California are classified as limited English proficient.
The number of limited English proficient children in schools in California has
increased dramatically in recent years, due to factors that have nothing to do
with bilingual education, mainly immigration. In 1982, there were about 430,000
limited English proficient children in California' s schools. In 1999, there
were about 1,450,000. 15. Isn't it easy for a parent to get a waiver in California under Prop 227? Getting a waiver is worse than
dealing with an HMO. Here is what a parent must do: The parent must physically
come to the school to apply, fill out a written application, and reapply each
year. Unless the child is over ten, "special needs" must be demonstrated in
writing. The application must be approved by the superintendent, the local
board, and the state board. The application can be rejected without the parent
being given any means of appeal. No standards have been set up for the approval
of waiver petitions, and it can be rejected at any stage. If the application is
approved, 19 more must to approved at that grade level to set up bilingual
education, or the child must be transferred to another school. Also, at the
beginning of each year the child must stay in sheltered English immersion for 30
days. 16. Why did 227 pass? People thought they were voting
for English. The LA Times asked those who said they would vote for 227 why they
supported it. 63% said it was because English was so important. Very few, less
than 10%, mentioned the superiority of immersion or the failure of bilingual
education. The wording of the measure on the ballot and on the polls encouraged
this interpretation. In one poll, when voters were told what was really in 227
(dismantling many successful programs, submersion after one year, teachers held
financially responsible if 227 policy violated, only 60 days to conform to the
new policy), only 15% said they would support it. 17. What's wrong with trying something new? Let's see how 227-type approaches work The place to try out new
approaches is in laboratory settings, not with the general public. And once
227-type laws are passed, they are nearly impossible to change. Changing 227 in
California requires a super-majority, a 2/3 vote of both houses of the state
legislature and the governor's signature, which is very hard to get. 18. Didn't Hispanics support Proposition 227? No, they opposed it 2 to 1. OTHER COUNTRIES 1. Is bilingual education done in other countries? Yes. Bilingual education is not
the most widely used approach for children acquiring a second language, but it
is widespread. Most European countries provide bilingual education for immigrant
children, and studies done by European scholars show that children in these
programs acquire the second language of the country as well as and usually
better than those in "immersion" programs. There are also numerous programs for
the languages spoken by indigenous minority communities. No member of the
European Economic Community has passed the equivalent of Proposition 227. Israel
is also developing bilingual education to help immigrants from Russia and
Ethiopia. 2. Aren't Turkish language bilingual programs in Bavaria condemned as racist and xenophobic attempts to maintain segregation? Programs with intensive first
language instruction do indeed exist for children of immigrants in Bavaria (in
Germany). Some children are placed in all-German programs with supplementary
instruction in the home language for eight lessons per week (home language
enrichment, see below) while those with less knowledge of German receive all
their instruction in their home language, with German taught as a foreign
language for eight periods per week and used to teach art, music and physical
education (Nist, 1978, p. 210). The goal of the latter program was "to bring the
foreign child to a level of proficiency whereby he/she can choose to continue in
the mother-tongue classroom or move to a German language classroom" (p. 211).
The claim that this program has been criticized for being segregationist is
presented in Porter's book, Forked Tongue, pp. 89-90. This claim is
unsupported, with no citations or references given. PUBLIC OPINION 1. Don't polls show that the public strongly supports English language development?. Yes, and so do supporters of
bilingual education. The fact that the pubic supports English is evidence for
bilingual education, not against it, because bilingual education strongly helps
English language development. 2. Don't polls show that the public rejects bilingual education? No. When the public rejects
bilingual education, it is an extreme version, with all education in the first
language and nothing in English (Los Angeles Times, Orange County edition,
10/15/97). Polls taken by the Dallas Morning News and LA Times showed that about
2/3 of the public think that some use of the first language is a good idea;
fewer than 1/3 say they support "all-English." 3. Can bilingual education be explained to the public? Yes. Many people already agree
with the underlying ideas. Parents, administrators and teachers generally agree
that if one is literate in the first language it is easier to become literate in
the second language. They also agree that if a student knows subject matter,
thanks to instruction in the first language, subject matter in English will be
more compreensible. These are the ways bilingual education helps second language
development. 4. Isn't there consistent support for 227 type laws throughout the US? No. The polls used in Arizona,
New York and Colorado used the same misleading question that was used in
California. Here is the Colorado version: "There is an initiative proposed for
the Arizona ballot that would require all public school instruction to be
conducted in English and for students not fluent in English to be placed in an
intensive one-year English immersion program. If the election were being held
today, would you vote yes or would you vote no on this measure?" This does not
describe what was i n Prop 227. When a group of California voters were told what
was actually in Proposition 227, they did not support it. 5. Didn't the Public Agenda poll show that the public had "no faith in bilingual education"? That's what the LA Times said
(December 30, 1998), but that's not what happened. 67% of the respondents said
they supported teaching children English as quickly as possible, even if this
meant that the children would fall behind in other subjects. They were not
willing to delay English while teaching children subjects in their native
language. But the question is all wrong. It
assumes that teaching subjects in the native language delays English. This is
not true. In good bilingual programs, students are taught those subjects in the
first language that would not be comprehensible if taught in English. As soon as
children develop enough English ability, they study these subjects in English.
