User:Sydneyrachel/Bilingual education

Designation of responsibilities

Maria: Language Policy

Sydney: Effects of mother-tongue instruction, bilingual education program models

Masai: Minority languages in bilingual education

Minority Languages in Bilingual Education
Minority languages are those spoken by a minority of people within a region. While some minority languages may occupy a specific linguistic region, many are spoken in territories where a different language is the majority, and may not be the majority in any region. This often leads to speakers of these languages experiencing languages attrition or even language loss. One method of language maintenance or even revitalization for some minority languages is to implement bilingual education programs.

Vital to this implementation is advocacy for minority languages, as often they are spoken by groups with less prestige or presence in the region they belong to. As a result, advocates of these languages often seek out local and national governments as a primary source of encouragement for minority languages. Standardization is one route that governments may take when attempting to legitimize a language as an official forms of communication for a region or country. However, the benefit of the standardization is controversial as it can involve leaving out or obscuring the importance of one language in favor of another, which may further detriment the standing of minority languages. Additionally, achieving recognized status within a country does not inevitably lead to language maintenance or acceptance by the general population. The United States has historically been an example of this phenomenon; while there is no official language within the country, an despite the existence of legislation that promotes multilingualism within the population, other policies and programs favoring English language in education and other realms of society have encouraged discomfort with foreign or minority languages within the general public.

Challenges for minority languages in Bilingual Education
Bilingual educational programs often emerge as ways for ethnolinguistic communities to preserve their native languages. These language maintenance efforts can be undertaken as methods outside or within the official school curriculum, with the most effective model for language maintenance targeting language opportunities in both realms. However, integrating these programs into a national or even local curriculum can prove difficult. In countries like Nigeria, where over 250 languages are divided between 36 states, deciding what languages should be used for what percentage or portions of a curriculum can be complex, particularly when regional preferences are taken into account as well. In the case of Nigeria, they must contend with the importance of English, English Pidgin, and Indigenous languages or “Mother Tongues” spoken by varied ethnic groups in different regions when designing language educational policy.

Another important challenge is deciding whether a given program model best supports language goals for a minority language. While dual immersion programs give students a chance to achieve sustained academic proficiency in the long term, late-exit or developmental programs, despite placing a buffer before a native or minority language “exits” the learning environment, this model still favors assimilation to the majority language over the maintenance of a minority one. Also included in the task of implementing a successful language maintenance program is that of the language environment. In many cases, despite the existence of a bilingual program, a minority or minoritized language may be completely irrelevant outside of the home or classroom, a situation further compounded by a lack of standardized testing or professional opportunities outside of these isolated environments. Therefore, outside of proficiency, opportunity and desire to learn must also be present for the maintenance or revitalization of a minority language. If the language has no place either among one’s peers or within the larger societal context, students will lack the opportunity or drive to become fluent and pass it down further. Therefore, while schooling in a minority language may promote basic competency, it may not support the maintenance of a language in student’s lives in the long run.

Notable Educational Systems: China, Australia
Some countries have taken a more direct approach to implementing bilingual education for their minority languages. In China, not only have 56 languages been promoted to official status, but these languages also receive an amount of support in the educational system. Language policy has explicitly framed the use of bilingual programs within the country as aimed at promoting fluency in standard Mandarin, while also preserving the minority language in question. As such many curricula integrate minority languages into their educational system well into high-school, and some larger minority languages such as Korean, Uyghur, and Tibetan can be used in college entrance examinations and university programs, typically in their autonomous regions.

Australia as well, particularly in its Northern Territory, has made national efforts to support its Aboriginal languages through language policy, beginning with the National Policy on Languages, taken up in 1984 with a commitment made to promote English proficiency and maintenance of indigenous languages through education and services provided in indigenous languages other than English. Even so, however, both the Chinese and Australian minority language movement is affected by factors outside of direct national policies. While these languages are officially taught in some schools, the social and economic pressure of not being able to use Mandarin or English well still weighs on the mind of students, educators, and policy makers. Similarly, the implicit and explicit promotion of these languages as an important indicator of national identity, whether through policy or national discourse, are realities that must be contended with when considering the success of bilingual education for speakers of minority or minoritized languages.

Language Policy
Language policy refers to government action, such as legislation and court decisions, that determine language priorities such as how language is used and cultivated in society as well as the rights of communities and individuals in how they use and maintain languages. In the past, many nations have often used language policies to promote one official language and discourage the use of others; however, in recent years, countries have adopted new policies designed to preserve and promote endangered regional and ethnic languages.

