Bilingualism in the United States and Primary Dual-Language Acquisition
Author: Madeline Haslag
Bilingual Education, the education of two or more languages, in the United States is an important tool that helps to support and sustain the future success of our nation’s youth in a globalized world. Multilingualism offers young students a myriad of benefits and skills that they may utilize throughout both their academic and professional careers. Some of these benefits include adaptability as a result of multicultural exposure, communicative flexibility as a result of bilingualism, and a new and diverse range of social and professional opportunities that directly impact students’ lives in a positive way. The work of Kenji Hakuta of Yale University and Rafael Diaz of the University of New Mexico supports that bilingualism, especially at a young age, positively impacts cognitive abilities and promotes abstract thinking. This happens through the mental disconnection between words and sounds, as symbolic flexibility is nurtured throughout the acquisition process. Hakuta and Diaz’ work also explored other ways in which bilingualism has proven mentally beneficial, showing higher levels of cognitive flexibility in young children as a direct result of bilingual exposure at an age as early as four years old. Their work also supports that young bilingualism offers more diverse patterns of cognitive capabilities, awareness of linguistic operations as a result of the primary language’s observability, and a heightened metalinguistic awareness which discerns the execution and cross-cultural transfer of linguistic knowledge.
Bilingual education in the United States is most commonly supported through high school bilingual ESL (English as a Second Language) programs. In ESL programs, a class of English-language minority students is instructed in English as a second language. The class targets English proficiency for English-minority students with one assigned foreign-language teacher. Though ESL programs have been adopted by much of the country, other bilingual programs, such as dual language or language immersion, have much to offer not only English-language minority students but also English-dominant students as well starting at a primary level.
Transitional bilingual education is a different approach to language acquisition. In a transitional model, one assigned teacher uses an English-minority class’ primary language to teach them English until they are advanced enough to proceed without it during instruction. Students in a language-immersion model, as opposed to transitional, enjoy a variety of acquisitional methods in a dual-lingual classroom. Dual-language is a unique and forward approach to bilingual acquisition that is commonly implemented at a primary level. In a dual-lingual classroom, both English-minority and English-dominant students are learning and working together throughout all core classes in a multilingual environment provided and maintained by English and target-language dominant teachers. Students are encouraged to work together throughout the language acquisition, cultivating a more culturally integrated worldview that gives them an edge in their academic developments. John Martin, a student at Westminster College, attended a primary school that had implemented a language-immersion model. Martin offered a similar opinion regarding the dual-language approach, expressing how his own experience in an immersion program had benefitted him academically. Martin noted that much of his success came easily to him as a result of the benefits and skills he gained through his early education, suggesting that having been exposed to foreign language at a primary level, specifically through a language-immersion program, had propelled his academic growth and he claimed that it had encouraged his classmates just as much: “[bilingualism] will get [students] interested in their education, they’ll ask questions, [they’ll] want to do their own research.” Martin also claimed that these benefits will affect his success beyond his academic career, as he has acquired “skills that you use for life.”
Though an incredibly diverse multilingual population exists throughout the United States, many primary schools that support bilingual education through language-immersion programs are, surprisingly, not very common. Through her research at a primary school that incorporated a language-immersion model, Renee DePalma, a social and educational researcher, uncovered a fault present in many applied immersion programs: a lack of support from the school, specifically teacher assistance in the classroom. Not having enough teachers puts a strain on both the instructors and the students. For teachers to try and keep up with the pace of an advanced curriculum, while also meeting the needs of a culturally diverse group of students (who may carry a range of academic ability) is challenging to say the least. Providing enough support for teachers that work with language-immersion is imperative to the success of a dual-language program. Bilingual primary schools that use a language-immersion model in dual-lingual classrooms can help to promote nationwide bilingualism and bilingual education through providing more attainable and desirable positions to prospective teachers by incorporating proper training, time, and support.
Many bilingual primary schools that support language immersion struggle to find interested and prepared instructors in their local area. Often times, many would-be teachers simply don’t meet the qualifications for a position in a dual-language program. Having some proficiency in the target language is one requirement that turns many potential teachers off. Some teachers, though unqualified for a language immersion position themselves, expressed interest in working with the program anyway. Vicky Spain, a math teacher at Westminster College, addressed her own interest in target-language training in the event she would take a position in such a program: “I would consider working in a school that uses that, yeah. I’d want to have training in the language,” she added, “I’d need time for the training, too.” Furthermore, all four teachers interviewed at Westminster College rated at what level they considered the importance of bilingual education in the United States. All four teachers rated ‘high’, on a scale of ‘low’ to ‘high’. It’s clear that many teachers would, if provided proper support through language-training, take a position that uses a language-immersion model.
Resources and time are accommodations that all four of the teachers interviewed at Westminster College expected the schools to provide for them. “I would need resources in terms of reading material,” said Dr. Sam Goodfellow, a history teacher at Westminster College, “access to things… you’d need time.” It takes time to conjunctively develop lesson plans to keep an academically diverse group of students on track with language acquisition, as well as aiding them to excel in all of their core academics.
Personal time and effort is also required of dual-language instructors. To qualify linguistically for a teaching position in a school that uses a language immersion model is, for many, both lengthy and costly. This is largely due to extra post-graduate certification requirements that, according to Connor Williams, a Senior Researcher at the New America Foundation, could be adjusted. This change of requirements would allow a post-graduate the flexibility to take five or six courses online, leaving the certification necessary to teach in a language immersion model to be more accessible and economically practical than the required Master’s degree. If schools expel or reduce the qualification that necessitates target language proficiency for potential English-dominant teachers and offer training in the target language instead, they will open up doors for many new teacher candidates by making the position more attainable.
Time is one factor that plays an important part in dual-lingual instruction. Teachers need time to properly analyze students’ progress and determine what teaching approach suits them to best fit their academic needs. Teaching classes that are composed of both English and target language dominant students necessitate additional and varied approaches to both teaching and grading. Language acquisition takes time, and primary students learn at their own pace. Furthermore, meeting the academic needs of a classroom is difficult in a language-immersion model, as both language-dominant teachers need to work together constantly. Regulation of classroom sizes can help to make sure educators have enough time to work efficiently on all of the former.
Schools can also explore training opportunities for teachers that fit easily within the budget. One example is teacher-to-teacher training, wherein the school’s target-language dominant teachers work together with their own English-dominant teachers in language acquisition and teaching workshops. This approach would not only be more cost-efficient, but also support the interconnectedness and relationship-building of the school’s faculty. In fact, the teachers’ relationships, according to Martin, play an important role in the students’ academic development and success inside the classroom. Martin emphasized just how these positive relationships had affected him and the students inside his own dual-language classroom: “the teachers genuinely had friendships,” he said. “Seeing them able to work together made us more willing to buy in and trust them.”
Teacher recruitment is a challenge that primary bilingual schools face, as it is often hard to find teachers in a specific area that are capable and, again, qualified for a position. Collins writes that due to this lack of available teachers, some schools resort to odd, out-of-the-way methods of recruitment, like searching for bilinguals at a grocery store, or in some random public area. Another problem affecting teacher recruitment is a lack of informative public exposure from the schools regarding position qualifications for teachers and the benefits language immersion can provide to young students. Schools can increase their programs’ notoriety through networking with parents and teachers at district conferences and other public events. This exposure benefits teacher-recruiting efforts and further promotes the popularization of schools that use a language-immersion model.
The expansion of bilingual education in the United States is necessary and inevitable, as our “melting pot” of a nation continues to simmer. Generalizing bilingualism through the normalization of primary educational institutions that adopt a dual-lingual program is one of the most crucial steps to take towards our intercultural goals. Bilingual primary schools in the United States can help improve this normalization by implementing changes that better accommodate their growing need for bilingual language immersion instructors, specifically accommodating instructional training, time, and support.
WORKS CITED
Calderón, Margarita E. “Equity and Access.” The Praeger Handbook of Latino Education in the U.S, Ed. Lourdes Diaz Soto. Santa Barbara, 2007.
DePalma, Renee. Language Use In The Two-Way Classroom : Lessons From A Spanish-English Bilingual Kindergarten. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2010, pp. 1–35.
Diaz, Rafael M and Hakuta, Kenji. “The Relationship Between Degree of Bilingualism and Cognitive Ability: A Critical Discussion and Some New Longitudinal Data.” Children’s Language 5, 1985, pp. 319–344.
Main, Carla. “Teacher Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention.” Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, 2014, http://www.k12.wa.us/TitleIIA/Program/pubdocs/TeacherRIR.pdf.
Perez, Bertha. Becoming Biliterate: A Study Of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Education.Mahwah, N.J. Routledge, 2004, pp. 1–3.
Tinajero, Josefina V. “Two-way Bilingual Education Programs.” The Praeger Handbookof Latino Education in the U.S. Lourdes Diaz Soto, Santa Barbara,
2007. Shehedeh, Hazar. “The Effects Of Two-Way Immersion Bilingual Program On Student
Academic Performance And Cultural Interaction.” International Journal Of TheHumanities, vol. 9.1, 2011, pp. 37.
Williams, Conor. “Interview: Improving Training for Teachers of Dual Language Learners -EdCentral.” EdCentral, 2015.