The knowledge they get through the first language helps them understand the
subject when it is taught in English. Thus, a child with limited
English at the low intermediate level might be studying ESL , math and science
in English, but will also be studying social studies in the first language, a
subject that is much harder to make comprehensible in English to children at
this level. The ESL, math and science build the child's English competence, and
the subjects taught in the first language build subject matter knowledge: Both
this English competence and subject matter knowledge will help the child
understand social studies when it is taught in English. When done in this way,
teaching some subjects in the first language accelerates English language
development. 6. Has the media presented both sides fairly? No. McQuillan and Tse (1996)
reviewed publications appearing between 1984 and 1994, and reported that 87% of
academic publications supported bilingual education, but newspaper and magazine
articles tended to be anti-bilingual education, with only 45% supporting
bilingual education. In addition, less than half of the opinion articles about
bilingual education referred to educational research. One wonders what public
support would look like if bilingual education were covered more accurately in
the press. DROPOUTS 1. Isn't the dropout rate among Hispanic students very high? The US Department of Education
recently announced that the dropout rate among Hispanics is higher than the
rates of other groups: In 1997, 25.3 percent of Latinos age 16 to 24 dropped out
of high school, compared with 13.4 percent of African-Americans and 7.6 percent
of whites. The figure is lower than in
previous years: In the Department of Education's 1994-5 report, the Hispanic
dropout rate was 30%. While media reports focus on the high dropout rate of
Hispanics, they do not point out their improvement. The dropout figure includes many
who never enrolled in school, such as foreign-born immigrants who came to the US
to work. In the 1994-5 report, this accounted for 1/3 of the "dropouts." The
true dropout rate is probably well below 20%. 2. Is bilingual education the cause of dropping out? Because Hispanics have a high
dropout rate, and because Hispanics constitute the largest percentage of
students in bilingual programs, some have concluded that bilingual education
must be the cause of dropping out. But: A minority of Hispanic students are in
bilingual programs. In California, for example, at the time the last data on
drops outs was gathered, only 15% of Hispanic students were in bilingual
education. In fact,only about half were limited English proficient. Since the
dropout rate applies to all Hispanic students, we can assume that most of those
who dropped out were not in bilingual education. In addition, Herman Curiel and
his associates at the University of Oklahoma reported that students in bilingual
programs drop out significantly less than similar students not in bilingual
education. Bilingual education appears to be part of the cure for dropping out,
not the cause. 3. Is there any other evidence that bilingualism is related to going to college? In a study of adolescents in 19
rural schools in Alaska, self-reported competence in the native language was a
significant predictor of aspirations for high education (plans to attend
college), controlling for gender, age, family attitudes/encouragement,
self-reported grades, and ethnic identity. 4. Why do more Hispanic students drop out? A well-established research
literature has demonstrated that dropout rates are strongly influenced by
background factors, such as socioeconomic class, time spent in the United
States, the presence of print, and family factors. Students in wealthier
families drop out less, those who have been the US longer and who live in a more
print-rich environment drop out less, those who live with both parents drop out
less, those whose parents monitor schoolwork drop out less, and those who do not
become teen parents drop out less. Hispanic students are behind majority
students in many of these categories; about 40% live in poverty, compared to 15%
of white non-Hispanic students, and only 68% live with both parents, compared to
81% of non-white Hispanic students. These factors appear to be responsible for
much if not all of the differences in dropout rates among different groups: When
researchers control for these factors, there is little or no difference in
dropout rates between Hispanics and other groups. Not surprisingly, those who
report lower levels of English competence drop out more. This is not an argument
against bilingual education but an argument for it: Students in well-designed
bilingual programs acquire their second language as well as or better than those
who are not. 5. Does speaking Spanish at home increase the odds of dropping out? No. According to a US Government
study there is no significant difference in dropout rates between Hispanic young
adults who speak English at home and those who speak Spanish at home. IS BILINGUALISM BAD? 1. Doesn't bilingualism lead to serious national problems? Fishman (1990) analyzed the
impact of 230 possible predictors of civil strife and economic well-being in 170
countries. His results strongly suggest that multilingualism is not to blame for
political or economic problems. 2. Doesn't bilingualism hinder school success? Quite the opposite. Fernandez and
Nielsen (1986) concluded that "proficiency in Spanish ... has a positive effect
on achievement" (p. 60). In their study of Hispanic high school seniors, they
reported that those with exposure to Spanish did slightly better than
monolingual Hispanics in English reading and had higher educational expectations
(expected to complete more years of schooling). 3. Don't graduates of bilingual programs earn less later on? No. This false impression is due
to newspaper reports of a study by Mark Lopez and Marie Mora. There were several
serious flaws in the study, which asked high school sophomores to retrospect on
their grade school experiences. Lopez and Mora compared those who had bilingual
education, ESL, or no program, and claimed that at age 28 those who had no
program earned more, followed by ESL and then those in bilingual education. But
many of the "no program" subjects were probably fully English proficient: one
could be in this category if one answered that one lived in a home where another
language was spoken in high school; there was no guarantee that the subject
actually spoke that language or was ever limited English proficient. Another flaw: 27% of Lopez'
subjects said they did bilingual education, but at the time they would have been
in bilingual education, only about 2% of LEP children were in bilingual
programs. Also, the difference in earnings between the ESL and bilingual group
was not statistically significant. Finally, Lopez and Mora note, in a footnote,
that a "preliminary analysis" showed no significant differences between
participation in bilingual education and earnings in non-Hispanics. 4. Are bilinguals better off
in the job market? Tienda and Neidert (1984)
analyzed predictors of occupational status among Hispanic men in the labor force
in 1975, ages 18-64: English-dominant bilinguals were slightly better off than
those who spoke only English. This language variable was not anywhere near as
strong as some other predictors, such as education and English language ability,
but the analysis confirmed that bilingualism is not harmful and can be
beneficial. 5. But didn't a recent report
say that bilinguals earned less? Chiswick and Miller (1998) think so. They presented an analysis of data from the 1990 census, based on males ages 25-64 born in the US, and claimed that those who speak only English earned more in 1989 than those who reported that another language was spoken in their home, even when factors such as schooling, years in the labor market, amount worked, marital status, and urban/rural were controlled. Overall, English-onlys earned about 8% more. Also, even those bilinguals who
reported that they spoke English "very well" earned less. But other studies show no ill
effects, and even advantages for bilingualism (see above). The problem here is
that Chiswick and Miller's definition of bilingualism is simply speaking another
language at home, regardless of how well it is developed. It may be the case
that one needs to develop one's heritage language to a fairly high level before
one sees positive effects. Most of those who speak another language at home
probably do not develop it to high levels, for a variety of factors. Language
shift is powerful. Most of Chiswick and Miller's subjects were, most likely,
weak heritage language speakers. STARTING ENGLISH EARLY 1. Why delay English? Isn't it true that the older you are, the harder it is to learn another language? In early stages, older children
make faster progress in second language acquisition than younger children; also,
adults are typically faster than children. But this only holds for early stages.
