Bilingual Education Resources

For those of you who are interested in learning more or refining your knowledge of bilingual and multilingual education, I recommend the following resources:

• Bilingual Research Journal online: The Bilingual Research Journal has online archives of articles from 1992-2006
• James Crawford’s Language Policy Website and Emporium: James Crawford has an abundance of information on bilingual education,  language policy and information pertaining to the education of English learners
• Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism: I’ve blogged about this book before. This is the MUST-HAVE most essential book regarding bilingual and multilingual education, language policy, second language education, bilingualism and cognition, etc that every single person must have. I’m totally serious here. This book is great for the person new to the bilingual education community and is also very useful to those who consider themselves to be experts. You MUST have a copy of this book and if you have an old edition you have got to buy the new edition. A couple of you have purchased the book from my Multilingual Mania store, and I’d like to hear some of your thoughts on the book. P.S. Thank you for purchasing it from my store because any proceeds earned from the store will be used to purchase materials that I will review for you on the blog, in order to bring you the best resources and information about bilingual and multilingual education!!
• National Association of Bilingual Education (NABE): They’ve got a great language journal.

As to what I’ve been up to lately, I just bought the following book and started reading it:

• Language, Space, and Power: A Critical Look at Bilingual Education: So far I’ve read the first two chapters. It’s not the typical “Dual Immersion 101” informational book-it is an ethnographic study of a Dual Immersion classroom. The theoretical base that the author uses is postmodern  theory, so it’s a bit heavy on theory in the beginning of the book. It gets more lucid after the initial theoretical base is provided. I’ll keep you updated as to my thoughts about the book as I continue reading!! I’m just happy that it’s a study that takes place in a dual language classroom. I really love to read about issues of language and power. 
• In one of the comment sections, a producer left her information about a documentary she produced regarding bilingual education and English-only language policy. This week the movie is premiering at the San Francisco Film Festival. It seems like it’s a really exciting and interesting documentary about the political issues that surround bilingual/multilingual education. I contacted the producer about the possibility of purchasing the film, and she informed me that it would be released for sale towards the end of the summer. I’m really excited about it and I can’t wait to get my hands on it so that I can organize a public screening. Anything that has to do with multilingual education is pretty much an obsession for me. The documentary is called “Speaking in Tongues” and you can find more information about it here. It’s not  too often that you come across documentaries about language. 

Soon I will be posting the newest giveaway. Stay tuned!!

Language Programs in California for English Learners

photo by shavar

There are various language instruction models for students classified as English learners:  

• English Language Mainstream program, which consists of instruction overwhelmingly taught in English
• Structured English Immersion (SEI), which consists of instruction overwhelmingly taught in English with specialized academic techniques designed for students at lower proficiency levels of English language development
• Alternative Courses of Study, which consist of some form of instruction through students’ primary language

Alternative course of study programs can range in diversity from early-exit transitional forms of bilingual education (i.e., students are transitioned into English) to dual immersion programs (i.e., students’ languages are developed and maintained). In order to participate in an alternative course of study program in California, parents must sign a waiver on an annual basis in order for their child to participate in a bilingual program. 

English Language Mainstream Programs

English Mainstream classrooms are the most common method of educating language minority students (i.e. English learners) in California.  Skuttnabb-Kangas (2000) defines English Mainstream classrooms as contexts in which “powerless …minority children…are forced to accept instruction through the medium of a foreign…high-status language” (p.583).   In such classrooms, language minority students are placed with fluent speakers of the majority language and receive little or no specialized assistance.  The teacher may or may not speak or understand the primary language of the students and may or may not be knowledgeable of appropriate second language acquisition or effective sheltered instruction strategies. The ultimate aim of such programs is social and cultural assimilation.  

Structured English Immersion (SEI) Program

Language minority students with less than reasonable fluency in English are sometimes placed in Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs.  The goal of SEI programs is monolingualism just as in English Mainstream classes, i.e., the primary language is not developed and is replaced with English.  SEI programs are specifically designed to facilitate rapid English language acquisition in order to transition language minority students into English Mainstream classes as soon as possible.  Students placed in such programs are generally at the beginning levels of English language proficiency and are provided sheltered content instruction by teachers ideally trained in both second language acquisition and strategies to effectively modify the core curriculum.  While in some programs teachers may use the students’ primary language for clarification, typically little or no primary language support exists.  

