[lg policy] Unique Bilingual Education Program Spreading Across New Jersey

Wed Sep 2 19:11:46 UTC 2015

Unique Bilingual Education Program Spreading Across New Jersey
Sarah Garland <http://www.njspotlight.com/profiles/Sarah+Garland/> | November
24, 2010
Dual-language system benefits both Spanish- and English-speaking students.

In Amanda Castaño’s classroom in a Long Branch public preschool, the
four-year-olds get ready for reading circle with a song: "*A leer, a leer,
todos calladitos!*" The native English speakers in the group join in as
enthusiastically as the Spanish speakers, and when Castaño begins reading
the story – in Spanish – the entire class is rapt.

Next door, the four-year-olds in Sean Kelly’s class raise their hands as he
asks questions in English, including several students who started preschool
as monolingual Spanish speakers. After a week, the two classes will switch
places: Kelly’s students will go to Castaño’s room for a week of learning
in Spanish, and Castaño’s students will join Kelly for a week in English.
Bilingual Experiment

The four-year-olds in both classes are part of an experiment in bilingual
education in Long Branch preschools. This is the experiment’s second year,
and school officials are pleasantly surprised at the rapid progress both
English- and Spanish-speaking students made last year, not only learning
their new language but also learning their letters and numbers. Already,
the city has a small waiting list of parents who are interested in signing
up their children.

It’s going to bring us [academic] benefits in the next five years,” the
Long Branch superintendent, Joseph Ferraina, said.

The rapid growth of the Latin American immigrant population for the last
three decades has left school districts throughout the United States
grappling with how best to teach students who don’t speak English. The gap
between Hispanics and whites on the National Assessment of Educational
Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card, has stayed fairly stagnant
over the past few years in both math and reading, even as the country has
become more focused on closing achievement gaps as required by the 2002
federal education law, No Child Left Behind.
Immigration Issues

Dual-language programs began to spread in the 1960s and 1970s but lost
ground when concerns about immigration increased. Arizona and California
have both mandated English-only education, and English-only policies were
an issue in November’s election. Nationally, most districts are immersing
children immediately in English-only classes or trying a more gentle
transition, starting children out in Spanish-only classes and moving them
gradually to English.

In New Jersey, however, a growing number of districts are trying the
dual-language system in the early grades that is showing promise in Long
Branch. Experts say it may be the most effective, despite its relative
rarity across the country. In the Garden State, Long Branch joins
Elizabeth, Perth Amboy and Plainfield as one of the fewer than 400
dual-language programs nationwide, according to the Center for Applied
Linguistics, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

Robert Slavin, the co-director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for
Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, says New Jersey may
be smart to buck the national trends. In a major study released this year,
Slavin found that English-only programs and transitional programs had
basically the same effect on student achievement. In contrast, past
research has found students learn English more quickly in dual programs, in
addition to keeping their first language.

“There is evidence in favor it,” Slavin said. “The strongest evidence is
for something that’s not quite two-way, meaning that the English-proficient
kids are not necessarily learning Spanish, but the Spanish-dominant kids
are learning both in Spanish and English.” Two-way programs can be
expensive if they require extra teachers, and qualified bilingual teachers
are often hard to find, he added.
The Englewood Program

Long Branch, along with the other New Jersey districts, based its model on
a similar program in Englewood started in 1991. Administrators in Englewood
say their program demonstrates that dual language is the better way and
requires few extra resources. In 2007-2008, the most recent year for which
data is available, 62 percent of the district’s limited-English students
scored proficient or advanced on state literacy tests, compared with 47
percent of limited-English students statewide.

“The goal is always to close the achievement gap,” said Elizabeth Willaum,
who founded the Englewood program. “The English language learners are truly
proficient by the time they’re in third grade and they’re outperforming
their English speaking counterparts.” (The district’s English language
learners scored about the same as other student groups in the district on
state tests in 2008; they were about 16 points behind white students
statewide.)

The program also benefits native speakers who learn to think and interact
in another language, says Willaum. On a recent Tuesday morning, sixth
graders at McCloud Elementary School in Englewood – most who have been in
the dual-language program since preschool -- joined in a math class
discussion about the difference between multiples and factors. One native
English speaker gave the class the definition of a factor in nearly
flawless Spanish. Her only mistake – the conjugation of the verb
*multiplicar* -- was gently corrected by another student, also a native
English speaker, sitting nearby.

One of the benefits of a dual program is the attention placed on English
language learners who might otherwise be isolated in separate classrooms,
says Margarita Calderon, another researcher at Johns Hopkins who studies
bilingual education. “It’s not just an ESL teacher, but it’s the whole
school focusing on the needs of English language learners,” she said.

In Long Branch, slightly more Hispanic students scored proficient or better
on state tests than the state average last year. In three years, when the
bilingual program’s first class of students takes the test, Ferraina says
he expects the scores to jump. “If the numbers show what we think they’re
going to,” said Ferraina, “we should expand.”

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/10/1123/2056/

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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