Bilingual Education Issues - Case Study Example

It would be superfluous to mention that throughout the existence of the Bilingual Education Programs in The United s of America (USA) there havebeen controversial topics in the school system. Several forms of instructions in bilingual education have been proposed, implemented, and evaluated through various theories within the bilingual education spectrum, such as: maintenance, two-way immersion, and transitional. These practices also included special education students, especially with the No Child Left Behind Act. The Bilingual Education Program started in 1968 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was amended, referred to Title VII. This permitted pilot projects to help the poor children with educational disadvantages due to their inability to speak the English language. The U.S. Supreme Court decision Lau v. Nichols in 1974 provided the stepping stone for bilingual education (Bethell, 1979). These bilingual education programs were geared towards the instruction for students whose native language was not English, were intended for the non-English speaker to learn the content matter courses (mathematics, science, and social studies) in their native language, thus making it easier for the student to learn English as a Second Language and incorporate this knowledge into their content matter courses and in their other courses (music, physical education, art) and help them communicate with the school´s personnel and classmates. Bilingual Education should be placed in its historical context. The educational system started implementing this new theoretical educational concept when the civil rights movement started and the creation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act began; the recipients of federal funds cannot be discriminated against based on their national origin (Bethell, 1979): the African Americans were being taken into consideration; the women were taken into consideration (feminism, female liberation); and educational issues were taken into consideration. There were too many changes taking place contrary to what had been implemented for centuries. In 1970 a memorandum defined language as basic to national origin thus requiring schools to take affirmative action to correct the English language deficiencies. As with any new idea, there were people that were in favor of bilingual education and there were people against bilingual education. The people in favor of bilingual education thought of it as a way of supporting equal rights to all individuals living in a country that promoted equal rights for all and supported by the Constitution of The United States of America. The liberals wanted to support all of the immigrants living in the USA by offering to its children an education where the children would become educated citizens and where the language was not their own (the USA does not have a national language, as per the Constitution of the USA). This meant that the schools were dealing with desegregation issues, bilingual education, and bicultural education. It meant that if the students were to receive an education in their native language, the personnel had to be recruited to teach, counsel, orient these students in their native language. Many riots took place in Boston due to their desegregation and educational issues. Depending on the type of bilingual education that was that was offered, it was assumed that the child would be ready, after a few years, to enter the regular classroom where all of the instruction were to be held in English. There were various theories. The Maintenance theory has a schedule where the students would receive their instruction in the native language in the morning and in the afternoon they receive the same instruction in English. The Transitional Theory has a three year program where the students receive their content matter courses in their native language and they receive English as a Second Language. The Two-Way Immersion Program places the students immediately in an English speaking environment and at the same time it offers an enrichment “foreign “ language two-way immersion experience to English speaking students in the same classroom and generally with the same teacher. The children come from different socio-economic levels and they attend the classes in this setting for different reasons as well. The English speaking students come from a higher middle class background and they want the exposure in this type of learning set-up while the Spanish speaking children come from a lower socio-economic level and they need the English to survive in a country that is not theirs or is the language (Palmer, 2009). According to Delgado-Larocco (1998) and Valdés, 1997) as cited in Palmer (2009) the English speaking students take the seats of the Spanish dominant students, take away the resources needed by them, take away the teacher´s time, and bend the classroom´s goals and language toward their needs. Palmer (2009) asserted that by having monolingual English speaking students in the classroom reinforces the non-native English speaker the value of their native language and that while speaking with them they are able to learn the English language to survive in the USA and help them improve in their academic performance. She also stated that many researchers have found that a two-way immersion program has demonstrated higher test scores, higher rates of high school graduation and college attendance, and more positive attitudes toward other cultures and languages when the students are compared to other types of school programs. Alanis (2000), Lindholm-Leary (2001); Thomas & Collier (2002) as cited by Palmer (2009) asserted that the two-way immersion program students performed better in their tests compared with the transitional bilingual education programs or an English-only approach. It also served well for the native English speakers without damaging their English development or progress in school (Christian, 1994; Christian et al., 1997; Freeman, 1998; Lindholm-Leary, 2001; Potowski, 2004 as cited in Palmer, 2009). All of these practices have their merits and demerits. The merits are that the students receive an education preparing them to assimilate to the American way of living. Generally, these programs were placed into the schools on a trial and error basis with no longitudinal research undergoing to find