In the long run, those who begin second language acquisition as children do
better than those who begin as adults. Children catch up. 2. How long does it take to acquire English? Usually about one to two years to
acquire conversational language, and five to seven years to reach grade level in
academic language. But there is quite a bit of variation: Because the demands of
the curriculum are much greater for the older child, it typically takes them
longer to reach grade level. Older children have more to learn. One cannot
shorten the process by removing children from bilingual education: Without
bilingual education, it takes longer. 3. Don't bilingual education programs delay English? No. In fact, they provide the
fastest and earliest exposure to comprehensible English. They provide
comprehensible input in English directly from the beginning, in the form of ESL,
and move the child into subject matter teaching in English as soon as it can be
made comprehensible. There is no point in exposing children to incomprehensible
input, to noise. Providing the child with subject
matter instruction in the first language before they are instructed in English
is a wonderful investment, because it makes instruction in English more
comprehensible. A child who has a good background in math, thanks to instruction
in the first language, will understand more in an English-language math class
than a child who doesn't have a good background in math. The one who understands
math will learn more math, and will acquire more English, because he will
understand more. 4. Don't brain studies show that children are better at language acquisition, that the child's brain is "especially suited to rapid language acquisition" through immersion? No. This point is irrelevant to
the immersion/bilingual education issue as bilingual education provides early
exposure to comprehensible English. Nevertheless, the brain evidence is far from
conclusive. The earliest claims of this kind were based on speculation, with no
empirical evidence. The popular claim that cerebral asymmetry (lateralization)
was the underlying factor has been disproven many times. A more recent study
published in Nature found only tiny differences in the representation of
languages acquired by children and adults; for both, the classical language
areas were involved, and for both, representation in Wernicke's area was
identical. There were very small differences in Broca's area. This study
actually supports the idea that child and adult language acquisition are
similar. 5. Didn't a new brain study just confirm that it is better to start younger? A recent UCLA study published in
Nature using MRI found rapid growth in brain areas specialized for language
acquisition between ages six and puberty, following by a "shutting down" of
growth. Even if this meant a close of a "criterial period" for language
acquisition, it would have no impact on current practice in bilingual education,
as no program delays English language acquisition. In fact, they attempt to
provide a maximum amount of comprehensible English as early as possible. Most
likely, the UCLA study correlates with findings that first language acquisition
must occur during a certain time, a result very consistent with other research.
It is well-known that older second language acquirers can do very well in
language acquisition, and it is likely that they use similar brain mechanisms
for language acquisition. SOME PROBLEMS 1. How can bilingual education be improved? Most essential is to improve the
print environment. The number of books per child in elementary school libraries
is a significant and strong predictor of reading scores. In the US, there are 18
books per child in school libraries, on the average. In the bilingual schools
she studied, Sandra Pucci found that there was only one book per child in the
school library in the first language. 2. Don't LEP children have access to books outside of school? According to Purves and Elley
(1994), the average family in the US has 137 books in the home. According to
Ramirez' research, the average Hispanic family with limited English proficient
children has 26 books in the home. This figure represents all books in the home,
not just children's books. 3. Isn't there a serious teacher shortage in bilingual education? Yes, but this is no reason to eliminate bilingual education. If there were a shortage of algebra teachers, would we stop teaching algebra?
4. Aren't English-only children regularly misplaced and forced into bilingual classes? A few cases of misplacement have
occurred, and have received tremendous publicity. There is no evidence that this
error is widespread. OTHER ISSUES 1. Are opponents of bilingual education racist? Most are not. According to one
study, variables such as anti-immigrant attitudes, and "inegalitarian values"
combined explained only 26% of the opposition to bilingual education. 2. Why are immigrants, especially Spanish-speakers, refusing to learn English? They aren't. According to the
1993 Census, only 8.8% of native speakers of Spanish living in the US said they
spoke no English, and 71.5% said they spoke English "well" or "very well." These
figures include newcomers. Moreover, results for Spanish speakers are nearly
identical to those reported by speakers of Asian and Pacific Island languages.
For Spanish speakers born in the US, by the time they finish high school they
report that they speak, read and write English better than they do Spanish
(Veltman, 1983; Tse, 1995; Rumbaut, 1997). One does, of course, occasionally run
into immigrants who don't speak English. These are usually new arrivals, or
those who have not been able to find the time or opportunity to acquire English. 3. LEP children score much lower on standardized tests; doesn't this show there is a serious problem? LEP students MUST perform lower
than native speakers. Otherwise they would not be classified as LEP. LEP
students have just begun the process of acquiring English. When they improve
enough, they are reclassified and are no longer considered LEP. Complaining that
students score lower than native speakers is like complaining that patients in
intensive care are sicker than those in the general wards of a hospital. 4. "Fifty languages are spoken
in the homes of my students, and why should we offer instruction in one and
leave out the 40-something others? It isn't right, and it isn't fair." Is
bilingual education unfair?
