Disturbing findings….

Nearly 30% of Los Angeles Unified School District students placed in English language learning classes in early primary grades were still in the program when they started high school, increasing their chances of dropping out, according to a new study released Wednesday…

The findings raise questions about the teaching in the district’s English language classes, whether students are staying in the program too long and what more educators should do for students who start school unable to speak English fluently.

“If you start LAUSD at kindergarten and are still in ELL classes at ninth grade, that’s too long,” said Wendy Chavira, assistant director of the policy institute. “There is something wrong with the curriculum if there are still a very large number of students being stuck in the system….”

The sooner students switch to regular classes the better, the new study showed. Students who moved out of English classes by third grade scored up to 40 points higher on standardized tests than those who stayed in the classes. If the students moved by fifth grade, they scored about 10 points higher than their peers.

Not stated explicitly, but important to note in order to comprehend the point, is that the ELL programs being evaluated are bilingual education programs (i.e., using the students’ L1 to mediate subject content while the students learn English).  This is the classic argument between proponents of bilingual education and immersion ed: immersion education proponents complain that bilingual education takes too long, and that students are not going to learn English by being taught in Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Chinese, etc.); whereas bilingual education proponents claim that immersion education simply doesn’t work well, and risks failing kids in large numbers.  As those who read this blog are well aware, I recognize good features on both sides of the debate, and there are as many success stories for each side as there are abysmal failures.  I’ve long supported a decentralization of ELL policy so that schools can decide on a local level which policy best suits their own learners, as student backgrounds can often greatly predispose the learner to more or less success in one approach vs. the other.

This report from the LAUSD provides pretty damning information points for those who would argue for scrapping bilingual education.  While the theory behind bilingual education is sound, and there are plenty of examples of thriving bilingual ed. systems to point to (one of the best in the country is about 10 miles away from me), it is practically legendary for misapplications and poor implementation — a point which, frankly, I am often annoyed by the more frothing-at-the-mouth-type supporters’ stubborn refusal to even acknowledge.  While I’m sure that one can find plenty of immersion supporters who are equally self-delusional in regards to the program’s short-comings, at least from my own perch in academia, I have yet to see one.  The important question to ask oneself, however, is why are bilingual ed. supporters so unwavering in their faith and support for the system?  The theory’s good, but really…  are we ever that sure of anything, especially a system that has such epic (although, admittedly sporadic) failures?

Though the study didn’t determine why students were staying in English language programs for so long, researchers say schools may avoid moving English learners into mainstream classes to keep test scores high.

That’s only part of the dark part of ELL policy making, I’m afraid.  ELL learners can also be a cash cow of sorts.  Federal funding for ELL is based upon head count, and thus to a less-that-perfectly-ethical administrator, there would be incentive to keep students enrolled in the ELL program, even if that entails sabotaging student success.  I would not dare to suggest that such nefarious motives are widespread throughout the system, but the LAUSD study does make one think…

postscript:  I wanted to let it go, but I just can’t.  Behold, the dumbest excuse since Flip Wilson’s “the devil made me do it”:

Mary Campbell, who is in charge of English language learning programs at L.A. Unified, said students must learn English as well as the grade-level material to move into mainstream classes. That often takes longer than learning the language, she said.

It would be risible, if it were not so serious to the educational development of so many children.  As I’ve pointed out countless times in this blog, bilingual education backers tend to completely ignore or feign ignorance of immersion schools, which parents often shell out big $$$ to send their kids to*, which, in a total immersion environment teach classrooms of kids both language and content simultaneously with high success rates.  Successful bilingual schools, as well, keep their kids at grade level while teaching the language.  Ms. Campbell is merely making transparently ridiculous excuses for sub-standard job performance.  Honestly, if you’re not managing to teach the subject matter required, either your students have problems much more profound than their English proficiency level, or (more likely!) you’re falling down on the job…

*but there are also public and low-cost experimental versions — so the disparity in success rates is not necessarily due to purely socio-economic differences.

Bilingual education is supposed to be expanding to more languages – such as Vietnamese and Arabic – but many school districts can’t find the teachers to handle the two-language classes.