Transitional Bilingual Education Programs (TBE)

Primary language instruction, although hotly contested around the country, is an instructional option actually open to only a small fraction of language minority students.  One common form of bilingual education is Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE).  A TBE program is a “more sophisticated version of submersion programmes, a more ‘humane’ way of assimilating” (Skuttnabb-Kangas, 2000, p. 593); the aim of such programs is majority language monolingualism.  Students enrolled in TBE programs are taught academic subjects through the medium of their primary language for a temporary period of time as they acquire proficiency in English.  These classes provide access to the core curriculum until students have acquired enough proficiency in English to effectively participate in an English Mainstream classroom.   In these programs, the minority language is used merely as a vehicle for facilitating the acquisition of English and is subsequently neglected once students have sufficient proficiency in English.  

According to Soltero (2004), there are two common forms of TBE: Early-exit Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) and Late-exit Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE).  Early-exit TBE programs provide primary language instruction for approximately two years and then students are transitioned into monolingual English instruction around second or third grade. Students in Late-exit TBE programs receive primary language instruction for a minimum of forty percent of the instructional day until they are transitioned into English-only instruction around the sixth grade.   A number of researchers have found that well-implemented TBE programs are more effective in the long-term than either English Mainstream or SEI programs (Lindholm-Leary, 2001; Ramirez et al, 1992; Thomas & Collier, 1997).

Developmental Maintenance Bilingual Education (DBE)

A less common form of bilingual education is Developmental Maintenance Bilingual Education, sometimes referred to as One-Way Developmental Maintenance (Thomas & Collier, 1997).  The aim of Developmental Maintenance programs is to develop and maintain the primary language of language minority students.  Students are provided primary language instruction for a minimum of fifty percent or more of the instructional day as they simultaneously acquire the majority language.   Developmental Maintenance programs differ from Late-exit TBE programs in that they add a second language while they protect and further develop the primary language, as opposed to the eventual replacement of students’ primary language with English.  

Dual Immersion Programs

Dual Immersion programs, sometimes referred to as Two-Way Bilingual Immersion, are an enrichment form of bilingual education in which language majority (i.e., English speakers) and language minority speakers are integrated throughout the entire school day and taught through the medium of the minority language for fifty percent or more of the instructional day (Lindholm-Leary, 2001).  They are similar to Developmental Maintenance Bilingual programs in the design and goals; the only difference between Developmental Maintenance and Dual Immersion programs is that language majority students are included in the Dual Immersion program and all students are taught to read, write, and speak two languages. 

There are two common variations of dual immersion programs:  90/10 and 50/50 (Soltero, 2004).  In a 90/10 model, the minority language is taught to both language groups for ninety percent of the school day starting in kindergarten.  With each additional school year, the majority language is increased by ten percent until students receive instruction for fifty percent of the day in the minority language.  Once students receive fifty percent of their instruction in Spanish and fifty percent in English, they maintain equal percentages of the two languages throughout the subsequent years of their schooling.  In 50/50 programs the minority language is taught for fifty percent of the instructional day at each grade level beginning in kindergarten and throughout high-school. 

 

 

Must-Read Book: Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

A new online friend that I met on twitter recently asked me about the best book to read regarding bilingual and multilingual education. I told her without hesitation that a must-read book is Colin Baker’s Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. The book is currently in its fourth edition and I just can’t get enough of the book. I have read each edition, and the fourth edition is absolutely the best!! This book has invaluable information to both bilingual ed neophytes, as well as experts in the bilingual education community.

