|
Sociological / Psycholinguistic
Bases of Bilingual Education
Presentation:
Listen to the presentation
via the Real Player
Ch. 12
The Effectiveness of Bilingual Education
FOUNDATIONS
OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM Collin
Baker
Presentation by Justin Olmanson
Introduction:
Depending on how the practice of bilingual education is viewed, it can be
interpreted in a multiplicity of ways, positive, negative, and neutral. Studies
constructed for one purpose, used for another, studies with unanticipated
variables, Canadian research, Irish data, American studies, South African
reports, submersion, immersion, partial immersion, late-exit, early-exit,
heritage language…the list goes on. In our world of copious information and
more on the way, individuals and groups with personal agendas frame the data in
their own distinct self-serving manner. Therefore a look at the effectiveness of
bilingual education involves more than z scores and correlations, it
necessitates discerning the multitude of criterion pertaining to the bilingual
education studies themselves.
Research
Studies: If one is well versed in the various studies concerning
bilingual education, it is possible, according to Baker, to find support for
most of the different forms of bilingual education. For example, Canadian
research studies offer support for immersion models, whereas Irish studies of
immersion come out against the very same model.
- Child
Samples: Finding children in equal proportions, with equivalent
characteristics, for both the experimental and control groups is nearly
impossible, and when it does happen it is with a very small number of
children. Researchers then have to make due with what they have, modify
their controls for certain variables, which in turn taints any findings.
- Interacting
Factors: There are so many contributing factors that go into making a
program successful or unsuccessful, that it is difficult to attribute
success or failure to the program design itself. Factors such as: parental
involvement, teacher morale and commitment to the educational program,
material and community support.
- Measures
of Success: Whether one is comparing the variety of bilingual education
models being used today against themselves or mainstream education, a
primary obstacle in arriving at a conclusion has to do with what will be
measured. Does one look at reading and math scores alone? Should social
studies, science, and health be included? What about dropout and crime
rates? Graduation and employment levels? In the end quantitative outcomes
(in the form of test scores) are used while qualitative data is seldom
gathered.
- Researchers:
According to Fishman and Edwards, bilingual education research is
rarely neutral. Just as others can interpret studies to their liking, the
temptation remains to influence, through the manner in which analysis and
reporting are carried out.
Reviews and
overviews of research
- Canadian
Immersion Bilingual Education: Baker terms the reviews of Canadian
studies as “relatively uniform”. Second language French learning
seems to happen best in early immersion programs, with the 30 minutes per
day “drip feed” model performing least efficiently. Worth noting however
is the fact that regardless of the model, the opportunities for real or
contrived use of their French language skills were considerably restricted.
First language English learning is not adversely affected by the delay in
its teaching. After approximately 6 years of study, students in early total,
early partial, and late immersion classrooms reach comparable levels of
English language achievement with early total immersion pupils emerging
ahead of all other groups. This finding reveals three important aspects
concerning bilingual education and research. The first is that learning to
read in a minority language first does not hamper (and may in fact aid)
majority language literacy / proficiency. Secondly one can better understand
the need for longitudinal studies. A test of both experimental and control
groups after 1, 2, 3, or 4 years would most certainly yield a very different
data set. The final underlying foundation of Canadian findings is the need
to empower students sufficiently in the second language so as to allow for
the initial cognitive development requisite for growth in mathematics and
the sciences. Other factors contributing to the success or demise of a
program include: student motivation, teacher preparation, home culture,
parental attitude, ethnolinguistic vitality, and amount of time studying
different curricula (Carey 1991).
- Heritage
Language: Large-scale reviews of heritage language education seek to
find global patterns. These patterns, which seem most prevalent in Canada,
hold four unifying strengths. Learners retain their home language;
this affords them a positive self-image and linguistically direct
communication with parents and elders in their heritage group without
jeopardizing their long-term majority language curriculum performance. Heritage
language participants negotiate meaning through an intelligible
–linguistic- instructional vehicle. In other words they receive a very
high degree of comprehensible input. This allows for cognitive development
which later transfers to the majority language. Peers however who are
mainstreamed immediately upon arrival at school receive much less
comprehensible input due to the fact that they need first make sense of the
linguistic vehicle of instruction. Students in heritage language programs
feel a higher degree of cultural pride and acceptance. This reflects
positively in the learner’s self-concept. English language performance
in heritage language pupils and their mainstreamed peers does not act as a
good discriminator of the two programs in that test scores show no
significant difference between the two in the long term. It is possible that
the increased feelings of self-worth, cultural acceptance, and early
cognitive first-language stimulation work together to make up for the
disparity in the number of hours of English language instruction received.
- US
reviews: The 1960’s and early to mid 1970’s were a period of
experimentation and evolution in the field of bilingual education. This
openness to program and cultural variety changed with the close of the
1970’s. Mainstream America was concerned with cultural and linguistic
divergence in the nation. Bilingual education was an easy target. Subsequent
studies of the effectiveness of bilingual education were conducted under the
aforementioned critical milieu. The Baker and de Kanter review (1983) looked
at the effectiveness of transitional bilingual education in the areas of
English performance and non-language subject area performance. In that their
study did not begin with a review of the different forms of second language
instruction and merely used the transitional model as representative of
bilingual education, and also only looked at two regions of influence
(English and non-language achievement) the review can hardly be considered
definitive. Detractors of the study pointed to the fact that the researchers
excluded over 260 studies. Baker and de Kanter’s narrative integration
approach leaves the door open to an array of conflicting interpretations. An
alternative strategy is to employ the more rule bound meta-analysis
approach. Willig’s (1985) meta-analysis found small to moderate advantages
for bilingual education. Another 8 year longitudinal study conducted by
Ramirez, Yuen, and Ramey found advantages for students in late exit
transitional bilingual education as compared to students in early exit and
English submersion programs. Other difficulties faced within the field of
evaluating the effectiveness of bilingual education lies in the lack of
public opinion surveys and divergent expert opinions due to bilingual
education’s recent arrival into the modern US educational landscape.
Levels of effectiveness of bilingual education.
According to Carter & Chatfield (1986), Lucas, Henze & Donato (1990),
Baker (1990), and Cziko (1992) bilingual education research can be addressed
from four perspectives. Child level- why children in the same classroom respond
differently to the same environment. Classroom level- why different classrooms
within the same school and under the same program exhibit differing levels of
effectiveness. School level- why some schools are more or less effective than
others with the same program model. Program level- why some programs are more or
less effective than others. Baker points out the interconnectedness of these
levels and their dependence on social, political, and cultural contexts as well.
- School
effectiveness: Characterized by- purposeful leadership, involvement of
deputy head teacher, involvement of teacher, consistency amongst teachers,
structured classroom sessions, intellectually challenging teaching, work
centered environment, limited focus within sessions, maximum communication
between teachers and pupils, good record keeping, plenty of parental
involvement, and positive classroom atmosphere (Mortimer et al. 1988).
- Teacher
effectiveness in dealing with language minority students: High
student expectations, instructor confidence in abilities, clear
communication of directions, appropriate pacing, student involvement in
decision making, monitoring student progress, immediate student feedback,
use of student’s first language to ensure clarity yet avoiding direct
translation, teacher values home culture and promotes diversity, uses a
curriculum which has coherence, balance, breadth, relevance, progression,
and continuity (Tikunoff, 1983; E. Garcia, 1988, 1991).
- Bilingual
education effectiveness: Value and status given to minority language and
culture, high expectations, school leaders give language minority
student’s success a high priority, staff development allows all staff to
better serve language minority students, variety of courses offered for
language minority students, accessible counseling, involvement of language
minority parents encouraged and school staff commitment to language minority
student empowerment through education.
Conclusion:
Though there seems to be substantial support for early total immersion for
students whose first language is also the majority language, and equally strong
support for heritage or maintenance language instruction for language minority
children there is a need for further research. This research would do well to
ask more pointed / less simplistic questions. Questions which take children,
teachers, schools, society, politics, and culture into account. Studies which
seek out the optimal conditions under which students are best served by
bilingual education.
Course Components:
- Cognitive
Theories Paper
- Legal Cases Analytical Paper
- Presentation
- Notebook
- Paper
- Professional
Development
|
|