“The teacher shortage that was there for Spanish now translates to other languages,” said Shannon Terry, Garland ISD’s director of English as a Second Language (ESL) and bilingual education…

The state requires any school district that has at least 20 students in a grade level who speak a language other than English to provide a bilingual program in that language. 

Well, yeah…  This is the same school district that resorted to hiring “bilingual” Spanish teachers who don’t speak English a couple of years ago.  This has always been the problem with trying to mandate bilingual education as a means of promoting English acquisition with immigrant children.  Getting qualified teachers is problematic.  Beyond the scope of pedagogical problems, which are still being debated (this has been discussed at length on this site — scroll around, but suffice it to say that the issue pretty much comes down to the advantages of bilingual vs. immersion ed. come down to an evaluation of the learner population and the resource availability at the local level and any attempts to mandate instructional method at anything higher than the individual school level is likely to encounter cause real problems), getting qualified teachers can be a nightmare.  If they can’t find enough qualified Spanish speakers in Dallas to fill a district, how much of a chance does a place like Des Moines, Iowa have?  Then, beyond Spanish, when we follow bilingual ed. theory to its logical conclusion, we need to put into place bilingual programs for students of all languages represented in the population.  Most immigrant groups don’t happen to bring along trained bilingual ed. specialists with them on the trip to the U.S. — especially in the case of refugee groups.  Also, different ethnicities don’t enter all professions at the same rate proportional to their population in the U.S.  Put simply, some groups are more heavily represented in teacher training programs in universities than others.  For example, East Asian immigrants have a very low proportion of teachers in the first two generations (i.e., when they are likely to still speak the “mother tongue”) compared to the native populace (and even other immigrant groups).  This one stands out in direct contrast with the fact that they are more likely to go to university than other immigrant groups (and in certain locales, more likely than native-born Americans) — they simply choose (or, let’s face it, are pushed) to study other subjects like engineering and such (which usually pay better, anyway).  While I don’t have the numbers on it, I’d be willing to bet that Vietnamese and possibly Arabic immigrants follow these patterns, so schools are forced to search for an extremely limited teacher resource, and they are competing with all other schools which are forced by district policy to offer bilingual ed.  That’s why it apparently took Dallas 13 years to find any qualified Vietnamese-bilingual instructors.  While bilingual education advocates are usually loathe to admit it, these recruitment difficulties pretty much make the case as to why the bilingual vs. immersion education debate should take place at the invidual school level instead of at the district or state level…

In Malaysia, that is…

Those grounded in the bilingual education debate in the US would likely be surprised to know that there has been widespread grumbling against the policy of teaching elementary aged kids in their native language, which became national policy in the 90’s in contrast to the English immersion programs commonly found in public schools previously.  The government is taking their cues from the data in support of bilingual education — namely, that by grounding their early education in the language they already speak, kids will develop better in terms of literacy and general academic performance.  Some people, however, are lamenting the corresponding drop in general English fluency across the population as it is deemphasized in the public school curriculum — just as the importance of English fluency for international trade purposes peaks.

IN the 60’s and early 70’s, children from poor families can study at English medium schools free. A fisherman’s son and a farmer’s daughter can converse in English at ease while at the padi-field or helping in their father’s catch.

And one could see these children enjoy reading comics such as Beano and Dandy. And when they were in Standard Four or Five, they could read the English newspapers with ease and relish Enid Blyton. In secondary schools they enjoy Shakespeare and great poets such as Wordsworth or Elliot….

Sad to say, change is indeed painful. In the name of narrow nationalistic sentiments, the present generation who are the product of the present education system of Sekolah Kebangsaan are not the same as their lucky parents who studied at English schools.

Only privileged children of the rich and famous can study in English schools conducted by the private sector. They have the advantage of an English education which prepares them to be competitive in the job market and enhance their self esteem.

and…

I can vouch for all that he has said, as a retired teacher who taught in the 60s and 70s during which time parents had the choice of sending their children to a Malay, Tamil, Chinese or English school….

I often meet many of my ex-students, from generals to clerks and even manual labourers. They all amaze me with their English language competence acquired in their schooldays till today.