The fairness argument against
bilingual education assumes a competitive model for school. If an approach is
helpful for one group of children, it should not be used, because it is not
"fair" to the others. Adherence to this policy would eliminate all forms of
individualization. If a teacher discovers that some algebra students profit from
a more visual, hands-on explanation for a certain concept, but others do not,
should this explanation be withheld? Of course not. An oncologist has patients with
ten different kinds of cancer, but has a cure for only five of the types. Should
this cure be withheld because we are not able to cure everyone? School is not a
competition, it is not a race. We need to do whatever we can to help all
children. 5. Should we provide bilingual education when children speak English better than they do their home language? In these cases, instruction
should be in English. It would be desirable to provide some first language
enrichment, perhaps as an alternative to foreign language study, so that
students can enjoy the benefits of full bilingualism. NOTES SOME FUNDAMENTALS 1. What are the goals of bilingual education? The development of the heritage language:
Krashen, S., Tse, L., and McQuillan, J. (Eds.) 1998. Heritage Language
Development. Culver City: Language Education Associates. 2. What is "academic language"? Cummins, J. 1981. The role of primary language
development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In
Schooling and Language Minority Students. Sacramento, CA: California Department
of Education. pp. 3-49. 6. How does developing literacy in the first
language help? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 7. How do we know that literacy transfers across
languages? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates acquiring vocabulary in Chinese: Shu, H.,
Anderson, R., and Zhang, H. 1995. Incidental learning of word meanings while
reading: A Chinese and American cross-cultural study. Reading Research Quarterly
30: 21-26. 8. Isn't the transfer of reading ability limited
to cases where the alphabets are the same? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against
Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates 10. Transfer sounds fine in the research, but
does it really happen? Krashen, S. 2000. Does transition really happen?
(www.languagebooks.com, click on "articles"). 14. Does sheltered subject matter teaching work? Krashen, S. 1991. Sheltered subject matter
teaching. Cross Currents 18: 183-188. Reprinted in J. Oller (Ed.) Methods That
Work. Boston: Heinle and Heinle. pp. 143-148. 16. Don't bilingual programs teach only in the
first language? English used in bilingual programs: Mitchell, D., Destino, T. and Karan, R. 1997. Evaluation of English Language Development Programs in the Santa Ana Unified School District. Riverside, CA: California Educational Research Cooperative, University of California, Riverside. English in late-exit programs: Ramirez, D., Yuen,
S., Ramey, D. and Pasta, D. 1991. Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured
English Immersion Strategy, Early-Exit and Late-Exit Bilingual Education
Programs for Language Minority Students, Vol. I. San Mateo, CA: Aguirre
International. THE RESEARCH CONTROVERSY 2. What are some examples of studies showing the
success of bilingual education in the United States? Data from Mortensen (1984): comprehension skills mastered word attack skills mastered n mean sd mean sd bilingual 65 8.6 5.4 19.6 6.2 English-only 55 4.3 4.0 18.1 9.5 word attack: t = .94, ns, d = .19; r = .10 comprehension: t = 4.79, df = 105, d = .90; r = .41 test: Wisconsin Design Tests for Reading Skill
Development Mortensen, E. 1984. Reading achievement of native
Spanish-speaking elementary students in bilingual vs. monolingual programs.
Bilingual Review 11(3): 31-36. Data from de la Garza and Medina (1984): vocabulary reading comprehension bil. ed English bil. ed English n 24 118 25 117 mean sd mean sd d mean sd mean sd d grade 1 47.4 7.3 49.9 7.9 -.28 50.3 7.3 49.6 7.3 .10 grade 2 55.2 5.1 51.4 8.1 .50 52.9 8.1 51.3 8.5 .19 grade 3 52.5 8.9 50.6 7.7 .25 51.9 8.2 50.4 7.3
.21 de la Garza, J. and Medina, M. 1985. Academic
achievement as influenced by bilingual instruction for Spanish-dominant
Mexican-American children. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. 7(3):
247-259. 3. What is an example of a "natural experiment"
informing us about bilingual education? Data from Gonzales (1989): test group: some education in Mexico all education in US mean s.d. mean s.d. English reading 60.32 12.70 53.05 17.04 English conversation 5.03 1.77 5.21 1.21 effect size for English reading: d = .48 perfect socre for English conversation = 6 Gonzales, L. Antonio. 1989. Native language
education: The key to English literacy skills. In D. Bixler-Marquez, J.
Ornstein-Galacia, and G. Green (eds.), Mexican-American Spanish in its societal
and cultural contexts. Rio Grande Series in Languages and Linguistics 3.
Brownsville, Texas: University of Texas, Pan American. pp. 209-224. 5. What is an example of a study showing the
success of bilingual education in other countries? data from Appel (1984) after 2 years follow-up one year later bil. regular bil. regular oral language mean length utterance 4.1 3.8 4.9 4.4 number of different words produced (measure of vocabulary) 168.1 157.1 213.1 205.9 picture test (oral) morphology (e.g. plurals) 33.2 34.1 65.9 58.2 imitation (form sentence from words presented in vertical column) 57.5 50.0 71.5 57.7 written language cloze test 52.1 51.5 64.3 50.9 (sig, p < .05) from: Appel (1984) Appel, R. 1984. Immigrant Children Learning Dutch.. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Foris. See also: Altena, N. and Appel, R. 1982. Mother tongue teaching and the acquisition of Dutch by Turkish and Moroccan immigrant workers' children. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 3(4): 315-332. Appel, R. 1988. The language education of immigrant workers' children in The Netherlands. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and J. Cummins (Eds.) Minority Education: From Shame to Struggle. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. pp. 57-78.
