Hispanic American Cultural Interest

Bilingual Education : Brief Summaries of Four Articles

The Bilingual Education Debate : Part I

Education World Website ( HYPERLINK "http /www .education-world .com /a_curr /curr047 .shtml http /www .education-world .com /a_curr /curr047 .shtml

This article by Sharon Cromwell in the website conjures up the much controversial issue of bilingualism in an educator 's perspective Obviously , most educators and parents agree that the main goals in educating students with a native language other than English are mastery of English and of content in academic areas . However , heated academic and political battle raged over

how best to reach those goals and how important it is to preserve the students ' original language in the process . According to the article , teachers use several methods to instruct students whose English is limited -- including immersion transitional bilingual education , and developmental , or maintenance bilingual education . Despite the relentless efforts , the article concluded that Hispanic parents who have historically been strong advocates for bilingual education -- have expressed doubts about the success of bilingual programs . This is because they focus on students civil rights and cultural integrity could give way to concern that some non-native English speakers are acquiring insufficient mastery of the English language . It also informed that the politics that surround the issue of whether to mandate an official U .S . language also clouds the academic questions surrounding bilingual programs

Aria : Memoirs of a Bilingual Childhood (2001 , Richard Rodriguez

This is an autobiographical take of how the bilingualism issue effected itself to the writer . Rodriguez 's essay voiced out his childhood experiences with bilingualism , mixed with some humorous anecdotes . It is surprising to note that he does not support bilingualism . He writes

Now , many years later , I hear of something called "bilingual education a scheme proposed in the late 1960s by Hispanic-American social activists , later endorsed by a congressional vote . It is a program that seeks to permit non-English-speaking children (many from lower class homes ) to use their "family language " as the language of school . Such at least , is the aim its supporters announce . I hear them , and am forced to say no : It is not possible for a child , any child , ever to use his family 's language in school . Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and to trivialize the nature of intimate life . Memory teaches me what I know of these matters . The boy reminds the adult - I was a bilingual child , but of a certain kind "socially disadvantaged " the son of working-class parents , both Mexican immigrants (p . 25-26

The Relationship of Bilingualism to Cognitive Development : Historical Methodological and Theoretical Considerations (1987 . M . Palij and

br Homel

Researchers have found that bilingualism has a positive effect on children 's cognitive development . In their study , Palij and Homel (1987 pertinently summarized the research in bilingualism and cognitive development

What can we conclude about the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive development ? This much seems to be clear : Bilingualism does not seem to have any major detrimental cognitive consequences in and of itself . There is evidence for the assertion that bilingualism may have some beneficial cognitive consequences in the form of enhanced language awareness and greater flexibility in its usage . theless , the magnitude of such benefits should not be overemphasized until we have more detailed information on its nature (p . 146

The Debate on Bilingual Education in the U . S : Language Ideology as Reflected in the Practice of Bilingual Teachers (1999 . S . M . Shannon

Part of the problem is that the American debate on bilingual education takes place in a social context that explicitly denigrates the home language of the children . Specifically , the movement for English Only ' is the backdrop against which children attend school with another language (usually Spanish ) and are delivered programs that are influenced and shaped by that political debate . Shannon (1999 ,

. 179 argues in her that : In the absence of an official language policy and in the debate for such a policy , US society has shifted to an ideology of English monolingualism ' The English Only ' policies ignore a 1998 report of student achievement (as measured in standardized test scores ) that showed that English-language learners enrolled in bilingual programs in San Francisco and San Jose schools in California outperformed native-born English speakers in all content areas . These programs are now at risk of being dismantled in favor of a uniform system that suppresses many children 's first language

References

Cromwell , Sharon (1998 . The Bilingual Education Debate : Part I Education World Website . Acquired online last February 2 , 2006 at HYPERLINK "http /www .education-world .com /a_curr /curr047 .shtml http /www .education-world .com /a_curr /curr047 .shtml

Palij , M and Homel ,

(1987 . The relationship of bilingualism to cognitive development : Historical , methodological and theoretical considerations . In Childhood bilingualism : Aspects of linguistic cognitive , and social development , eds

. Homel , M . Palij , and D Aaronson , 131-48 . Hillsdale , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Rodriguez , Richard (1981 . Aria : a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood American Scholar . 50 : 25-42

Shannon , S . M (1999 . The debate on bilingual education in the U . S Language ideology as reflected in the practice of bilingual teachers . In J . Blommaert , ed , Language ideological debates , pp . 171-199 . Berlin Mouton de Gruyter ...