They are equally proficient in Bahasa Malaysia. Regretfully, I cannot say the same for our present generation, even if they are degree holders.

If the younger generation is not proficient in English, it is not their fault but that of past governmental policies and over-zealous lawmakers.

So, let’s get on with it and bring back English medium schools that also emphasise Bahasa Malaysia learning.

Note that Malaysia arguably has a very different set of facts on the ground than the US.  English in Malaysia has historically been a unifying factor between groups, because, since the Brits left in 1957.  It didn’t belong to any of the major ethnic groups, and was considered a language of equal prestige amongst all Malaysians.  Malaysians were under no delusions as to the usefulness of English on the international scene, either.  There was also plenty of choices available: Malay, Chinese, Indian, and English medium schools were available both publicly and privately.  The recent policy shift in favor of native-language education was enacted for the right reasons.  Despite some almost conspiracy-theory-like allegations that English was dumped to give certain groups preference or to only allow English education for the rich, I sincerely believe that most government officials had good intentions at heart.  The research in the West has demonstrated convincingly that there are certain cognitive advantages to native-language education, but if Malaysia is a completely different case, the theory may have to be refined.  I don’t claim any specific knowledge on Malaysia, having spent a grand total of three weeks or so in the country (over two separate trips), so I’m just airing some thoughts here…  Take it accordingly.  Mind you, every generation tends to complain about the “horrible education” of the following generations, but do the complainers have a point here?  While it may be upsetting that Malaysian youths’ English abilities are slipping, it may be more worthwhile to check on performance in subjects like math, science, and (L1) reading.  If those subjects are slipping, then it may be well worth considering going back to an English immersion system.

The Yuma Sun stirs the waters on the old ESL education argument:

Those who teach English as a second language tend to feel a gradual approach is more effective. This involves teaching non-English speakers in their own language while helping them to learn English. They believe this approach helps keep the students up-to-date on their academic studies instead of throwing them into English-speaking classes where they may not understand the language.

But there are also proponents of another method called immersion. The goal is to have non-English speakers learn English in a relatively short period of time by concentrating on it. Instead of having students learn English over possibly years, the goal is to require use of English quickly. It is kind of a “sink or swim” approach which involves concentrated learning, and proponents say it works well.

Good points all.  The thing that most politicians and many academics seem strangely reluctant to consider, however, is the fact that people don’t all learn alike.  Children respond to different teaching methodologies according to individual personalities and aptitudes.  Thus, “one size fits all” style educational initiatives, such as title VII or California’s Prop. 227, by actually reducing the number of available options, are actually detrimental to some children.

Again, for the record, the theory of bilingual education — which due to its counterintuitive nature is often unfairly slandered by opponents — is that one can learn a foreign language better (in this case, English) is one is already literate in one’s native language.  Such has been shown repeatedly by empirical research.  The problem is that, once the bilingual ball got rolling, individual administrators, researchers, districts, etc., kept adding to the goals of bilingual programs, which began to change the nature of the programs themselves.  In theory, most bilingual programs in the U.S. are supposed to be transitional: with students staying abreast in content areas in their native language, but transitioning to all-English coursework within a roughly three-year framework.  However, many U.S. schools have taken to extending the term of bilingual support indefinitely.  Sometimes, this is with an arguably noble goal of fostering true biliteracy and biculturalism (although, the counter-argument is that the state has little/no incentive to be subsidizing defacto exercises in preserving extra-nationalism), but seemingly just as often, this is simply because the students are not ready for all-English coursework, and may never be so.  The success rates of bilingual programs depend heavily on demographic factors — family circumstances, poverty, permanence in a given area, etc. all effect academic performance.  Additionally, there are individual programs that have failed out-right, due to incompetence (or lack of understanding of pedagogical goals) of teachers and administrators.  Some teachers readily admit not using much if any English in the class because “the students don’t understand it.”  The fact that it is their very job to get the students to understand English doesn’t seem to have penetrated.  Some school systems have been called to task for using bilingual education as a virtual “dumping ground” for under-performing Latino students with no serious expectations for them to ever learn English — and by extension — to participate in any meaningful way in the larger society (e.g., such criticisms were leveled in the 1996 Latino boycott at Los Angeles’ 9th Street Elementary School).