The book has nineteen chapters and an extensive bibliography. Each chapter is extremely detailed and provides suggested reading as well as activities to develop your understanding of the information in each chapters. The topics include the following information:

• Chapter One: Bilingualism and Distinctions. The first chapter discusses distinctions of bilingualism (i.e., balanced bilingualism, etc) as well as the topic of levels of communicative competence (e.g., Does the bilingual have conversational or academic proficiency?).
• Chapter Two: The Measurement of Bilingualism. The chapter title sums it all up. Baker discusses the purposes of measuring bilingualism, forms of assessments, and the limitations in assessment.
• Chapter Three: Endangered Languages: Planning and Revitalization. Chapter three details the current state of endangered languages, as well as language planning and policies that can endanger or revitalize languages. 
• Chapter Four: Languages in Society. Chapter four discusses language shift and maintenance, as well as language decline, death and resurrection. The topics of language conflict and nationalism is covered as well.
• Chapter Five: The Early Development of Bilingualism. This chapter is a must-read for any parent who desires to raise a bilingual child. Various models are discussed (i.e., “one parent-one language”), as well as the types of childhood bilingualism and trilingualism. This chapter also reviews the bilingual child case-study literature. There is also an interesting little section on codeswitching, when bilingual children and adults mix the two languages.
• Chapter Six: The Later Development of Bilingualism. Chapter six details the various societal and individual reasons for learning a second language, as well as individual differences in attitude and motivation regarding second language learning. The chapter also makes some interesting points of identity formation of bilingual individuals, something that I have also started to write about here and here. 
• Chapter Seven: Bilingualism and Cognition. This chapter discusses the following aspects of bilingualism: 1) intelligence; 2) brain research; 3) creative and divergent thinking; 4) metalinguistic awareness (i.e., thinking about language); and, 5) communicative sensitivity. 
• Chapter Eight: Cognitive Theories of Bilingualism and the Curriculum. Chapter eight focuses on the theories of the balance theory, iceberg analogy, and the thresholds theory. If you don’t know these theories about second language education, then read the book!!
• Chapter Nine: Historical Introduction to Bilingual Education-The United States. This fascinating chapter provides a brief overview of the history of bilingual education in the United States, as well as the Proposition 227 (i.e., “English for the Children”) policy designed to eliminate or restrict bilingual education. The federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation is also discussed. The issue of the achievement gap is also discussed. 
• Chapter Ten: Types of Bilingual Education. Baker compares and contrasts the various forms of subtractive (i.e., taking away a student’s primary language while adding a second language) and additive (i.e., developing and maintaining students’ primary language while adding a second language) bilingual education programs. 
• Chapter Eleven: Education for Bilingualism and Biliteracy. Chapter eleven reviews Dual Immersion/two-way immersion/dual language programs, heritage language bilingual education programs (e.g., development and maintenance of heritage languages, as in the case of Native American languages), and immersion bilingual education (e.g., Canadian immersion programs which develop French-English biliteracy).
• Chapter Twelve: The Effectiveness of Bilingual Education. Chapter twelve clearly delineates the research base on the effectiveness of bilingual education, including Dual Immersion programs, immersion bilingual education programs, and heritage language programs. This chapter is a must-read for everyone, because it dispels many of the myths regarding the ineffectiveness of bilingual education which are perpetuated by the media as well as people without a background in bilingual education. 
• Chapter Thirteen: Effective Schools and Classrooms for Bilingual Students. The title sums it all up. Chapter thirteen details the various components that are necessary for effective schools and classrooms in the education of bilingual and trilingual students. 
• Chapter Fourteen: Literacy, Biliteracy and Multiliteracies for Bilinguals. This chapter discusses the various viewpoints of teaching reading to bilingual students, as well as how to best foster biliteracy development.
• Chapter Fifteen: The Assessment of Special Educational Needs of Bilinguals. In this chapter, the following topics are covered: 1) gifted multilingual and bilingual children; 2) language delay issues; 3) assessment of struggling learners; 4) causes of special needs and learning difficulties; and, 5) special education for bilingual students.
• Chapter Sixteen: Deaf People, Bilingualism, and Bilingual Education. This chapter explores the concepts of deafness and bilingualism. Fostering bilingualism with sign language is also discussed. 
• Chapter Seventeen: Bilingualism as a Problem, Resource, or a Right. This chapter summarizes Ruiz’s notions of bilingualism as a problem, resource or right. The chapter describes how bilingualism has been characterized in the past as a “problem”, such as the former notion that bilingualism retards intelligence. In addition, the chapter describes that bilingualism can also be viewed as a “resource”, one of the main premises of Dual Immersion programs. In addition, Colin also discusses that bilingualism is a “right”, that language minority populations have the linguistic human right to be bilingual.
• Chapter Eighteen: Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: Ideology, Identity and Empowerment. Chapter eighteen covers the topics of assimilation, linguistic and cultural pluralism, and  bilingual-bicultural identity construction. 
• Chapter Nineteen: Bilingualism in the Modern World. Chapter nineteen provides an overview of bilingualism and the following topics: 1) mass media, 2) the workplace; 3) the internet; 4) the economy; and, 5) tourism. There is an interesting brief section on the economic benefits of biliteracy in the global economy. 