7. Is there published data showing graduates are
successful? Burnham-Massey, L. and Pina, M. 1990. Effects of
bilingual instruction on English academic achievement of LEP students. Reading
Improvement 27(2): 129-132. See also Medina, M., Saldate, M., and Mishra, S.
1985.The sustaining effects of bilingual education: A follow-up study. Journal
of Instructional Psychology 12(3): 132-139; Curiel, H., Rosenthal, J. and
Cooper-Stenning, P. 1980. Impacts of bilingual education on secondary school
grades, attendence, retentions, and drop-out. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral
Sciences 2: 357-367; The Lau Report, 1997-98, Language Academy & Other Bilingual
Programs, San Francisco Unified School District.
http://sf.bilingual.net/publications/index.html 10. Don't method comparison studies show
immersion to be better than bilingual education? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates. Rossell, C. and Baker, R. 1996. The educational effectiveness of bilingual education. Research in the Teaching of English 30 (1): 7-74. Krashen, S. 1999. Why Malherbe (1946) is NOT
evidence against bilingual education. NABE News 22(7): 25-26. 11. Have other reviews been done? Greene, J. 1997. A meta-analysis of the Rossell and Baker review of bilingual education research. Bilingual Research Journal. 21(2,3): 103-122. Quote "... efforts to eliminate ..." is on page 115. See also: Willig, A. 1985. A meta-analysis of
selected studies on the effectiveness of bilingual education. review of
Educational Research 55: 269-316. 14. Wasn't "immersion" shown to be superior to
bilingual education in El Paso, Texas? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against
Bilingual Education. Culver City,CA: Language Education Associates. 15. Wasn't immersion shown to be superior to
bilingual education in McAllen, Texas? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City,CA: Language Education Associates. Willig, A. 1987. Reply to Baker. Review of
Educational Research 57: 363-376. 16. How did the famous "Ramirez study" come out? Ramirez, J., Yuen, D., Ramey, D. and Pasta, D. 1991. Longitudinal study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit bilingual education programs for language-minority students (Final Report, Vols. 1 and 2). San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International. (ERIC Document ED 330 216) Ramirez, D. 1992. Executive summary (Longitudinal
study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit
transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children).
Bilingual Research Journal 16,1-2: 1-62. Here are the actual scores for English reading,
adjusted for parents' education, preschool attendance, gender, socio-economic
status of parents, mothers's age, books in the home, and parents' use of
English. Differences in grade 3 were not statistically significant; I calculated
an effect size (d) of .13, slightly favoring the bilingual group. grade immersion early-exit bilingual education 1 228 232 2 301 290 3 330 338 from: Ramirez et al, table C-12, p. C-8 18. Is there evidence that social class matters? Hakuta, K., Butler, Y., and Witt, D. 2000. How
long does i t take English learners to attain proficiency. University of
California Linguistic Minority Institute, Report 2000-1. Effect of poverty on
reclassification: See table 13. In addition, Krashen (1996, Under Attack, op.
cit.) reported a .634 correlation between SES and reclassification rates for
clusters of schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. 19. Why does social class have this effect? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City,CA: Language Education Associates. McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False
Claims and Real Solutions. Portsmouth: Heinemann. SUCCESS WITHOUT BILINGUAL EDUCATION? 1. Don't many immigrant children do well in
school without bilingual education? case histories: de la Pena, F. 1991. Democracy or
Babel? The Case for Official English. Washington, DC: US English; Rodriguez, R.
1983. Hunger of Memory. New York: Bantam. discussion of case histories and additional case
histories: Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education.
Culver City,CA: Language Education Associates; Tse, L. 1997. A bilingual helping
hand."Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1997; Ramos, F., and Krashen, S. 1997.
Success without bilingual education? Some European cases of de facto bilingual
education. CABE Newsletter 20(6):7,19. 2. Weren't many immigrants financially successful
without bilingual education? High School graduation rates from Digest of Educational Statistics. " the $15-20/hour job in the steel mill": Parker, D. 1986. The great school myth: Everybody's grandfather made it ... and without bilingual education. California Tomorrow, Fall: 16-17. Immigrant success and education: Rothstein, R.
1998. The Way We Were? Myths and Realities in America's Student Achievement. New
York: Twentieth Century Foundation Press/Priority Press; Steinberg, S. 1989. The
Ethnic Myth. Boston: Beacon Press. CALIFORNIA AND PROPOSITION 227 1. What happened at the Ninth Street School? Crawford, J. 1999. Bilingual Education: History,
Politics, Theory, and Practice. Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services.
Fourth Edition. 3. Can SAT9 scores measure the success of Prop
227? Other variables: Services: Jim Crawford has pointed out that in
the San Juan elementary school in Capistrano, CA, scores rose between 1998 and
1999. In 1998, 28% of LEP students received no services, but in 1999 this
percentage dropped to 3%. Most of the students at San Juan are limited English
proficient. Selective testing: Asimov (2000) has reported
that for schools in the San Francisco area SAT9 test scores appear to rise in
those schools in which the number of students taking the test declined.
"Questionable pairings" appeared in 22 Bay Area school districts, according to
Asimov. Asimov quotes Joan Herman of UCLA's Center for Research on Evaluation
Standards and Student Testing: ``One of the historical tricks that schools have
used to increase their scores is by somehow eliminating the lowest-scoring kids.
