Thursday, July 3, 2025

AdvertiseDonateSubmit
NewsSportsArtsOpinionThe QuadPhotoVideoIllustrationsCartoonsGraphicsThe StackPRIMEEnterpriseInteractivesPodcastsGamesClassifiedsPrint issues

BREAKING:

Lecturer sues UCLA dean of Anderson School of Management, UC Regents - Live trial coverage

Bilingual-teaching methods should be supported

By Daily Bruin Staff

Sept. 21, 1997 9:00 p.m.

Monday, September 22, 1997 Bilingual-teaching methods should be
supported BILINGUAL: Need better training, more instructors for
system to be a success

By Alfredo Artiles

and Concepcion Valadez

Bilingual education: What is it? Is it a good idea? What will
happen if it’s abolished?

These days, the term bilingual education automatically raises
people’s heart rates. Some are adamantly opposed to it; others are
advocates. Few are neutral. Curiously, other than those directly
involved in bilingual education – parents, educators and students –
in this country, most people who have strong opinions on bilingual
education seem to know little about the specifics of it.

The bi in bilingual education means students will be working
with two languages. The goal of bilingual education has been to
provide a bridge to instruction in English. Unfortunately, this
transition model is based on a deficient view of the students’
linguistic backgrounds. It’s an impoverished model, because it does
not focus on the advantages of bilingualism. Transition promotes a
language shift to English and induces the loss of the students’
first language. Nevertheless, the transition model is a giant step
forward from a time when students were not allowed to speak
anything but English.

There is a second model of bilingual education found in the
United States – that of two-way bilingual programs. These programs,
which are generally parent-initiated, seek to achieve fluent
bilingualism for children from high-status homes.

Generally, these programs are developed at the urging of
English-speakers who want their children to profit from the
multilingual environment in which they reside. Lower-status
children are recruited to provide the native-speaker models
required for full fluency. There are several cognitive and
sociocultural advantages to this model. The controversy on
bilingual education is over the programs serving low-status,
"minority" children.

Bilingual education is based on a series of principles that
promote the acquisition of English in an optimum manner. It assures
continued development of cognitive and academic growth and
acquisition of English. The students’ cognitive development does
not need to stop until enough English is available for academic
growth.

Knowledge is not archived in language, but language, through
speech and the written word, is one of the most important tools
human beings have for learning. In bilingual-education, or "English
as a Second Language," classes, students acquire English in a
paced, orderly way. The knowledge they have acquired will be
available to them in whatever subsequent languages they may
have.

In bilingual-education programs in this country, students who
begin their schooling in kindergarten speaking no English and who
receive initial academic instruction in their primary language can
make a transition to instruction in English after three years with
language assistance. By the end of the second grade, these children
have developed sufficiently strong oral English and first-language
literacy skills to be placed in a transition curriculum. Such a
program will use what are called specially designed
academic-instruction methods, formerly called sheltered English
instruction. Students may receive this transitional curriculum the
whole year or be cycled out sometime during the year. The fourth
grade is usually the first year these children will be in an
all-English curriculum.

The above description is the theoretical model, and there are
many schools where this is what actually occurs.

Is bilingual education, using the transition model, working? Are
the children in the bilingual-education programs doing well in
school? Are they learning the "3 R’s," as one would ask of any
child in any school? Yes. Are the children learning English? Yes.
Are the students who start out with language assistance staying in
school and going on to become self-sufficient citizens who will
contribute to society? Yes. There are movements afoot for more
elaborate national standards for our education system, but in the
meantime, the goals of American education include four
expectations: the acquisition of strong academic skills, especially
in literacy, including mathematics, to the best of their innate
abilities; development of a healthy psychological self-concept for
life in a complex society; development of skills to be a
self-sufficient and contributing member of the larger society; and
high levels of English-language skills in all modalities.

There are numerous examples of effective bilingual-education
programs. We have the research to substantiate the claims made
here. At UCLA, perhaps the best testimony of that effectiveness
might be the number of first-generation American students, who
started elementary or middle school speaking only Spanish.

Many of these students, if schooled in this country, probably
received some sort of first-language assistance or ESL during their
beginning school years. Bilingual education was a critical factor
in their academic success in school.

Most of the opponents of bilingual education are not concerned
with the academic development of the students in question.

Their opposition is primarily fueled by fear or worry that a
language other than English is given some attention. The history of
"English only" politics dates back to the early days of the
country. Some people are angered by the freedom with which today’s
newcomers speak their native tongue in public.

Many of these individuals are worried about the status of
English. They feel that the preeminence of English is threatened by
the spread of other languages, especially Spanish. Spanish poses a
particular problem because it is the speech of a low-status segment
of the population – Spanish is a low-status language.

Interestingly, in California schools, we have seen a 3,000
percent increase in Russian speakers in the past few years. Will
the xenophobia we see now against Spanish be echoed against Russian
one of these days?

English is not in trouble. There is no danger that English will
cease to be the language of the nation for the next century. In
fact, first-language loss in this country is at an all-time high.
It used to be that it took four generations for a family to shift
from the primary language to English. Now it’s happening in one
generation. More and more, parents and younger children don’t have
a spoken language in common. If students are successful in school,
they’ll stay in school and they are likely to be more fluent in
English than in their first language by the time they reach sixth
grade.

Any people familiar with adequate bilingual-education programs
are supporters.

It’s unlikely that teachers who have seen the benefits of
first-language instruction will go back to teaching without the
first-language tool. Parents who were victims of the previous
English-only era themselves know the consequences of receiving
instruction in their weaker language – the loss of two to three
years of academic development.

A problem with bilingual education is a lack of trained staff.
There has been a severe shortage of teachers trained in bilingual
methods. Twenty-one percent of the students who need language
assistance are receiving none. We need 25,000 more specially
trained teachers.

The biggest hindrance has been the public’s lack of commitment
to get behind quality education of these non-English students.
Forty percent of the school-age population of California is Latino.
Of the 1.25 million non-English-speakers in California schools, 80
percent are from Spanish-speaking households. Voters have showed
little interest in campaigns to provide optimum learning
opportunities for these children.

The problem is not just of the Spanish speakers, it’s everyone’s
problem. When one out of five children in California schools is in
need of special attention for learning, it is a problem that
everyone should work on.

What A. Bruce Garder, an education leader of the ’60s, said then
is true today, more than ever: "Language is the most important
exteriorization or manifestation of the self, of the human
personality. If the schools, the all-powerful school, rejects the
mother tongue of an entire group of children, it can be expected to
affect seriously and adversely those children’s concepts of their
parents, their homes and … themselves."

The factor of socioeconomic class is key in schools’ attitude
against first languages in this country and the difficulty of
acquiring English without bilingual education.

What would happen if bilingual education is abolished? This
country is not reaping the benefits of the potential of its
population with the minimal amount of first-language assistance we
are now providing. Transitional bilingual education is a bridge to
English. The philosophical base for that model is that English is
the only language these students should know. It is an
assimilationist belief, proposing that once students know only
English, they will be successful.

This position is contrary to fact. Need we point out the number
of English-only speakers (Chicanos, African Americans, American
Indians, Anglos) who are not successful Americans? However, the
argument for optimum effort for quality schooling is not only for
the benefits of the "ethnics" themselves and their families. The
nation needs every citizen and resident to have optimum schooling.
These groups are part of our country, and they constitute a growing
proportion. If they are not successful, the whole country if
affected. The nation cannot afford the present low achievement
rates; it can certainly not take the risk of increasing that number
by exponential factors. The country can’t risk that. THE PLAYERS
CONCEPCION VALADEZAssociate professor of urban schoolingHolds
doctorate in education from Stanford –>

Valadez is involved in the cirriculum, teaching and policy
studies of the UCLA urban schooling program. Her areas of interest
are language education, bilingulaism, literacy, cirriculum design,
testing and linguistic minorities. Her writings on bilingual
education and minority language education have appeared in various
education publications.

Share this story:FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
COMMENTS
Featured Classifieds
More classifieds »
Related Posts