I can’t reiterate enough how valuable this book is. I consider myself to be extremely knowledgeable about the field of bilingual education, and this book is a resource that I frequently return to in order to look for future reading topics. The citations that Baker uses are abundant, and the book points you in the direction of additional readings on each of the topics. I just can’t live without this book.

Buy it for yourself! Trust me–you won’t regret it!!

Thank Goodness for Alternative Discourse

There’s something that I am really worried about and I just can’t get it out of my head. I keep asking myself the following questions: Should I return and get my doctorate? Or, should I stay in the school system and make a difference at a grass-roots level? I feel that I really want my cake, and I want to eat it, too.

There are times that I want to return back to the doctoral program and finish my studies. Today is one of those days, for example. When do I start feeling this sense of stress and conflict? Well, let me explain. I feel that some of the research that has been coming out over the past years has been so politically motivated against bilingual education and can cause serious harm to our children. In California, educators were subjected to forty hours of “Reading First” training and the “National Reading Panel” research was beat into their head. (I’ll save my comments about Reading First and the National Reading Panel  for another post. In a nutshell, the research was not on ELL students at all.) Teachers in bilingual education programs were basically taught to teach reading in writing in both languages through discreet, isolated, low-level texts. Years and years of research on bilingual education programs and effective bilingual pedagogy were completely suppressed because they did not meet the criteria for scientific-based research that “they” had established. 

Now teachers have to attend an additional forty hour English Learner Professional Development and I’ve literally been depressed over the state of the professional development modules that are approved by the state. To top it all off, there is only one state approved provider for bilingual education programs. The training for this curriculum is so low-level, with an overemphasis on decontextualized, isolated skill instruction for the English Language Development (ELD) section of the training. The training is very influenced by behavioralist psychology, isolated contrastive analysis, and what is termed the “transferability model’ of teaching English. Talk about going back in time-I’ll save my criticism for later on the overemphasis on contrastive analysis, transfer and the language “interference” that guides the entire training.

I’ve been so depressed that everyone is jumping on this bandwagon. Regarding second language acquisition, I most definitely do not subscribe to the behavioralist paradigm and it is really alarming to me that people can’t see how low-level this stuff is. I started digging around and low and behold…I found that it is not that difficult to submit a professional development module for review and approval of the state. The way that this political game works is that the state approves/”suggests” certain recommended reading that can be used for the training. As I was looking through the materials, I began to become depressed once again over the research that is highly guided by the behavioralist way of second language (L2) development.

I called one of the state providers because I became so perturbed over some of the language that was being used in the presentation. It really irks me when people talk about language being a “barrier”, or an interference. In fact, the training suggested reading the book “Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other Problems”. Now, I haven’t actually read this book, but the title just makes my skin crawl in that it suggests that students’ primary language negatively interfere with English, that their primary language is a problem or deficit to their learning English. 

I asked the state provider, “When English-speaking children enter into kinder they typically begin to write with invented spelling in English. Do we ever say that their oral language skills in English are causing negative interference with their writing? No. We simply say that students are using invented spelling. When middle-class English-speaking children in Dual Immersion programs begin to learn Spanish and they possibly use English phonetics to spell something in Spanish, do we ever say that their English is interfering with their acquisition of Spanish? I’ve never heard that. Rather, someone would simply say that students are using the English sound-system to write in Spanish. Then, why do people not even think twice about stating that Spanish-speaking students’ primary language may be negatively interfering with English? Hmmm”.

