Texas: Austin School District looks to restart 'dual-language' program

Sat Jan 5 16:30:01 UTC 2008

AISD looks to restart 'dual-language' program

  Thursday, January 3, 2008

AISD looks to restart 'dual-language' program
District dropped program, which involves alternating instruction in
English and a second language, in 2003 after disappointing results

By Laura Heinauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 02, 2008

The Austin school district, one of the largest school districts in the
state without a program in which English and non-English speakers both
learn two languages, is considering giving the dual-language approach
a second try. Across the country, such programs, which proponents say
promote bilingualism, are gaining in popularity, with about 330
nationwide in 2007, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics, a
language research and education group based in Washington. But in the
Austin school district, such a program hasn't been tried since a
Spanish dual-language program at Harris Elementary School was shut in
2003. Unlike one-way bilingual and English-as-a-second-language
programs, which are aimed primarily at teaching English to non-native
speakers and are found at many area public schools, dual-language
programs serve English and non-English speakers by alternating the
language used during the school day. The goal is have students become
fluent in both.

"It creates an atmosphere where everyone is learning a language," said
Martha Garcia, the district's executive director of bilingual
education. "It becomes a situation where, if I'm a Spanish speaker, I
can help my English speaking classmates as much as they can help me.
There's more of an equality, and kids feel more empowered." The
district has formed a committee to look at what it would take to begin
such a program in Austin, Garcia said. The challenges include finding
the funding, gathering community support and recruiting the special
staff members needed for such a program. The program at Harris
Elementary was shut down after three years when grant funding ran out
and administrators said they were seeing only varying degrees of
effectiveness in academic performance.
In an letter to the editor in the American-Statesman, district
administrators said a "significant number of students at the time were
performing below grade level in their native language because they
weren't given the opportunity to have a good, solid basis for literacy
before going to a second language. They, therefore, weren't developing
their literacy in either language."

They added that success requires every child to have both a command of
his or her home language and to be on grade level in literacy skills
in the native language if he or she is to fully benefit from the
second language. Today, many experts say that students in such
programs, if they are done properly, often out-perform students in
monolingual settings. Julie Sugarman, a research associate with the
Center for Applied Linguistics, said the key to success in such
programs is an early and strong focus on literacy for all speakers of
the non-English language. Administrators, she added, need to be
patient and not judge language skills too harshly until fifth grade.
"We know for the non-English speaker, it helps them learn English ...
and for the English speaker, it's what's needed for them to do
grade-level work by the third or fourth grade," Sugarman said.

In Austin, Garcia said, studies show that former English-language
learners, or students who successfully complete the program, pass the
Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills at higher rates than all
other students. Marcelo Tafoya of the League of United Latin American
Citizens said that those figures are not surprising. "If you know the
culture, you will understand why, when they get into something like
this, they will really do better," he said. "You want a better job,
learn two languages. Being that we're the largest of the minorities
right now, we should take advantage of it." Others question the need
for dual-language programs in public schools, saying that such
programs are expensive and that students in them run the risk of being
functionally illiterate in both.

Currently, the demand for dual-language programs in Austin is being
met by private schools such as Petite Ecole Internationale, a French
immersion Montessori school, or organizations that offer instruction
for young learners. Justin Scott hopes to open a dual-language charter
school in Austin where students would be taught about 90 percent of
the time in Spanish starting in kindergarten, adding more English each
year until instruction becomes 50 percent in Spanish and 50 percent in
English by fourth grade. Scott said he's had the most interest from
English-speaking parents. "We're seeing a big demand because there's
nothing like it in Austin," he said. "A lot of the parents we've had
lived abroad. ... That intercultural awareness is paramount for a lot
of these parents."

Austin officials have said they look at dual-language programs as a
way to tailor services to best meet the needs of particular students,
similar to building a middle school for girls and providing
theme-based education for high school students.
The specifics of what Austin's dual-language program might look like
have yet to be decided. Garcia said that it probably would start in
just one school but that it hasn't been decided whether enrollment
would be open to the entire city. A program for Spanish speakers makes
sense, she said, because you need a significant number of students and
teachers who speak a language other than English, but that is still to
be determined. The district has schools with bilingual programs for
Korean and Vietnamese speakers. Though some have said under-enrolled
Becker Elementary School in South Austin would be a good option for a
dual language program, Garcia said, that's not a sure thing either.

lheinauer at statesman.com; 445-3694

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/02/0102duallanguage.html

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