How do we reconcile the two positions?  The key is to have a choice.  Despite what ardent English-only supporters would have you believe, there are some truly great bilingual programs out there, and despite the protests of some bilingual initiative supporters, bilingual ed. isn’t always the best option and there are some equally awesome immersion programs.   As I’ve pointed out before, I always like to remind those who claim that immersion “never works” that, in fact, people in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere pay enormous sums of money to private schools to immerse their children in a foreign language.  One of the most successful programs in my local area is a bilingual Spanish/English school where they have successfully blended immersion education with bilingual precepts to simultaneously teach Spanish to English-native children, and to teach literacy (and later English) to Spanish-natives.  Administrators and policy makers have to be able to make informed decisions based upon the unique needs of their individual student bodies and the availability of instructive resources.  I have a friend in Kansas who is a bilingual educator there.  Bilingual education is mandatory in her district, but such makes me shudder as it shouldn’t be.   From what I’ve gathered, they don’t really have the faculty to pull it off.  My friend is, in her own words, one of the “better Spanish speakers” amongst her school’s teachers, and to be frank, her Spanish, while conversant, isn’t that great.  This district would probably benefit more from being able to do targeted immersion, while having the teachers give occasional bilingual support to struggling students, rather than have teachers painfully struggle through scripted lesson plans which highlight their lack of fluency (my friend has admitted that many teachers struggle to really “explain” things to students or to respond to questions), but their hands are tied by local (or is it state?  anyone from Kansas care to opine?) ordinance.

The lack of sensible freedom in decision making has made for some ill-fitting programs.  Bilingual education is predicated on the idea of L1 literacy being the keystone to L2 achievement, but it is often foisted on older students who are already highly literate in their own language.  In these circumstances, the argument changes to “not holding back” the child’s subject learning while they learn English, but it is at this point that evidence seems to suggest that immersion works just as well as bilingual education — albeit for different learners.  There are certainly teenagers who immigrate to the U.S. and still benefit from bilingual education, but there are just as many who chafe at it, struggle to learn English, and view bilingual education as a defacto “ghettoizing” of the American educational system.  Clearly some choice in educational methods would be ideal.

According to Barack Obama, yes….

“We as a society do a really bad job of teaching foreign language and it’s costing us in the global marketplace,” he said.

“When it comes to second-language learners, the most important thing is not to get bogged down in ideology, but figure out what works,” he said “Everybody should be bilingual, or everybody should be trilingual.”

Many foreign countries start teaching kids as young as eight another language. In the U.S., many students do not start taking another language until they are 14, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C.

Ahem…  try age 5…

While I am not one to defend US educational policy, particularly as deals with foreign language learning.  Given my profession, one would accurately guess that I’m a huge advocate for more emphasis being placed on FL-learning in US schools.  I do, however, want to split hairs with his (grossly simplified) analysis…  Actually, in terms of teaching effectiveness, meaning methodology and resources, I think FL teachers in the US do an incredible job.  Why then, do we have so very few kids with more than rudimentary FL skills?  Simple, really — we don’t demand such from them.  As a nation, we have yet to really demand more from the public education sector than the most basic of FL skills.  Most school systems don’t demand any FL classes to graduate, and those that do (or colleges that require it for entrance) typically require 2 years of HS classes.  Such is not going to make for a bilingual society…