out if they were working or not. This was a problem. Rosado (2005) believes that the bilingual education programs should promote sociolinguistic competence that allows the students to switch registers depending on the context. Extrapolating from Centeno´s (1989) research, individuals who are performing business transactions should take into consideration the: history, culture, traditions, customs, idiomatic terms, and non-verbal communication. Centeno and Rosado concur that given the intricacies of the individuals these should make a difference in the teaching styles and educational theories. Rosado (2005) presented facts of how the Spanish Castilian was brought to the northern part of Mexico. Not everyone that speaks Spanish will understand each other. This is due to the idiosyncrasies of each country and their regionalisms. Care has to be taken when using words in Spanish since there are words that spoken in a Spanish speaking country may offend people from other Spanish speaking countries. There is what Rosado (2005) refers to as standardized Spanish while others may call it the universal Spanish. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Title I and Title III Sec 31 16 [c] define what the standards are for the qualified teachers who are fluent and literate in English and another language of instruction. In Texas, teacher candidates in bilingual education need to pass the Spanish language component of the teacher-certification examination to teach Spanish. The oral proficiency is evaluated with the Texas Oral Proficiency Test (TOPT) (Rosado, 2005). Hornberger (1987) stated that the bilingual education programs in Peru were successful but their policies were not. She performed an ethnographic and sociolinguistic study comparing the Quechua language use and the maintenance between: a bilingual education school and community and a non-bilingual education school and community. Through observations she found a significant change in teacher-pupil language use and the improvement of the pupil participating in the bilingual education school. Her observations and her interviews indicated that the community members valued and used their language however the Experimental Bilingual Education Project in Puno Peru had difficulties expanding or maintaining its implementation. There were four Peruvian policies from the 1970s that were the base for the Project: the Education Reform, the National Bilingual Education Policy, the Officialization of Quechua and the Constitution of 1979 (Hornberger, 1980 as cited by Hornberger, 1987). The policies had an orientation toward language (minority groups speaking the Quechua language) and planning activities around the world. The 1970 Education Reform viewed self-education, life-long education, and non formal education as mandatory elements within the educational system. The Reform needed a transformation of pedagogical principles, attitudes, and practice. These took place at three levels (initial, basic, and higher), decentralization of the nationwide application, educational extension, and bilingual education. The Educational Reform had three major objectives: raising consciousness given the vernacular languages of the communities; create a national culture; and, the use of Spanish as the common language. There were ambiguities concerning these policies in terms of orientation toward the language. The by-laws stated that the Quechua language should be taught as a second language to Spanish speakers. It was seen as enrichment. This is similar to the two-way immersion program in the USA. They saw it as a transitional model where the increase of Spanish decreased the mother tongue. They mandated that Quechua be taught at all the educational levels and the other policy was to maintain the Quechua language without extending its usage to other zones and speakers. There were between nine and eleven million Quechua speakers in seven republics of South America and there were approximately three and one-half million Quechua speakers in Peru; and one-third to one-half were monolingual Quechua speakers at the time of the study (Hornberger, 2005). The positive merits are that students in bilingual education instruction are being educated in a bilingual setting. The students are in their environment with teachers that are familiar with their language, history, traditions, customs, idiomatic terms, and non-verbal education extrapolated from Centeno´s (1989) research. The teachers are placed in a position where they are more responsive to their students´ needs. The students feel that they are cared for and that the bilingual teacher understands their needs. On the contraire, bilingual is not supported by many because of the feeling that “I came to this country and I have not had these services and I have succeeded in this country of opportunities for all. Why should they be any different?” The people that oppose bilingual education saw it and continue to see it as a threat (losing their jobs). It is known that the USA has had many different ethnic groups arriving and living (as legal or non-legal immigrants). Bilingual Education and Bicultural Education should be seen as an asset rather than hindering education. As presented in this research, all students gain in learning from others. REFERENCES Bethell, T. (1979). Against bilingual education. The Modern Language Journal. 63(5/6) 276-280. Centeno, M. (1989). Cultural sensitivity in the corporate world. Dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University. College Park: PA. Centeno, M. (2009). Virtual interview with one of the bilingual education transitional pioneer teacher in Boston, Massachusetts. Hornberger, N. H. (1987). Bilingual education success, but policy failure. Language in Society. 16 (2) 205-226. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Title I. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4261&menu_id=798 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Title III. Retrieved December 1, 2009 from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=4261&menu_id=798 Palmer, D. (2009). Middle-class English speakers in a two-way immersion bilingual education classroom: “Everybody should be listening to Jonathan right now…” Tesol QUARTERLY. 43 (2) 177 Rosado, L. A. (2005). The language of Cervantes: Alive and well in Texas: Implications for bilingual education programs. Hispania. 88(4) 834-847. Read More