`That may or may not be what's going on. But it's a cause for concern, and it
merits a whole lot of additional attention.'' Asimov, N. 2000. Test Scores Up,
Test-Takers Down: Link between participation, improvement on school exam prompts
concern. San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, July 22, 2000. Intensive test preparation: Test scores rose in the San Juan elementary school in Capistrano, CA. Gurza (2000) quoted Jeff Bristow of the Capistrano district as saying that "district officials put a lot of effort into boosting test scores at San Juan ... they devoted time and resources, providing books, supplies and teacher training." In other words, San Juan got a lot of extra help. Gurza, A. 2000. Bilingual Ed: The Truth Behind
Test Gains. Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2000. Gurza Test score inflation: Linn, R., Graue, E., and
Sanders, N. 1990. Comparing state and district test results to national norms:
The validity of claims that "everyone is above average." Educational
Measurement: Issues and Practice 9: 5-13. See also Berliner, D. and Biddle, D.
1995. The Manufactured Crisis. New York: Perseus Books 4. If SAT9 comparisons were valid, wouldn't they
show that 227 was a success? grade 2 SAT9 scores for LEP children: Districts that kept bilingual education 1998 1999 2000 change 1998-2000 Vista Unified 18 21 25 +7 Santa Ana Unified 17 23 22 +5 Ocean View Unified 17 27 29 +12 Districts that never had bilingual education Orange Unified 16 23 26 +10 Magnolia Elementary 18 21 21 +3 Westminster Elementary 25 33 38 +13 Hakuta, K., Butler, Y.G., and Bousquet, M. 1999.
What legitimate inferences can be made from the 1999 release of SAT-( scores
with respect to the impact of California's Proposition 227 on the performance of
LEP students? http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/SAT9/NABE_Newsletter.PDF 6. What do redesignation rates show about the
success of Prop 227? Match 1: Santa Barbara (English-only) and
Oceanview (Bil.ED) ADFC Free/reduced lunch redesignation rate, 1999 SB 7.2 47.7 2.3% Oceanview 7.3 47 7.4% Match 2: Alameda (English-only) and San Francisco
(Bil Ed.) ADFC Free/reduced lunch redesignation rate. Alameda 9.4 40.3 4.6 San Francisco 13 43.8 10.6 ADFC = aid to families with dependent children,
now known as CalWorks 7. The co-author of 227, Gloria Tuchman, teaches
first grade in Santa Ana at the Taft school. Isn't the Taft school very
successful? Data on Taft School ADFC free/reduced lunch %LEP Santa Ana district 5.4 75.5 69.8 Taft 3.4 44.4 36.5 Redesignation rates 1996 1997 1998 1999 Santa Ana District 4.0% 3.8% 4.2% 3.3% Taft 0% 2.1% 3.9% 7.9% 8. What about the READ report? Clark, K. 1999. From primary language instruction
to English immersion: How five California districts made the switch. Washington,
DC: READ (Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development). Krashen, S. and McQuillan, J. 1999. Structured
immersion falls short of expectations: An analysis of Clark (1999). NABE News
23(1): 13-15. Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 9. What about the Bennett-Kew school? Aren't they
English-only with an emphasis on phonics? And don't they have great success? Gomz, J. 2000. School excels after dropping
bilingual education. Santa Cruz Sentinel, February 9. Socio-economics of Bennett-Kew and test scores: ADFC free/reduced lunch % LEP %redesignated Bennett-Kew 29.8 79.9 28.8 28.2 Ingelwood district 5.4 58.4 35.6 4.5 Bennett-Kew SAT9 scores for 1999: for 2000 grade all school LEP all school LEP 2 66 52 69 57 3 58 37 52 33 4 57 32 50 23 5 40 19 49 not reported 10. Didn't immersion succeed in Westminster? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 12. Isn't one year enough to acquire another
language? Clark, K. 1999. From primary language instruction
to English immersion: How five California districts made the switch. Washington,
DC: READ (Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development). Goldberg, A. 1997. Follow-up study on the
Bethlehem, Pa. school district's English Acquisition Program. READ Journal 4:
59-94. Krashen, S. and McQuillan, J. 1999. Structured
immersion falls short of expectations: An analysis of Clark (1999). NABE News
23(1): 13-15. Little Hoover Commission. 1993. A Chance to
Succeed: Providing English Learners with Supportive Education. Sacramento, CA. McQuillan, J. 1998. Is 99% Failure A "Success"?:
Orange Unified's English Immersion Program. Multilingual Educator 21(7): 11. Mitchell, D., Destino, T. and Karan, R. 1997.
Evaluation of English Language Development Programs in the Santa Ana Unified
School District. Riverside, CA: California Educational Research Cooperative,
University of California, Riverside. Ramirez, D. 1992. Executive summary (Longitudinal
study of structured English immersion strategy, early-exit and late-exit
transitional bilingual education programs for language-minority children).