The “problem” (so to speak) is simple economics.  Schools typically reflect the demands of the workplace (although, to be fair, they often have a 20-30 year lag), and there has been little demand for foreign language skills in the US workplace.  Politicians often talk about educational policy in terms of infinite possibility.  They want the schools to handle everything — they want children to achieve the entirety of human potential between kindergarten and 12th grade, however, the truth is, schools are limited…  The greatest limitation in education is not, as one always seems to hear from media, school councils, etc. financial ones.  Instead, the limitation on learning that is most profound is time.  Schools are given a limited amount of hours each day, a set number of days each year, and 12 total years into which to pack a heck of a lot of learning.  While everyone would love it if schools could pack the entirety of the human experience into each child, tie it off with a bow, and send them packing to college, in the real world, what that time limitation means is prioritizing what you most want children to learn.  Different societies value different skills and knowledges (to a point), and their educational systems reflect this.  The US educational system, long ago, made a conscious decision to embrace the sciences, and especially computing technologies, at the expense of language education (mind you, some schools still suck at teaching science — I’m not denying that some schools are simply in trouble).  This was a response to market forces that said that it was ultimately more important that adults know how to type, for instance, than to speak French.  Contrast this with Europeans, with whom the American education system is often negatively compared — especially in the realm of FL learning.  Dutch high school grads usually have to attain at least basic proficiency in at least 2 languages other than Dutch (one is usually English) — and most will usually have mastered at least one of the two.  Most Dutch children start foreign language lessons at the very beginning of elementary school.  Many hours of instruction and practice transpire over the course of primary and secondary schooling.  This is an economic necessity for the Netherlands, however.  Their commitment to speaking the languages of their neighbors (and the world, in general) keeps them economically relevant in the world, as not many people are clamoring to learn Dutch (a lovely language, btw — I speak a bit and I highly recommend it!).  However, these hours come at a cost.  Across Europe, adults crowd into night schools to get computer instruction that most Americans would find incredibly remedial.  I was absolutely shocked at the content of what my corporate students in Spain were learning in night classes.  It was literally stuff that I had learned in high school (although updated as it was roughly 10 years later) — MS Word applications, spreadsheets, and the like…

The rules of the game seem to be changing, however, and as FL proficiency becomes more and more prized over a variety of professions, US schools will find themselves under increased pressure from business and local communities to devote more and more time and resources to FL learning.  As much as people in my profession would like to wave a magic wand and make that happen overnight, only market forces can truly cause a national shift towards an embrace of foreign language learning.  I think we are on the way…  Childhood FL programs, immersion schools, and the like are certainly on the rise across the US.  Languages like Chinese and Arabic — which previously were barely taught at all before the university level — have been popping up in school systems across the US.

My dream: What I would truly like to hear from politicians is not another “we should add such-and-such to the curriculum” speech…  Instead, I’d be truly impressed to hear a politician suggest what should be dropped from the curriculum in order to make room for the teaching/learning of more relevant skills for tomorrow’s marketplace.

Dennis Byrne (Chicago Tribune) opines…

Takeaway quote: These folks want to dump English as the national language because, to them, anything that smacks of English-only suggests that “assimilation” is a good idea, when they believe that the whole concept of assimilation is a bourgeoisie, white-bread, if not racist, idea that no longer has a place in America. And anyone who disagrees is a “nativist,” “hater” or racist.

I know that, as a linguist, I am expected to be the voice cheering on the steady encroaching bilingualism in America, but my heart truly isn’t there.  I look around in the world, and I see very few countries that enshrine bilingualism/multilingualism into their law that are not defined by warring linguistic factions (sometimes the fighting is only political, but often the battles take an outright shoot-’em-up form).  I don’t want that here…  I cheer on voluntary 2nd language learning by anyone, and, due to the natural reticence of Americans in L2 learning, I am excited that more and more of my countrymen are taking an interest in the world beyond our own borders…  But…  I don’t want bilingualism imposed by judicial or educational fiat.

Furthermore, I’ve always held the supposition that the millions of (Spanish-dominant) Hispanic students in the U.S. needing 1st language support in order to learn English to be deeply suspicious outright racist.  You will note that millions of students of other ethnicities have gone through the U.S. school systems, learned English, and gone on to rewarding lives without even the mere suggestion that the schools need to accommodate their first language.  Some students fail, for sure, but isn’t that true in the English-speaking population.  I’ve always asserted that the “Hispanic problem” (i.e., the high rates of academic failure among children of Spanish-speaking immigrants) stems not from having to negotiate a 2nd language (Chinese children have a much larger hurdle here, and have much higher success rates!), but rather from environmental factors such as parental education, poverty, etc.  Whether you speak English or not, it is well documented that if a child’s parents aren’t educated, or if you grow up in a household with few/no books, or if there are familial legal/substance abuse problems, etc., that child’s educational outlook is statistically bleak.