I’ll let you answer that question for yourself. Do you get my point?? We’ve got to start looking at this research with a more critical eye.

So here I was, depressed, thinking that bilingual education teachers were going to be subjected to being taught all this interference and “problem” hogwash, as opposed to having intellectual conversations about how the primary language influences the second language, as opposed to “interferes” with acquisition of English. The state provider told me that she would change the articles and terminology if I could get her something to replace it with. Lo and behold-tonight I was floating around in the bathtub and reading one of the state approved articles by Genesee and company (sidenote: yes, I do read research while relaxing in the bathtub!) and I came upon the topic of language “influence”. I much prefer the way that they explain it:

English L2 literacy development is influenced by emergent literacy in the L1 and being read to in the L1 at home…; knowledge of L1-L2 cognate vocabulary…; knowledge of sound-letter relations in the L1…; and phonological awareness in the L1…In most cases, these cross-language influences are facilitative so that ELLs with emergent L1 literacy skills, prior experiences with L1 literacy in the home, knowledge of cognate vocabulary, and well-developed L1 phonological awareness acquire reading skills in English more readily thatn ELLS who lack these L1 skills. In other cases, there can be “negative” cross-language influences, as when Spanish-speaking ELL students erroneously apply Spanish L1 phonological and orthographic rules to English spelling. Even in these cases, however, it is important to keep in mind that these effects speak to an active and productive strategy on the part of ELLs in the initial stage of learning to read and write to draw on relevant, albeit inappropriate , knowledge about the L1 to bootstrap into English reading and writing. pg. 372

This makes me feel so much more comfortable, talking about how one language can influence  another language, as opposed to “interference” which has such a negative connotation. The authors even put “negative” in quotations, which somewhat even invalidates the phrase for me and let’s me know that they are using the term loosely because it is a commonly used term perhaps. I appreciate the last sentence that states that even though bilingual learners may be erroneously using their prior knowledge about their L1 sound-system to read in English, they are simply using their background knowledge to apply to English. The way this is stated doesn’t make it necessarily seem like it is such a bad thing.

Two years ago I was at La Cosecha dual language conference in New Mexico and a colleague of mine invited me out to drink some mojitos with Dr. Genesee and one of his students. At the time I had just gone on my leave of absence from the doctoral program and Dr. Genesee suggested that I return. “Who else is going to carry on the torch if you all don’t get your doctorates? You know that we will retire sooner than later and we need people to take our places”. 

So, tonight I’m asking myself if I should go back to get my PhD. What will happen when the experts on bilingual education research retire? Who will take their place? Do we have enough people to take their place? I feel that itch to return and finish so that I can carry on the legacy of so many people who have provided an alternative discourse to the English-only ideology.

But then again, sometimes I think I should stay fighting in the school systems. Like today-I was able to convince the state provider to make changes to the curriculum which will influence many teachers. I just might throw my hat in the ring and write my own curriculum for teachers in dual language programs, my own little way to provide an alternative discourse to the behavioralist mumbo jumbo that is being offered by the one provider for bilingual programs.

What to do, what to do??

A New Threat to Bilingual and Multilingual Programs: NCLB Program Improvement Teams

As bilingual and multilingual educators, we know that our bilingual programs are constantly prone to attack due to various causes and reasons. Sometimes it is a blatant anti-bilingual sentiment that threatens our programs, as was the case in California’s “English for the Children” Proposition 227 campaign. It’s really disheartening to me that many of the bilingual educators that I come into contact with on a daily basis have no knowledge of the Prop 227 struggle because they are newer educators, or they just have complete historical amnesia as to the struggle that bilingual education advocates endured to counteract the negative attacks on bilingual education. What is Prop 227, you ask? Google it and learn about it if you are not familiar with it already.

Now we have a silent and maybe even more possibly dangerous threat out there–external NCLB program improvement teams. When a school in California does not meet state and/or federal accountability requirements, it faces various sanctions. One of the sanctions is that a school or district is placed in program improvement status and may fall under the supervision of a program improvement team. The program improvement teams are external teams that come into either the school or the district with the purpose of assisting the site with academic achievement. 