Bilingual Research Journal 16,1-2: 1-62. 13. Ron Unz claimed that only 5% of children in
California learned English each year. Is this true? Gandara, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J., Garcia, E.,
Asato, J., Gutierrez, K., Stritikus, T. and Curry, J. 2000. The initial impact
of Proposition 227 on the Instruction of English Learners. UC Linguistic
Minority Research Institute, University of California, Davis. 16. Why did 227 pass? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. "In one poll ...": Krashen, S., Crawford, J., and
Kim, H. 1998. Bias in polls on bilingual education: A Demonstration
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/USCpoll.htm OTHER COUNTRIES 1. Is bilingual education done in other
countries? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 2. Aren't Turkish language bilingual programs in
Bavaria condemned as racist and xenophobic attempts to maintain segregation? Nist, R. 1978. Guestworkers in Germany: The Prospects for Pluralism. New York: Praeger Publishers Porter, R. 1990. Forked Tongue: The Politics of
Bilingual Education. New York: Basic Books. PUBLIC OPINION 2. Don't polls show that the public rejects
bilingual education? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. 3. Can bilingual education be explained to the
public? Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates. Poll results: Shin, F. and Kim, S. 1998. Korean parent perceptions and attitudes of bilingual education. In R. Endo, C. Park, J. Tsuchida and A. Abbayani (Eds.) Current Issues in Asian and Pacific American education. Covina, CA: Pacific Asian Press. Shin, F. and Gribbons, B. 1996. Hispanic parent perceptions and attitudes of bilingual education. The Journal of Mexican American Educators, pp. 16-22. Shin, F. and Lee, B. 1996. Hmong parents: What do they think about bilingual education? Pacific Educational Research Journal, 8: 65-71. Shin, F. Anton, M. and Krashen, S. 1999. K-12
Administrators' views on bilingual education. NABE News 22(8):11-12,29. 4. Isn't there consistent support for 227 type
laws throughout the US? Krashen, S., Crawford, J., and Kim, H. 1998. Bias in polls on bilingual education: A Demonstration
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/USCpoll.htm 6. Has the media presented both sides fairly? McQuillan, J., and Tse, L. 1996. Does research
really matter? An analysis of media opinion on bilingual education, 1984-1994.
Bilingual Research Journal 20 (1): 1-27. DROPOUTS 1. Isn't the dropout rate among Hispanic students
very high? McMillen, M., Kaufman, P. and Klein, S. 1997.
Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995. Washington: US Dept of Education. NCES
97-473. 2. Is bilingual education the cause of dropping
out? Curiel, H., Rosenthal, J., and Richek, H. 1986.
Impacts of bilingual education on secondary school grades, attendance,
retentions and drop-outs. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 8(4): 357-367. A recent confirmation is a study by
MacGregor-Mendoza, who compared Mexican American students, all from low
socio-economic backgrounds, who were still in high school, were high school
dropouts, and who had gone on to college. More bilingual education was
associated with greater school success: 44% of the college students had had
bilingual education (classes taught only in Spanish), but only 13% of the
dropouts did; 24% of the current high school students had at least some
bilingual education. The successful students also reported higher competence in
Spanish. The dropouts were more likely to have learned to read only in English.
25% of the college students were Spanish majors, and college subjects were
recruited from Spanish classes, which biases the sample toward those more
interested in the heritage language. But the high school non-drop out group did
not suffer from this bias. MacGregor-Mendoza, P. 1999. Spanish and Academic
Achievement Among Midwest Mexican Youth. New York: Garland Publishing Company. 3. Is there any other evidence that bilingualism
is related to going to college? Seyfrit, C., Hamilton, L., Duncan, C., and
Grimes, J. 1998. Ethnic identity and aspirations among rural Alaska youth.
Sociological Perspectives 41(2): 343-365. 4. Why do more Hispanic students drop out? Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned without a Trial:
Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Studies of predictors of dropout rates: Fernandez, R., Paulsen, R. and Hiranko-Nakanishi, M. 1989. Dropping out among Hispanic youth. Social Science Research 18: 21-52. Pirog, M. and Magee, C. 1997. High school completion: The influence of schools, families, and adolescent parenting. Social Science Quarterly 78: 710-724. Rumbaut, R. 1995. The new Californians: Comparative research findings on the educational progress of immigrant children. In R. Rumbaut and W. Cornelius (Ed.) California's Immigrant Children. University of California, San Diego: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. pp. 17-69. Rumberger, R. 1983. Dropping out of high school: The influence of race, sex, and family background. American Educational Research Journal 20 (2): 199-220. Rumberger, R. 1991. Chicano dropouts: A review of research and policy issues. In R. Valencia (Ed.) Chicano School Failure and Success. New York: Falmer Press. pp. 64-89. Rumberger, R. 1995. Dropping out of middle school: A multilevel analysis of students and schools. American Educational Research Journal 32 (3): 583-625. Warren, J. 1996. Educational inequality among White and Mexican-origin adolescents in the American Southwest: 1990. Sociology of Education 69: 142-158. White, M. and Kaufman, G. 1997. Language usage,
social capital, and school completion among immigrants and native-born ethnic
groups. Social Science Quarterly 78 (2): 385-398. 5. Does speaking Spanish at home increase the
odds of dropping out? McMillen, M., Kaufman, P. and Klein, S. 1997.
Dropout Rates in the United States: 1995. Washington: US Dept of Education. NCES
97-473. IS BILINGUALISM BAD? 1. Doesn't bilingualism lead to serious national
problems? In Fishman's study, civil strife was defined as a
combination of factors, such as "magnitude and frequency of conspiracy against
the established government ... internal warfare ... (and) ... internal turmoil
(riots, strikes, and protests)." Fishman found thirteen significant predictors
of civil strife, but linguistic heterogeneity was not among these predictors.
(The simple correlation of linguistic heterogeneity and civil strife was a low
.21, which meant that it accounted for only 4% of the variation in civil strife.
When other factors were considered, it had no predictive value at all.) Similarly, Fishman found ten significant
predictors of per capita gross national product, Once again, linguistic
heterogeneity was not among these predictors. (The simple correlation of
linguistic heterogeneity and gross national product was -.32, which meant that
it accounted for about 10% of the variation in gross national product, but when
other factors were considered, it had no predictive value.) Fishman, J. 1990. Empirical explorations of two
popular assumptions: Inter-polity perspective on the relationships between
linguistic heterogeneity, civil strife, and per capita gross national product.
