Structured English Immersion Programs - Coursework Example

Structured English Immersion Programs 2006 Introduction The teaching of English learning has been a concern in the United States for long. It has been universally acknowledged that students from immigrant communities need help in improving their English proficiency so that they can perform better in mainstream education. Lack of language proficiency to a large extent is the cause of their poor socioeconomic status in the Unites States. Various programs of English language learning has been used: 1) English as second language (ESL) programs use English as the medium of instruction with little or no use of native languages, 2) Transitional bilingual programs teach all non-language subjects in native language while at the same time teaching the English language before moving the student to the mainstream environment, 3) Dual-language immersion, or two-way bilingual programs use both English and the native language in the class that have categories of students who are proficient in English and those that are not (ecs.org). While earlier it was assumed that a bilingual program would let the limited-English proficient (LEP) students to comprehend, speak and write English fast, it has now been recognized that such education delays English-learning since teachers speak in that language other than English most of the time and learners face hurdles in mainstream education later. Therefore, by popular referendum, the Structured English Immersion (SEI) program, a variation of the English as Second Language (ESL) program, in which little or no language other than English is used, was introduced in California in 1998 when voters approved Proposition 227, which emulated the Canadian Immersion program. The Proposition also mandated that the students would have to be mainstreamed after a year. Over nearly 20 years prior to this, the state imposed bilingual education on minority communities, particularly Hispanics. SEI programs had already been successfully implemented in Texas, where, though had mandated bilingual programs, SEI had been experimented with. SEI program was also introduced in Seattle where LEP students were put in intense English learning classes for six months before joining the mainstream (Baker, 1988). Definition of Structured English Immersion Clark (2000) defined an immersion program as “An approach to teaching a new language where learners receive all or most of their instruction in the new language together with others who are learning that language”. A typical characteristic of the immersion program is that students learning the new language are grouped together. The essential goal is to prepare the students sufficiently before they enter the mainstream education. The immersion program is in contrast to the submersion program – that is putting the LEP student directly into the mainstream class – as well as bilingual program. Much debate preceded and followed the approval of Proposition 227. Educators have argued both for and against the program and have varied opinions regarding the definition, appropriateness and application of SEI. Baker (1998) defined SEI as “one in which 1) English is used and taught at a level appropriate to the class of English learners (that's different from the way English is used in the mainstream classroom), and 2) teachers are oriented toward maximizing instruction in English and use English for 70% to 90% of instructional time, averaged over the first three years of instruction”. SEI does not necessarily mean that the non-English language has to be done away with completely. Baker (1988), although a strong advocate of SEI, acknowledged that the non-English language may be used to make the students come out of their shell and grow comfortable in the class and to communicate extremely difficult subjects. It is up to the teacher to use language, whether in a monolingual or in a bilingual setting, judiciously to choose the correct cognitive strategy. The basic point of the program is that non-English language should be used to the minimum possible, as opposed to the bilingual model in which all non-language subjects are taught in the native language while at the same time English being taught as well. In SEI, all LEP students are taught in English in sheltered classes but at a slower pace than in the mainstream class. Gersten (2000) defined immersion not as a “sink-or-swim” program but one that “requires teachers to use English as the primary language of instruction, with vocabulary, syntax, and content suited to the child’s grade level and comprehension”. Although Gersten (2000) asserted that teachers do not essentially need non-English language to teach such students, “A teacher might use Spanish, for example, in comforting a child or explaining a difficult concept or clarifying terms. A student may use his or her native language to ask or answer a question when his or her English is not sufficient….. Students should be encouraged but not forced to use English”. Debate over SEI and Bilingual Education The proponents of bilingual education, enacted in 1968, argue that LEP students find it easier to learn non-language subjects in their native language while at the same time learning English would get them prepared for the transition to the all-English environment. The Bilingual Education Act (1968) was an equal opportunities enactment that provided the minorities equal opportunities of learning as the rest of the population. However, an intense debate emerged over the issue whether this education program has been able to make minority students more comfortable in mainstream education or it has in fact increased their segregation. The Hispanic community of California, in particular, felt victimized by being forced to be educated in the bilingual program that is learning non-English subjects in Spanish, leading to the Proposition 227. It was found that a large majority of Hispanic families spoke only English at home. Hence, students from such homes, even if they were classified as LEP, found it even more difficult to learn in bilingual classes. Porter (1991) found that transitional bilingual programs allowed learners less “time-on-task” as they concentrated more on the language of instruction than on the subject when mainstreamed. Ramirez (1994) found that SEI a better program to develop proficiency in math, language and reading than bilingual programs like the early-exit (where students join mainstream classes at the end of three years) and late-exit (where students join mainstream classes at the end of seven years) programs; Gersten (1985) found SEI programs to have improved graduation rate in Ulvade in Texas and in El Paso, where Spanish was reduced in classes to 30 minutes a day by Grade 4 and student performance seen to have improved (cited in Baker, 1998). Besides, it is a difficult to decide in a bilingual setting when the student should be moved to the mainstream. There is a high chance of false judgment, which might lead to disastrous results for the LEP student. Glenn, on the other way, advocated a two-way bilingual program since he considered the typical bilingual programs to segregate LEP students, which in a way lead to marginalization in later lives. Glenn said, “The best setting for educating linguistic minority pupils – and one of the best for educating any pupils – is a school in which two languages are used without apology and where becoming proficient in both is considered a significant intellectual and cultural achievement”. Also, the purely monolingual programs fail to allow students develop strong language identities. Cummins (1999), however disagreed to the claim that a bilingual program is essentially inferior. He cited linguistic examples to show that bilingual education, in fact, improves the cognitive aptitude of students and such programs have been used successfully around the world. The problem, according to him, is the early-exit bilingual programs that mainstream the students before they are really ready for. He said that it takes about two years for a non-English learner to speak English fluently but at least five years for gaining aptitude to comprehend non-language subjects in English. An Effective English Immersion Program Whether the education program is monolingual English immersion (like SEI), transitional bilingual or dual (or two-way) bilingual, the teaching of English to LEP students, particularly at kindergarten, has become crucial and increasingly being recognized in all states. However, the moot question is the accuracy of the classification of LEP. It has been noted that the Learning Assessment Scales are designed such that even English-speaking students find it difficult to pass through. Besides, it has also been found that learners who score low in the English assessment tests also score poorly in the native language assessment tests. Hence, the problem is not so much in language proficiency as in elsewhere (Rossell, 2000). Hence, sheltering LEP (classified wrongly or rightfully) in bilingual programs for two long may be even more harmful in the long run. Rossell (2000) advocated the newcomer schools or the one-year immersion programs as being an effective model to prepare the immigrant students for an all-English environment. Typical of the European system, where all immigrant learners are put in “reception” schools for a year, the newcomer schools have been prevalent in the United States as well. There are such newcomer schools in Chelsea, New York, Boston and California and teachers in these schools find one year is enough for immigrant students to get acclimatized to the new environment. According to Rossel (2000), In California, Proposition 227 was deliberated worded by its sponsors in an attempt to limit the time period in a separate below-grade level classroom to one year. It was worded this way not because anyone thinks non-English speaking children will have mastered English in one year but because evidence suggests that sometime during the first year, immigrant children will learn enough English so that they will be better-off in a grade level mainstream classroom than in a remedial classroom”. It is not essential for teachers in SEI programs to speak non-English languages since it is expected that 70-100 percent of the communication will be in English. However, there may be situations when the student needs help in the native language. In such circumstances, use of the native language would help. Alternatively, students with the same language background may be made to sit together to allow collaborative learning. Most important, however, is effective communication between the teacher and student and classes with a small number of students are beneficial for the purpose. Teachers must monitor students carefully and give performance feedback to individual students. Although teaching should proceed at a pace commensurate with the students’ learning abilities, teachers should ensure that there is a high premium given over achievement. The teacher should provide as much language exercise to students as practice greatly improves language proficiency and most importantly, give emphasis on increasing their vocabulary and ability to form sentences. A Successful ESL program for kindergarten students Gersten (2000) gave example of a third grade teacher, Donna’s technique of teaching her class, which had students from seven language backgrounds new vocabulary. As Donna reads out a story, she stops at a point where there is mention of an earring, “DONNA: How many of you girls have earrings with holes in your ears? What are they called? Pierced. Pierced means you have a hole in it. If I take a piece of paper and cut it with scissors, it’s pierced. “Donna cuts a little hole in a piece of paper. She asked, “What’s that word? Pierce”. “She came back to this word later during this activity and repeated it. She also helped students relate what they knew to new situations and concepts. For example, she stressed the new word, “drought”, by drawing students’ attention to the then current weather pattern afflicting the southwest”. Goldberg (2000), whose school moved from bilingual program that was not giving good results to an ESL pullout program in contrast to the all-English SEI programs, gave some interesting ideas on teaching techniques that could be used for all ESL programs. She recommended literature-based teaching that induced students’ creativity. Minority students who have been trained in language and content rich education are better equipped for mainstream education, according to Goldberg (2000). Siano (2000), too, recommend reading programs to improve an integrated learning program that incorporates reading, writing, comprehending and speaking. A non-threatening instructional quality is most important. Siano (2000) defined a good reading program as one that 1) provided learning material appropriate to the learners’ needs, 2) systematically structured and organized such that learners became confident at an early stage, 3) introduced memory words and vocabulary systematically, 4) incorporated practice activities, and 5) used other teaching aids like visual, aural, pictorial, musical and kinesthetic. Teachers should establish model pronunciation techniques as well as be made aware of the importance of listening carefully to decode a language. Students should be corrected for wrong vocabulary and pronunciation but extremely gently so, without hurting their feelings. Words of praise and encouragement go a long way to teach LEP students a non-native language like English. The teacher, whether English-speaking or not, should be sufficiently aware of the typical difficulties faced by non-English speaking learners and also have sufficient knowledge of the relevant subject matter and reading content material. Clark (2000) recommended some broad guidelines for schools before they began an immersion program: 1) understand the state and federal laws regarding the immersion program, and 2) analyze the local, regional and state ideologies regarding education of non-English learners. The schools should, however, be careful while shifting from a submersion or a bilingual program to an immersion program since it would involve teaching and acclimatizing teachers to a great extent. The five most important criteria for a successful immersion program, according to Clark, are 1) Student entry and exit, 2) program goals, 3) time allotted to teaching English, 4) language use policies and guidelines and 5) material and subject matter content. Newcomer schools, ranging from 6 months to a year, have been prevalent informally among all the ethnic communities in the United States. According to McDonald and Hill (1993, cited in Rossel, 2000 ), there are newcomer schools for kindergarten students in almost all districts. These schools mostly have separate locations then normal schools and the teachers are driven by a sense of purpose. There are alternate models for the newcomer schools. For example, in one model, the students spend half the day in the newcomer schools while the rest of the day they are in normal schools that may be immersion type or bilingual. Some organizations run newcomer classes in bilingual schools. Gebhardt (2003) advocates an inclusion program in kindergarten education in which the classroom teacher and the ESL teacher works in a coordinated manner such that the LEP student does not need to be pulled out of the class and given segregated education in English language. Rather, the student learns in the class along with the other students and gets a chance to practice the English language to the utmost. Gebhardt (2003) surveys a number of schools in which ESL, whether bilingual or SEI, programs have been successfully implemented in kindergarten through such inclusion principles. As one teacher in the survey says, " What happens," Hall says, "is that when you practice more on your language, you're going to cement those skills better. So no one is really robbing anyone of any instructional time. They learn from each other". In another model school in San Diego, described by Gebhardt (2003), the students are grouped according to age – early childhood, primary, middle and upper) but each with students at different levels of English proficiency. Each group receives all instructions together, without being segregated in separate classrooms. Conclusion The immersion program has become particularly critical for the Hispanic community in the United States, particularly because of their low English proficiency and the relative inability to cope with mainstream education. But, designing the appropriate immersion program is not easy. It has to be remembered that it is essential to maintain the linguistic identity of the ethnic communities as well as to impart subject matter in a way that does not marginalize them in any way. According to law and recognized by human rights awareness as well, all learners have equal opportunity to education. Particularly, the No Child Left Behind laws stipulates that all students should pass the assessment criteria for the respective states. However, the non-English learners should be prepared enough to cope with the pressures of mainstream education. Various strategies of immersion programs – as opposed to the sink-or-swim submersion programs where only English is used as the medium of instruction – have been proposed. For long, the bilingual program, by which the learners were taught subject matter in native language and at the same time English as a language, was prevalent. But it was found to be discriminatory against the students who, despite their ethnicity, were not sufficiently proficient in their native language either. For others, too, the sheltered environment meant that students of bilingual programs took longer to learn English. On the other hand, sheltered or structured immersion programs, that did use native languages but much less than in bilingual programs, have been found more successful. However, it remains crucial to formulate the SEI program in terms of subject matter content, time allotted for English learning and most important, the exit timing from these programs. Works Cited Cummins, Jim, Research, Ethics, and Public Discourse: The Debate on Bilingual Education, Presentation at the National Conference of the American Association of Higher Education, 1999, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/cummins2.htm Baker, Keith, Structured English Immersion Breakthrough in Teaching Limited-English Proficient Students, 1998, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbak9811.htm Clark, Kevin, “The Design and Implementation of an English Immersion Program”, in Chavez, Linda (ed.) The ABC’s of English Immersion, A Teacher’s Guide, Center for Equal Opportunity, 2000, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/abc.pdf Glenn, C. L. & LaLyre, I. (1991). Integrated bilingual education in the USA. In K. Jaspaert & S. Kroon (Eds.), Ethnic minority languages and education (pp. 37-55). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger. Gersten, Russel "Structured Immersion for Language Minority Students: Results of a Longitudinal Evaluation," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, vol. 7, 1985, pp. 187-96 http://www.ecs.org/html/issue.asp?issueID=16 Gebhardt, Christian Anne, Implementing an ESL/ bilingual inclusion model, retrieved on April 18, 2006 from http://www.ncsu.edu/eslglobe/archivedsite/archives/vol1_no1/exemplars/Christine's2%20paper.html Gersten, Russel, “What Works? What the Research Says”, in Chavez, Linda (ed.) The ABC’s of English Immersion, A Teacher’s Guide, Center for Equal Opportunity, 2000, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/abc.pdf Goldberg, Ann, “English Immersion: All Grades”, in Chavez, Linda (ed.) The ABC’s of English Immersion, A Teacher’s Guide, Center for Equal Opportunity, 2000, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/abc.pdf Porter, R. P. (1990). Forked tongue: The politics of bilingual education. New York: Basic Books Ramirez et al., op. cit.; and Tamara Lucas and Anne Katz, "Reframing the Debate: The Role of Native Language in English Only Programs for Language Minority Students," TESOL Quarterly, vol. 28, 1994, pp. 537-61. Rossell, Christine. H, “Can English Learners Attain Proficiency in One-Year Immersion Programs?” in Chavez, Linda (ed.) The ABC’s of English Immersion, A Teacher’s Guide, Center for Equal Opportunity, 2000, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/abc.pdf Siano, Janet, “Teaching Juan and Maria to Read”, in Chavez, Linda (ed.) The ABC’s of English Immersion, A Teacher’s Guide, Center for Equal Opportunity, 2000, retrieved on April 13, 2006 from http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/abc.pdf Read More

Definition of Structured English Immersion Clark (2000) defined an immersion program as “An approach to teaching a new language where learners receive all or most of their instruction in the new language together with others who are learning that language”. A typical characteristic of the immersion program is that students learning the new language are grouped together. The essential goal is to prepare the students sufficiently before they enter the mainstream education. The immersion program is in contrast to the submersion program – that is putting the LEP student directly into the mainstream class – as well as bilingual program.

Much debate preceded and followed the approval of Proposition 227. Educators have argued both for and against the program and have varied opinions regarding the definition, appropriateness and application of SEI. Baker (1998) defined SEI as “one in which 1) English is used and taught at a level appropriate to the class of English learners (that's different from the way English is used in the mainstream classroom), and 2) teachers are oriented toward maximizing instruction in English and use English for 70% to 90% of instructional time, averaged over the first three years of instruction”.

SEI does not necessarily mean that the non-English language has to be done away with completely. Baker (1988), although a strong advocate of SEI, acknowledged that the non-English language may be used to make the students come out of their shell and grow comfortable in the class and to communicate extremely difficult subjects. It is up to the teacher to use language, whether in a monolingual or in a bilingual setting, judiciously to choose the correct cognitive strategy. The basic point of the program is that non-English language should be used to the minimum possible, as opposed to the bilingual model in which all non-language subjects are taught in the native language while at the same time English being taught as well.

In SEI, all LEP students are taught in English in sheltered classes but at a slower pace than in the mainstream class. Gersten (2000) defined immersion not as a “sink-or-swim” program but one that “requires teachers to use English as the primary language of instruction, with vocabulary, syntax, and content suited to the child’s grade level and comprehension”. Although Gersten (2000) asserted that teachers do not essentially need non-English language to teach such students, “A teacher might use Spanish, for example, in comforting a child or explaining a difficult concept or clarifying terms.

A student may use his or her native language to ask or answer a question when his or her English is not sufficient….. Students should be encouraged but not forced to use English”. Debate over SEI and Bilingual Education The proponents of bilingual education, enacted in 1968, argue that LEP students find it easier to learn non-language subjects in their native language while at the same time learning English would get them prepared for the transition to the all-English environment. The Bilingual Education Act (1968) was an equal opportunities enactment that provided the minorities equal opportunities of learning as the rest of the population.

However, an intense debate emerged over the issue whether this education program has been able to make minority students more comfortable in mainstream education or it has in fact increased their segregation. The Hispanic community of California, in particular, felt victimized by being forced to be educated in the bilingual program that is learning non-English subjects in Spanish, leading to the Proposition 227. It was found that a large majority of Hispanic families spoke only English at home.

Hence, students from such homes, even if they were classified as LEP, found it even more difficult to learn in bilingual classes. Porter (1991) found that transitional bilingual programs allowed learners less “time-on-task” as they concentrated more on the language of instruction than on the subject when mainstreamed.

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