my topicEnglish is not my native language, so coming to America I became bilingual. To stay bilingual, an immigrant must hold on to their native tongue, especially children coming to live in another country. I believe that it is very important to hold on to one’s heritage even in a different country. Having multiple perspectives and traditions broadens one’s world view and allows being flexible, considerate and more understandable of others. This is especially true in such a diverse country as the United States of America.
The career of my pursuit is education and being bilingual myself I am interested in educating others like me and helping them to acquire English as well as keep their mother tongue alive within them. I understand the challenges and benefits of both. Bilingualism and bilingual education is a very personal and exciting topic for me, that is why I chose to do my research summary on it.
I am very much interested in finding out more about language immersion programs and ELL programs. I eventually want to teach ELL and/or Russian and it would be great to know what programs for languages exist and how they work. I have heard about language immersion programs and want to learn more about those and also just about the way of educating bilingual children.
Berk, Laura E. Development through the Lifespan. 4th ed. Ch. 9, p 317-318.
Sometimes children learn more than two languages growing up. About 6 million children in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home. In Canada, the non French or English speaking children are almost 700, 000 in number.
One can become bilingual by learning two languages at the same time in childhood, or by learning the second language after the native. There is a sensitive period for learning a second language. It takes longer to become fluent if you learn another language later on in school. Bilingualism enhances ones learning abilities, and development.
Canada promotes bilingualism with language immersion programs in schools. Language immersion is when students are taught in a language that is not their native language for several years. Children become proficient in both languages and are doing as well as the mainstream students academically. About 7 % of Canadian elementary schools are immersion programs, and the funding is increasing.
On the other hand, the U.S. is reluctant to incorporate language immersion programs into school. There are opposing viewpoints on how to educate minority students that do not know English well. Semilingualism is when children know more than one language, but both are underdeveloped. It is believed to contribute to failing and dropping out rates in low-SES ethnic minority students.
The opinion of America is that English is the only official language and school instruction should be English-only. Studies show that when minority students are taught in both English and their native language, it is more involving and easier to learn English for such children. On the other hand, if children do not fully understand the language they are taught in, they are not interested, become frustrated and withdraw.
There is a difference in how Canada and the U.S. perceive language immersion programs. Canada has two official languages; the U.S. has one official language and minority languages. This leads to a difference in the approach of utilizing immersion programs in the U.S. English needs to be taught alongside valuing the native language of American non-English speaking children.
summaries of studiesStudy 1
1. Narrowing the Gap: Effects of a Two-Way Bilingual Education Program on the Literacy Development of At-Risk Primary Students.
2. Lopez, Maria and Tashkkori, Abbas.
3. Hypothesis: The two-way bilingual education program would reduce the gap in English literacy between students with lower English proficiency and higher English proficiency students taught in a traditional English-only instruction.
4. Subjects: First year of study – 87 kindergarten students (43 male, 44 female). At the end of first grade 66 students remained (due to change in placement and moving). 33 children from each group. Experimental group: 17 boys and 16 girls. Control group: 19 boys and 14 girls.
5. Methodology: Kindergarten students with low English skill were instructed in English and Spanish 70/30 percent of the time, respectively for two years of study (K-1). At the end of 1st grade students from the two-way bilingual education and their correspondent group from regular education were tested for English literacy development on different indicators.
6. Research design is experimental.
7. General design is longitudinal.
8. Results: The students who were with low English proficiency at the beginning did not do significantly worse or better than regular education students with initial higher English proficiency. These results prove the initial hypothesis that the gap would be bridged through the bilingual intervention program for at risk students.
Study 2
1. Trilingual Education for Majority-Language Children
2. Genesee, Fred and Lambert, W. E.
3. Objective: To evaluate how effective are double-immersion programs (instruction in two non-primary languages) are, and to compare the different programs of immersion – two different early double (early DI1 and early DI2), delayed double (delayed DI), single (SI), and nonimmersion (NI).