In Learning in Two Languages, Gary Imhoff (ed), 209-225. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Publishers 2. Doesn't bilingualism hinder school success? Details from Fernandez and Nielson: bilingual monolingual n 1876 474 expectations 15.16 (2.45) 14.12 (2.31) English reading 48.05 (9.48) 45.33 (9.33) English vocabulary 48.32 (9.56) 45.81 (9.16) expectations: years of school expected to complete standard deviations in parentheses from: Fernandez and Nielsen (1986) In regression analyses using the bilingual sample
only, Fernandez and Nielsen reported that degree of Spanish proficiency was a
significant positive predictor of educational expectations and English
vocabulary. In addition, there was no relationship between Spanish proficiency
and English reading, suggesting that greater Spanish proficiency was not related
to lower English reading performance. Spanish proficiency, in fact, was a
slightly stronger predictor of educational expectations than English proficiency
was. Nielsen and Lerner (1986) arrived a similar
conclusions from a slightly different analysis of the same data set, obtaining a
significant relationship between "Hispanicity" (a combination of measures of
Spanish use with parents and Spanish ability) and educational attainment and
expectations, controlling for SES, scores on tests of reading, vocabulary and
mathematics, and years of residence in the United States. Fernandez, R. and Nielsen, F. 1986. Bilingualism and Hispanic scholastic achievement: Some baseline results. Social Science Research 15: 43-70. Nielsen, F. and Lerner, S. 1986. Language skills
and school achievement of bilingual Hispanics. Social Science Research 15:
209-240. 3. Don't graduates of bilingual programs earn
less later on? Lopez, M. and Mora, M. 1998. The labor market effects of bilingual education among Hispanic workers, READ Perspectives , 5(2): 33-54. Krashen, S. and McQuillan, J. 1998. Do graduates of bilingual programs really earn less? A response to Lopez and Mora. NABE News., 22(3): 506. Krashen, S. 1999. Bilingualism, bilingual
education and earnings: Comments on two recent studies. The Multilingual
Educator 22(2): 16-17. 4. Are bilinguals better off in the job market? Tienda, M. and Niedert, L. 1984. Language,
education, and the socioeconomic achievement of Hispanic origin men. Social
Science Quarterly 65: 519-536. Note that the bilingual subjects in this study
had acquired English. Not surprisingly, those who did not speak English well did
not do as well in occupational status. 5. But didn't a recent report say that bilinguals
earned less? Chiswick, B. and Miller, P. 1998. The economic
cost to native-born Americans of limited English language proficiency. Report
prepared for the Center for Equal Opportunity. August, 1998. STARTING ENGLISH EARLY 1. Why delay English? Isn't it true that the
older you are, the harder it is to learn another language? Krashen, S., Long, M., and Scarcella, R. 1979.
Age, rate, and eventual attainment in second language acquisition. TESOL
Quarterly 12: 573-582. 2. How long does it take to acquire English? Collier, V. 1989. How long? A synthesis of
research on academic achievement in second language. TESOL Quarterly 23:
509-531. 4. Don't brain studies show that children are
better at language acquisition, that the child's brain is "especially suited to
rapid language acquisition" through immersion? cerebral asymmetry: Lenneberg, E. 1967. Biological Foundations of Language. New York: Wiley; Krashen, S. 1973. Lateralization, language learning, and the critical period. Language Learning 23: 63-74. tiny brain differences: Kim, K., Relkin, N., Lee,
K-M., and Hirsch, J. 1997. Distinct cortical areas associated with native and
second languages. Nature 338 (6638): 171-174. 5. Didn't a new brain study just confirm that it
is better to start younger? MRI study: Thompson, P., Giedd, J., Woods, R.,
MacDonald, D., Evans, A., and Toga, A. 2000. Growth patterns in the developing
human brain detected by using continuum-mechanical tensor maps. Nature 404
(6774): 190-193. critical period for first language development:
Fromkin, V., Krashen, S., Curtiss, S., Rigler, D. and Rigler, M. 1974. The
development of language in Genie: A case of language acquisition beyond the
"critical period." Brain and Language 1: 83-107. SOME PROBLEMS 1. How can bilingual education be improved? Library books as predictor: McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions.Portsmouth: Heinemann. One book per child: Pucci, S. 1994. Supporting
Spanish language literacy: Latino children and free reading resources in
schools. Bilingual Research Journal 18 (1-2): 67-82. 2. Don't LEP children have access to books
outside of school? Purves, A. and Elley, W. 1994. The role of the home and student differences in reading performance. In W. Elley (Ed.) The IEA Study of Reading Literacy: Achievement and Instruction in Thirty-Two School Systems. Oxford: Pergemon. Ramirez, D., Yuen, S., Ramey, D. and Pasta, D.
1991. Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy,
Early-Exit and Late-Exit Bilingual Education Programs for Language Minority
Students, Vol. I. San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International. OTHER ISSUES 1. Are opponents of bilingual education racist? Huddy, L., and Sears, D. 1990. Qualified public
support for bilingual education: Some policy implications. Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 508: 119-134. 2. Why are immigrants, especially
Spanish-speakers, refusing to learn English? Rumbaut, R. (1997) Paradoxes (and orthodoxies) of assimilation. Sociological Perspectives 40(3),483-511. Tse, L. 1995. Language brokering among Latino adolescents: Prevalence, attitudes, and school performance. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 17: 180-193, Veltman, C. (1983) Language shift in the United
States. Berlin: Mouton. 5. Heritage language enrichment: Tse, L..
1998..Affecting affect: The impact of heritage language programs on students
attitudes. In Heritage Language Development, ed. S. Krashen, L. Tse, and J,
McQuillan, 51-72. Culver City: Language Education Associates. |