Through my personal experiences with certain program improvement teams in California, I have come to the conclusion that they have the potential to essentially do what Prop 227 was not able to do-further dismantle all bilingual education programs, or force them to be extremely early-exit type programs where students are transitioned into English-only classrooms as early as first or second grade. I have had experience with program improvement teams entering into schools with functioning Dual Immersion and/or late-exit bilingual maintenance programs and attempting to dismantle the programs, although there is plentiful evidence that the program is not the lowest performing program in the school or district. It’s as if you can’t convince them otherwise, even with a mound of data that clearly demonstrates that the bilingual education program is not the main problem that the school is facing.

At one of the Title III workshops held by the California Department of Education last year, I had a discussion with one of the Department employees regarding this matter. She informed me that she has been hearing rumors about such program improvement teams throughout the state. She also informed me that the California Department of Education clearly states in their training for the program improvement teams that they are not to dismantle programs, rather they should address the key instructional pieces that need to be in place within each program in order to improve student achievement. So, I ask myself, “Why are these program improvement teams not being held accountable for stepping over the line? When are bilingual educators going to question them?”

Now is not the time for us to be silent. If we don’t question their decisions, then we will wake up tomorrow and all of our programs will be gone. I’m trying to think of what exactly can be done with this type of situation-who do you make a complaint to, etc. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that bilingual education advocates need to network together and receive approval to become a certified team themselves.

Has anyone else had any experience with this type of situation? What can be done?

Dual Immersion Must-Reads

I think that I have pretty much established that I am a bilingual education fanatic. I am feeling so happy, because in a matter of just a few days I have managed to meet some really great bilingual and multilingual advocates online! I feel such a sense of community and I am really looking forward to coming home each day and blogging about multilingual topics galore!! 

Lately I have been mulling over whether or not I should return to the doctoral program. I studied for two years in the program and about one and a half years ago I took a leave of absence from the program. I won’t get into all the details, but to make a very long story short, I just find it very difficult to be in institutions that don’t value diversity. I keep asking myself lately though if I should return to school and finish my studies. I was initially very interested in bilingual education, specifically Dual Immersion programs. My area of emphasis was on the education of African American students in the dual language setting, as well as issues of power and inequality that can be manifested in Dual Immersion programs.

Last week I came upon a really great blog called Spanglishbaby.com. They did a number of articles on Dual Immersion programs and if you are not familiar with the program then you should mosey on over there and check it out. In a nutshell, language majority speakers (i.e., native English-speakers) and language minority students (i.e., Spanish or another target language) are integrated in Dual Immersion programs and are taught through two languages. There are a number of program model designs for the Dual Immersion model.

Anyhow, I personally work with Dual Immersion programs in my professional capacity, and I have the Dual Immersion bug. The articles over at Spanglishbaby brought back a memory that there are many “must do” readings on my list regarding Dual Immersion. So, in keeping with my manic and obsessive compulsive self, I am going to challenge myself to a read-a-thon regarding everything dual and immersion. 

My first goal is that July I want to have read every single article, book or resource on the Center for Applied Linguistic’s dual language bibliography. I don’t honestly think it will be that difficult to read everything because I have already read a lot of what is on the bibliography.

My second goal to read the entire Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition immersion bibliography (i.e., “one way immersion” where language majority speakers are immersed in a program that teaches the minority language and may not be integrated with native speakers of the target language). I’d like to have that bibliography finished by July as well.

It all sounds so simple, like not much reading, but I have tons of reading that I need to do for other projects. I am creating an English Learner Professional Development institute training that I want to submit to the state to be approved as a provider of staff development. I’m also going to be working on writing a grant for a “three-way immersion program”, where the emphasis will be Spanish, English and Mandarin and students are learning all three languages. I’m sure that my readings will help me for the grant. Maybe it will help me decide if I want to continue my doctoral studies as well. 

I’ll update soon with the first book that I have just started reading. I just don’t happen to have the title on me at the moment. I’m really going to enjoy reading all of the works on the bibliographies and then blogging about some of my ideas regarding the readings.

A must-read for anyone who is interested in Dual Immersion programs, bilingual education, and/or second language acquisition and English language development should read Colin Baker’s Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism!