Bilingual pupils do better in exams, report finds

[Harold F. Schiffman]

forwarded from edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu

Bilingual pupils do better in exams, report finds

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
31 October 2006
http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article1943292.ece

Bilingual children are far more likely to get top-grade passes in exams in
all subjects, a report has found.  A study of Portuguese children at
secondary schools in London showed that those who were encouraged to
continue studying their native language were five times as likely to
achieve five top grade A* to C grade passes at GCSE.  The study also found
that 11-year-olds in Hackney who speak more than one language at home were
outperforming pupils who only speak English, even in reading, in their
national curriculum tests.  The report, Positively Plurilingual, is
published today by Cilt, the national centre for languages, to coincide
with a drive to encourage the take-up of community languages.

In an introduction to the report, Sir Trevor McDonald - who led a major
inquiry into the teaching of languages in schools and is now Cilt's patron
- says too many schools miss out on the opportunity to ensure bilingual
pupils develop their skills in languages other than English. "Rather than
thinking in terms of an 'English-only' culture, we should be promoting
'English-plus'," he says. "We know that children are capable of acquiring
more than one language and that doing so brings a range of educational
benefits, including cognitive advantages, enhanced communication skills
and an openness to different cultural perspectives."  The report also
cites research by Ellen Bailystock of York University in Canada, which
showed that bilingual people were better at multi-tasking than those who
only speak one language. This is because they regularly exercise the part
of the brain known as the pre-frontal cortex which reinforces attention
span.  The report says that more than one in eight primary school pupils
in the UK - about 850,000 children - speak a language other than English
at home.  "People who already speak more than one language find it easier
to learn new languages than monolinguals," it adds.

It gives several examples of schools that take advantage of the ethnic
diversity of their children - including Newbury Park primary school in
Redbridge, east London, which adopts a different "language of the month"
so its pupils get a grounding in all of the 44 languages spoken at the
school.  Peterborough now offers classes in Italian, Urdu and Punjabi in
its primary schools. "The linguistic map of the UK is changing," concludes
the report. "The number of languages in use is growing and diversity is
spreading to parts of the country where previously few languages other
than English were spoken."  Dorset County Council, for instance, has
teamed up with Tower Hamlets in east London - where 60 per cent of pupils
are of Bangladeshi origin - to provide distance learning for Bengali
speakers. Cumbria offers Saturday classes in Chinese and Bengali.

More than 200 representatives of schools and local education authorities
will gather at the Polish embassy this morning to promote the teaching of
Polish, in a meeting timed to coincide with the launch of the report.
Children of Polish origin are one of the fastest growing ethnic minority
groups in UK state schools.  Today's drive comes in the wake of the
decision by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, to set up an inquiry
into the teaching of languages in schools - following the disastrous slump
in take-up of the subject at GCSE and A-level when compulsory language
lessons after the age of 14 were scrapped. It is to be headed by Lord
Dearing, the former chairman of the Post Office, and is expected to make
its interim report in December.

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