United States
Passed in 1968, the Bilingual Education Act, noted as the first official federal recognition of the needs of students with limited English speaking ability (LESA), provided funds in the form of grants to school districts across the country. These grants were to be used for resources for educational programs, training for teachers and teacher aides, development and dissemination of materials, and parent involvement projects. Within its first year, the legislation was able to serve students who spoke 14 different languages and provide funding for 76 Bilingual Education programs across the country. The newly enacted law not only recognized the educational needs of students with limited English-speaking ability, but also set the stage for further progress in education equality as several states followed suit and enacted their own bilingual education laws.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was yet another important federal legislation that had a significant impact on bilingual education. Originally known as the Bilingual Education/Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1964-5, the act mandated that each state measure every public school student's progress in reading and math from the third grade through the eighth grade and then once again between the tenth and twelfth grade. The legislation also mandated that every bilingual teacher be fluent in English and the other language being used in the classroom. For students, the new law also set a three-year time-limit on bilingual education after which a student must begin English-only instruction, regardless of their English-speaking ability.

France
Despite placing great emphasis on foreign language education prior to 2000, the French education system did not place great value, and in some cases suppressed, the education of regional languages. However, during the period of 2000-2002, the Ministry of Education began enacting major reforms to improve regional language education for students in kindergarten through college. In doing so, they claimed that France was no longer a monolingual country, and regional languages were recognized as having inherent wealth that should be valued by the school system. In education, despite regional languages now being promoted in a similar fashion to foreign languages in terms of place, objectives, and teaching contents, the two types of languages were still held in a competitive regard in the sense that students, and their parents, still had to choose between the two language types.

Canada
From 1970-1971, the Canadian government began implementing its Official Languages in Education (OLE) Program. Under this program, the government provided financial support for minority language education and second-language instruction. Due to the fact that education is a provincial responsibility, the federal government could not legislate on it directly; however, it encouraged compliance through funding. For instance, to follow the Royal Commission's recommendation that they support the provinces in providing English education for Anglophones in Quebec and French education for Francophones in the other provinces, the OLE made payments to provinces overseen by the Commissioner of Official Languages. Despite the number of students in English and French schooling remaining roughly the same, the number of students enrolled in second language programs, especially French immersion programs, increased substantially.

Bilingual education program models
The following section surveys several different types of bilingual education program models.

Transitional bilingual education
Transitional bilingual education involves education in a child's native language to ensure that students do not fall behind in content areas like mathematics, science, and social studies while they are learning English. When the child's English proficiency is deemed satisfactory, they can then transition to an English Only (EO) environment. Research has shown that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily to the second language later. While the linguistic goal of such programs is to help students transition to mainstream, English-only classrooms, the use of the student's primary language as a vehicle to develop literacy skills and acquire academic knowledge also prevents the degeneration of a child's native language. This program model is often used in the United States school system.

Immersion bilingual education
Immersion is a type of bilingual education in which subjects are taught in a student's second language. The students are immersed into a classroom in which the subject is taught entirely in their second language (non-native language). There are different facets of immersion in schools. There is total immersion in which the whole class is taught in the second language. Partial immersion is when about half of the class time is spent learning that second language. The third type of immersion within schools is called two-way immersion, also known as dual immersion. Dual immersion occurs when half of the students in class natively speak the second language while the other half do not. Dual immersion encourages each group of students to work together in learning each other’s language.

Two-way or dual language immersion
Dual language or two-way immersion education refers to programs that provide grade-level content and literacy instruction to all students through two languages, English and a partner language. These programs are designed to help native and non-native English speakers become bilingual and biliterate. There are four main types of dual language programs, these programs refer to how a student would best learn with dual language immersion based on their previous language skills.

The first type are developmental, or maintenance bilingual programs. These programs enroll students who are native speakers of the partner language to learn English. The second type are bilingual immersion programs. These programs enroll both native English speakers and native speakers of the partner language. The third type are foreign language immersion programs. These programs primarily enroll students who speak English as their native language. Finally, the fourth type are heritage language programs. These programs enroll students who are primarily dominant in English, but a close relative (e.g. parent or grandparent) speaks the partner language.

