Language immersion counter-productive, says Finnish Prof

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Language immersion counter-productive, says Finnish prof

Trevor ap Simon | 2007/2/16 @ 17:24 |

Being a naive progressive, my opposition to the illegal policy of
compulsory Catalan language immersion has always been based on appeals to
the old liberal idea that we should be free to use whichever language we
choose, with the odd reference to rights enshrined in international
conventions and publicised via absurd junkets like UNESCOs International
Mother Language Day and the struggle waged by Catalan speakers during the
dictatorship. A polemical piece by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas entitled The right
to mother tongue medium education - the hot potato in human rights
instruments (buy her book, Linguistic Genocide in Educationor Worldwide
Diversity and Human Rights? in the USA or the UK) suggests that I (as well
as parties like the PP and Ciutadans, and the sane wing of the PSC) might
be better off making a pragmatic casethat language immersion is likely to
inflict severe long-term economic damage:

Minority children have to become minimally bilingual through their formal
education. Bilingual education of all kinds is a very specialized and
sensitive area of both research and policymaking. However, detailed
knowledge of it is a prerequisite for being able to make sound
recommendations. An important complicating issue is that some of the
scientifically sound and practically proven principles of how to enable
children to become high-level multilinguals with the support of the
educational system are in fact counter-intuitive: they go against common
sense.

If indigenous or minority children who speak their mother tongue at home,
are to become bilingual, and learn the dominant/majority language well,
one might, with a common sense approach, imagine that the principles of
early start with and maximum exposure to the dominant language would be
good ideas, like they are for learning many other things - practice makes
perfect.

In fact, sound research shows the opposite: the longer indigenous and
minority children in a low-status position have their own language as the
main medium of teaching, the better they also become in the dominant
language, provided, of course, that they have good teaching in it,
preferably given by bilingual teachers, just as the Hague Recommendations
on the Educational Rights of National Minorities and the UNESCO Education
Position Paper Education in a multilingual world (2003) recommend.

I shall give two examples of recent very large-scale longitudinal and
methodologically extremely careful studies from the United States, Ramirez
et al. (1991) and Thomas & Collier (1997, 2002; see also other references
to them in the bibliography).

The Ramirez et al.s 1991 study, with 2,352 students, compared three groups
of Spanish-speaking minority students. The first group were taught through
the medium of English only (but even these students had bilingual teachers
and many were taught Spanish as a subject, something that is very unusual
in submersion programmes). The second group, early-exit students, had one
or two years of Spanish-medium education and were then transferred to
English-medium. The third group, late-exit students, had 4-6 years of
Spanish-medium education before being transferred to English-medium.

Now the common sense approach would suggest that the ones who started
English-medium teaching early and had most exposure to English, the
English-only students, would have the best results in English, and in
mathematics and in educational achievement in general, and that the
late-exit students who started late with English-medium education and
consequently had least exposure to English, would do worst in English etc.

In fact the results were exactly the opposite. The late-exit students got
the best results, and they were the only ones who had a chance to achieve
native levels of English later on, whereas the other two groups were,
after an initial boost, falling more and more behind, and were judged as
probably never being able to catch up to native English-speaking peers in
English or in general school achievement.

The Thomas & Collier study (see bibliography, under both names), the
largest longitudinal study in the world on the education of minority
students, with altogether over 210,000 students, including in-depth
studies in both urban and rural settings in the USA, included full MTM
programmes in a minority language, dual-medium or two-way bilingual
programmes, where both a minority and majority language (mainly Spanish
and English) were used as media of instruction, transitional bilingual
education programmes, ESL (English as a second language) programmes, and
so-called mainstream (i.e. English-only submersion) programmes. Across all
the models, those students who reached the highest levels of both
bilingualism and school achievement were the ones where the childrens
mother tongue was the main medium of education for the most extended
period of time. This length of education in the L1 (language 1, first
language), was the strongest predictor of both the childrens competence
and gains in L2, English, and of their school achievement. Thomas &
Collier state (2002: 7):

the strongest predictor of L2 student achievement is the amount of formal
L1 schooling. The more L1 grade-level schooling, the higher L2
achievement.

The length of MTM education was in both Ramirez and Thomas & Colliers
studies more important than any other factor (and many were included) in
predicting the educational success of bilingual students. It was also much
more important than socio-economic status, something extremely vital when
reflecting on the socio-economic status discussions and choices in
relation to the Roma in most recommendations. The worst results, including
high percentages of push-outs, were with students in regular submersion
programmes where the students mother tongues (L1s) were either not
supported at all or where they only had some mother-tongue-asa-subject
instruction.

This research helps explain the disgraceful rates of school failure for
Spanish mother-tongue speakers in Cataloniaat 42.62%, more than twice
those for Catalan speakersand I think provides a key to understanding
whyand this is personal experiencethey are frequently incapable of
expressing themselves adequately in either Catalan or Spanish.

Useful comparisons can be made between some aspects of the Catalan
language regime and pre-democracy policy in South Africa. I think Nkonko M
Kamwangamalu hits the nail on the head when in Language policy and
mother-tongue education in South Africa: The case for a market-oriented
approach, writing of the use of apartheid mother-tongue education as
enshrined in the 1953 Bantu Education Act as a means of excluding blacks
from public goods and services, he says that

the main problem with mother-tongue education is not whether it is good or
bad but rather whether it can empower those to whom it is targeted.

Modernising, republican elements in Catalan nationalism echo the public
voice of Italian fascism in the 20s and 30s, interpreting their mission as
being one of preventing marginalisation, of providing equal opportunities
for all, irrespective of their origins. In fact, I think it is fair to say
that language immersion here is a manufactured disaster which serves to
exclude, not empower.

Whilst it is understandable that its success is celebrated by ethnic and
class warriors who deride Spanish as a language of and for maids and
servants, the poor and the vulgar, illiterates and those of little class,
its difficult for me to understand why it continues to enjoy the support
of many who regard themselves as being on the freedom-loving left.

http://oreneta.com/kalebeul/2007/02/16/language-immersion-counter-productive-says-finnish-prof/

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