Native Language Classes Aim to Ease Transition to English

[Stan-Sandy Anonby]

Might be non sequeteur again, but the article made me think of a question. Do you think the percentage of monolinguals is increasing or decreasing in the world?

Stan Anonby

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:28:01 -0400 (EDT)
 "Harold F. Schiffman" <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> Native language classes aim to ease transition to English
> Studies differ on whether schoolchildren who are learning English should be
> taught in English
>
> Thursday, October 21, 2004
>
> http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/metro_southwest_news/109818
> 7043136340.xml
>
> LUCIANA LOPEZ
>
> TUALATIN -- The background noise in the Bridgeport Elementary School classroom
> rumbles continuously, with students in each of the room's four quarters asking
> and answering questions and teachers calling for attention and quizzing them.
>
> But this classroom noise is different from the chatter elsewhere in the
> school. In this room, the lessons are in Spanish, taught to students who speak
> Spanish at home.
>
> The Tigard-Tualatin School District has had such native language classes for
> kindergarten through third-graders for about four years. Spanish-speaking
> children with limited or no English are taught the basics of literacy in their
> first language before the transition to English.
>
> The hope is that focusing on reading in a native language will give them a
> stronger base from which to make that transition. The district is pushing to
> hire more bilingual teachers and is considering expanding such native language
> classes to higher grades and classes, such as middle school or high school
> math or science.
>
> Critics say the lessons are largely a way for school districts to avoid their
> responsibility to teach children English.
>
> The district's English-language learner population has risen about tenfold
> since 1992. From the 170 students in the 1992-93 school year, an Oct. 6 tally
> shows 1,702 English-language-learner students districtwide this year,
> concentrated in the elementary schools.
>
> Stepping up the district's efforts to recruit bilingual teachers,
> administrators will travel to Southern California this spring searching for
> candidates at job fairs, said Randy Harvey, director of operations and human
> resources. "We have students who come to us who speak little or no English at
> all, so to help them get a start at all in education we have to be able to
> communicate with them."
>
> Teaching those students in their native language at least some of the time
> helps them learn content they otherwise would miss until they have a command
> of English, he said. For these students, "If you just throw them into a class,
> you penalize all of their subjects."
>
> Teaching the students native language literacy first more effectively eases
> them into reading in English, said Carol Kinch, the Tigard-Tualatin program
> coordinator for English-language learners. "If kids learn to read in their
> native language, they learn English faster," she said, likening the native
> language classes to "accelerated English class."
>
> Some research seems to back up that conclusion. A 2001 study of elementary
> school Spanish- and English-speaking children by researchers from the Center
> for Applied Linguistics, Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities, found that
> teaching students how to read in Spanish helped them make the transition
> faster to reading in English.
>
> "In a nutshell, I know that we need to improve achievement of our ELL kids at
> the middle and high schools," Kinch said. "The more native language
> instruction kids get, the more they achieve."
>
> For example, she said, a student trying to learn physics who also must
> struggle with the language could wind up pushing aside the subject matter.
> Native language instruction "enables kids to still do the content."
>
> The Spanish-language classes at Bridgeport are only part of the students' day;
> the rest of the time, they return to their regular classes taught in English.
>
> But opponents say the language of instruction ought to be English, and they
> point to other research.
>
> A 1986 study in The Journal of Law and Education, for instance, found that
> most "transitional bilingual education" programs were no different from or
> worse than techniques such as submersion, in which the learner is exposed
> mostly or entirely to the new language.
>
> And many native language programs fail to take advantage of the best time for
> someone to learn a new language: when they're young, said Douglas Besharov, a
> scholar with the American Enterprise Institute and a professor at the
> University of Maryland, College Park. "It is tons easier to learn a language
> if you're learning it when you're young."
>
> Once a school has a bilingual class, however, "The institutional forces are to
> keep these classes full," he said, adding that many children have trouble
> getting out of the classes even when they don't need the help. That leads to a
> perpetuation of the classes even when it's not in the students' best
> interests -- for which Besharov faults many of the people who run the
> programs.
>
> "I think the bilingual teachers have a vested interest in kids staying in
> bilingual programs for the longest time possible," Besharov said. "I think it
> is such a conflict of interest for them."
>
> The underprivileged, who are among those who most rely on public schools, also
> are among those who most need English-language education, said Jim Boulet Jr.,
> executive director of the nonprofit group English First. "They're counting on
> instruction on the basics; they're counting on their children learning
> English."
>
> He scoffs at the idea that students whose classes are in Spanish will still be
> immersed in English outside of school. "I never thought the day would come
> that educators would argue that students would be better off picking up
> English on the street corner, which is what that argument says," Boulet said.
>
> But for Flor Vidal, a former teacher in Peru who volunteers at Bridgeport
> Elementary, the benefits of the Spanish-language classes are easy to see. When
> the children learn how to read in Spanish, they get a better grounding in
> literacy and language, she said, and they understand the basics before they
> transfer those skills to a new language. It's also easier for them to
> translate into English when they know their first language better, she said.
>
> Elsa Palza-Rink, a Bridgeport teacher, said the classes also give students a
> chance to learn with others who face some of the same issues.
>
> "They're here learning with other kids who need help with the same thing," she
> said. "Sometimes people think we're teaching them Spanish to be bilingual. Our
> goal is to teach them Spanish to learn other things.
>