Another form of bilingual education is a type of dual language program that has students study in two different ways: 1) A variety of academic subjects are taught in the students' second language, with specially trained bilingual teachers who can understand students when they ask questions in their native language, but always answer in the second language; and 2) Native language literacy classes improve students' writing and higher-order language skills in their first language. Research has shown that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily to the second language later. In this type of program, the native language classes do not teach academic subjects. The second-language classes are content-based, rather than grammar-based, so students learn all of their academic subjects in the second language. Dual language is a type of bilingual education where students learn about reading and writing in two languages. In the United States, the majority of programs are English and Spanish but new partner languages have emerged lately such as Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, and Arabic. The concept of dual language promotes bilingualism, improved awareness of cultural diversity, and higher levels of academic achievement by means of lessons in two languages.

The 90/10 and 50/50 models
There are two basic models for dual language immersion. The first model is the 90/10 model. The two-way bilingual immersion program has 90% of the instructions in grades K-1 in the minority language, which is less supported by the broader society, and 10% in the majority language. This proportion gradually changes in the majority language until the curriculum is equally divided in both languages by 5th grade. The two-way bilingual immersion program is based on the principle of clear curriculum separation of the two languages of instruction. Teachers do not repeat or translate the subject matter in the second language but strengthen concepts taught in one language across the two languages in a spiral curriculum in order to provide cognitive challenge (Thomas & Collier, 1997). The languages of instructions are alternated by theme or content area. This type of immersion is required to develop the dual language proficiency, as social language can be mastered in couple of years, but a higher level of competency is required to read social studies texts or solve mathematics word problems, roughly around 5 to 7 years (Collier, 1987). The goal of gradually increasing the majority of the language is for instruction to become 50% of English and 50% of the partner language. The second model is the 50/50 model. In the 50/50 model English and the partner language are used equally throughout the program.

Dual immersion programs in the US
Dual immersion classrooms encourage students' native language development, making an important contribution to heritage language maintenance, and allow language minority students to remain in classrooms with their native English-speaking peers, resulting in linguistic and socio-cultural advantages. As of May 2005, there were 317 dual immersion programs operating in elementary schools in the United States in 10 different languages.

Dual language programs are less common in US schools, although research indicates they are extremely effective in helping students learn English well and aiding the long-term performance of English learners in school. Native English speakers benefit by learning a second language. English language learners (ELLs) are not segregated from their peers. These students are taught in their mother tongue yet still in the typical 'American' classroom, for both cognitive and social benefits.

English as a second language
This program entails learning English while with people that speak the same native language. ESL is a supplementary, comprehensive English language program for students trying to learn the language to better function in American society. People are learning English as a second language because English has been assigned communicative status in that country. Singapore, India, Malawi, and 50 other territories use English as part of the country’s leading institutions, where it plays a second-language role in a multilingual society. ESL is different from EFL (English as a foreign language). ESL is offered at many schools to accommodate the culturally diverse students, most often found in urban areas, and helps these students keep up with subjects such as math and science. To teach ESL abroad, a bachelor's degree and ESL teaching qualification is typically required at minimum.

Late-exit or developmental bilingual education
In this program model, education is in the child's native language for an extended duration, accompanied by education in English. The goal is to develop literacy in the child's native language first, and transfer these skills to the second language. This education is ideal for many English learning students, but in many instances the resources for such education are not available.

Effects of mother-tongue instruction
Continuing to foster the abilities of children's mother tongue along with other languages has proven essential for their personal and educational development because they retain their cultural identity and gain a deeper understanding of language. Two 2016 studies of mother-tongue instruction in Ethiopia and Kenya respectively show that it had positive outcomes for the students in both countries. The following list contains multiple benefits that researchers have found from children being educated bilingually.

Empathy
Theory of mind is connected to empathy because it helps us to understand the beliefs, desires, and thoughts of others. Researchers studying theory of mind in bilingual and monolingual preschoolers found that bilingual preschoolers performed significantly higher on theory of mind false belief tasks than their monolingual peers.

Reading
Researchers found that students in a dual-language immersion program in Portland Oregon performed better in English reading and writing skills than their peers.

Attention
Many studies have shown that bilingual children tend to have better executive function abilities. These are often measured using tasks that require inhibition and task switching. Bilingual children are typically able to hold their attention for longer without becoming distracted and are better able to switch from one task to another.

School performance and engagement
Researchers Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier conducted school program evaluation research across 15 states. They found that students in dual-language classroom environments have better outcomes than their peers in English-only classrooms in regards to attendance, behavior, and parent involvement.