Should I choose a bilingual program for my kids? (Pros and Cons)
A PERSONAL REFLECTION AS A RESPONSE TO “The Bilingual Barrier” (James Traub, 1999)
Wanting Your Kids Out of Bilingual Programs?
The article opens with a confusing and disappointing viewpoint of a principle of Montauk school, “Hayden has a low opinion of bilingual classes in general and doesn't think his Bengali students would benefit from bilingual instruction in particular. (To his relief, school officials apparently didn't notice, and besides, there was no guarantee he could find a Bengali instructor.)”
It provoked our curiosity on the fear and hesitation of educators about bilingual education, which was thought to benefit students who come from a different linguistic background to catch up with their current local peers. One of the phrase that struck my attention was “left to his own devices.” It makes me think of the gap between policy makers and practitioners. In reality, equipping the bilingual programs with ongoing curriculum designed for English should pose a huge challenge for a school’s human capital and facilities. The thing is it does not matter if all the school needs is the enhancement of infrastructure. The real problem here lies in the baffled opinions of the parents while deciding to let their kids stay in the bilingual class, because to them such program designed for students is not a helpful tool but a delay for their kids’ assimilation. Bilingual classes are considered abnormal transition into the “real” life the family should lead in the States, “Last year, voters in California passed Proposition 227, forbidding mandatory bilingual instruction. Hispanic parents in both New York and California have filed lawsuits to get their children released from bilingual programs where, parents allege, they are often being held against their will”.
On one hand, it does not make sense to me why parents regard this type of class as a deterrent for their kids’ development. It makes me wonder why they think that taking bilingual class is like being trapped in a place “against their will”, and that their children need to be “released”? Do they doubt about the benefits of bilingual programs? Or is it just because the parents are so confident about their kids’ abilities that those assisted programs are not necessary?
2. Am I in the Group that will Feel Hurt?
The situation is not a simple case to elaborate on. In fact, the article points out that there is a link between advocating to keep bilingual instruction and the idea of educational equity, which on a larger scale, is affected by the ethnic and identity politics. For example, the article illustrates that some groups of people from Asia or Europe who come as immigrants to the States with the pride in being ready to compete in the mainstream education with the native students, whereas other Hispanic groups have first to struggle with economic and financial issues before advancing in education. Thus, since some walks of life are struggling with poverty, they also are struggling with affording themselves to communicate in English language (not to mention striving for a clear path of education to earn a degree).
3. The Conflicts within the Idea of Bilingualism itself
It is highly debated, even in the research area, whether bilingualism actually works or not. The idea of bilingualism does lie within the core belief that the students’ language skills can be transferable. Second, those skills can be transferable within a specific time frame and under the facilitation of the teachers. However, the view becomes more complicated regarding to the age of the students and also to the distinction between “formal language skills” (academic language skills) and communicative competence (fluency in communicating in English). The interesting thing is like we have mentioned above, even some students come from a non-native speaking country, their economic situation allows them to have academic skills well enough to catch up with any demand in the mainstream education in the States. For that scenario, a bilingual session is not necessary. However, in the mixture of “good” students like that, there are still students who do not experience that privilege. Such overlappings and complications in categorizing students result in the varieties of ESL/ ELL instruction, in which teachers can pretty try to find a way out by all devices they can have. The challenge here exists within the bilingualism system already, yet another conflict is in the perception of parents towards it.
4. The parents only want them to learn English''
“Very few immigrants care about multiculturalism or bilingualism; they want their children to learn English as fast as possible in order to make it into the American mainstream, where good jobs are available -- and they take the common-sense position that the best way to learn English is by, well, learning English.”(Traub, 1999)
The article mentions the heated negotiation among parents and school teachers on how their kids should be taught. This is the moment when even the teaching approaches of the teacher emerge. Some of them purely use the bilingual class session for the exposure of English only, ignoring the core belief of bilingualism at all. Some of them favor the class as a time for knowledge mastery, so they work around the requirement to use the materials written in the students’ native language and use the English materials. If in case students need to work with the materials not in English, the instructors will spoon-fed them with translations and work with their content mastery to help them pass the test later, which is, certainly, composed in English.
''You don't learn very much in bilingual,'' Ying said. ''And if you don't speak with the American people, you don't know how they speak or write. You learn to write in a very formal way, not the way people really write.'' He told Oberstein that he was worried that Lilly would have trouble gaining admission to a good high school if she stayed in a bilingual class. ''Lilly's mother doesn't want her to be a cashier in a restaurant,'' he said. (Traub, 1999)
This excerpt really impresses me. The parents somehow downplay the importance of their native language and regard English as a means to survive and earn a living in the States. There is less need to worry about the values of protecting the authenticity of the original language, since the most important thing here is to master the language people use to find jobs (and even get to a higher social class in the run of social mobility).
5. An enlightening moment of a bilingual class
In a gloomy scenario mentioned above, we do see the value of bilingualism at the end of the article, as a advocating voice to actually make use of bilingual class to celebrate the diversity of languages in the educational system and in the present world. The aim of bilingualism is to encourage students to become confident in using their skills and talents based on their linguistic backgrounds with the purpose of not just only blending in the mainstream classrooms, but also to becoming competent in both languages. The dual use and the focus more on the fluency and academic development of both languages, the teacher hopes to generate a new generation of multilingual community who can work with a variety of linguistic backgrounds. This is the ideology of the bilingual program advocates.
“Martinez and her colleague, Jose Garcia, used slightly more English than Ip did, but classes were nevertheless conducted largely in Spanish. The class's science textbook had English and Spanish on alternating pages; all the other texts were in Spanish, and the kids did their written work in Spanish.”
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“I'll teach grammar in Spanish, and when I feel like they've really got the whole thing set, I'll say it in English.''
(Traub, 1999)
Another highlight is that bilingualism can actually help to elevate the academic skills of students who come from marginalized communities or disadvantaged groups of learners, which is the reason why the idea of bilingual education originally came true. By this, it is a constant fight for justice, and political and social help for maintaining and preserving the equality in the States among different ethnic groups and different sectors of life, and specifically within the community of immigrants.
'The Mexican parents feel that at least their children are learning to read and write their native language,'' Garcia said. (Traub, 1999)
However, we need to keep in mind the other side of the argument of boosting up the students’ confidence to move forward, as some of them try to stick in their comfort zone once bilingual sessions provide them a way to stay in their monolanguage environment.
“The argument for compassion is creating a self-reinforcing situation in which kids don't learn English well enough to leave their bilingual classes, and so stay in a setting where they continue to fail to learn English.” (Traub, 1999)
The article proposed some solutions to prepare the students for the actual successful transition the students need to experience to transfer back into their mainstream education are co-teaching, the strong united bond (and even mutual help) between schooling and parenting, and the comfortable and meaningful study environment.
Questions for thoughts:
Reference
Traub, J. 1999. The Bilingual Barrier. The New York Times Magazine. January 31. 32-35.
Do you think that bilingualism is necessary for English language learners to catch up with the demanding language skills in the mainstream education?
How can we solve the problems of negligence (or indifference) towards bilingualism (and multilingualism)? If you were a teacher and the parents ask you to move their kids out of your ESL class, how can you answer them? What can be an effective way to encourage the involvement and support from parents in the bilingual education?
Extra viewpoints on bilingualism be found in this link