4. Subjects: Samples were taken from intact classes. Early DI1 : 14 females, 8 males; early DI2: 8 females, 10 males; delayed DI: 15 females, 9 males; SI : 13 females, 11 males; NI: 14 females, 10 males.
5. Methodology: Testing students in languages and math proficiency through four different immersion programs.
6. Research design is experimental.
7. General design is cross-sectional.
8. Results: Single and double immersion language proficiency results were the same. Double immersion results were higher than that of nonimmersion. First language was not weakened through any of the programs. Conclusions: Double immersion, especially early on, is an effective way to learn two foreign languages; instruction in native language in the beginning of the program is not long-term beneficial but actually may be negative to acquiring a foreign language.
Study 3
1. Forward and Backward Digit Span in the Languages of the Bilingual.
2. Hoosain, Rumjahn.
3. Objective: To determine how native vs second language differ in forward and backward digit span. This would show the developmental differences.
4. Subjects: A total of 50 Chinese bilinguals (Chinese/English) equal number of males and females. Seventh-graders (N: 25, average age 13.3) and undergraduates at the University of Hong Kong (N: 25, average age 21.2).
5. Methodology: Each group had to repeat lists of numbers backward and forwards in both languages, separately. There were eight lists of random numbers. Tests were individual.
6. Research design is experimental.
7. General design is cross-sectional.
8. Conclusions: Forward and backward digit spans reflected different cognitive processes. Backward digit span was better than forward in the second language. Backward digit span is related to the right hemisphere (the opposite of language). Different types of intellectual functioning in the second language are not all affected by one factor or the same way.
Study 4
1. The Developmental Progression of Comprehension-related skills in Children learning EAL.
2. Hutchinson, Jane M, et al.
3. Objective: To understand whether the underachievement of EAL students is coming from low levels of fluency in English when just starting school in the U.K.
4. Subjects: Children learning English as an additional language (N: 43), and monolingual children (N: 43) in U.K.
5. Methodology: Each group was given 5 tests on language skills between March and July in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades (1999, 2000, 2001).
6. Research design is correlational.
7. General design is longitudinal.
8. Results: Reading accuracy was similar between the two groups. EAL students did worse than monolingual students in vocabulary and comprehension at each grade level. Conclusion: Since the gap did not narrow in the three year period, it’s an indication that EAL students missed the general knowledge in the primary grades, and they would not do as well in the future as their monolingual peers.
Study 5
1. The Politics of Bilingual Education: Expenditures in Urban School Districts.
2. Leal, David L, Hess, Frederick M.
3. The objective is to examine the political, demographic, and fiscal determinants of urban school district spending on bilingual education.
4. Subjects: School board members of 62 cities in the U.S.
5. Dependent variable: district’s per-pupil spending on bilingual education. Independent variables: percentages of local school board members who are Latino, Asian American, African American, and women; median family income in the district.
6. Research design is experimental.
7. General design is cross-sectional.
8. Conclusions: Spending on bilingual education is controlled by several factors – higher income in the district, higher percentage of Latinos and Asian Americans on school boards.
Study 6
1. When Learning a Second Language Does Not Mean Losing the First: Bilingual Language Development in Low-Income, Spanish-Speaking Children Attending Bilingual Preschool.
2. Winsler, Adam, et al.
3. Objective: To look at how languages develop in bilingual (Spanish/English) low-income children who attend a bilingual preschool or stay at home.
4. Subjects: Spanish-speaking, low-income children attending a bilingual preschool (N: 26 –experimental group), comparable group of children remaining at home for the year (N: 20 – control group).
5. Methodology: Two studies were conducted. Study 1: Children were tested for English and Spanish four times. Study 2: Follow up of the same children next year with the same procedures.
6. Research design is experimental.
7. The general design is longitudinal.
8. Results: The children who attended preschool didn’t lose Spanish proficiency; instead they got better at both languages. The preschool children were on the same level in Spanish and got better in English compared to the ones who stayed at home.