C&T 820
Week 7: Bilingualism, Biliteracy, and Multicultural Education
Discussion 1: Two-Way Bilingual Programs
My Response:
When looking at the second part of the "Speaking in Tongues" video, its plainly apparent why Mandarin and Spanish-speaking families are resistant towards two-way immersion programs. First of all, in contrast to comparable English-only programs, the administrators over at Buena Vista brought up that students generally take a longer time learning English through these types of programs than with an English-only approach. Moreover, the other reason which was also illustrated in the video is text scores. As the administrator from the second video brought up when addressing parents' concerns, it usually takes until the 7th grade for students to be on the same level linguistically compared to their English-only peers. Should these be significant concerns? Likewise, are there any other concerns that should be addressed when talking to a parent whose heritage language is not English about said programs?
In regards to both of the parents' concerns when looking at Diana Shwinge's (2008) article from this week's reading, it does make sense why administrators attempted to comfort these parents with the message of "Be Patient." While it might take a student longer to fully grasp English (let alone see some positive progress on norms-based testing), there are some clear benefits from a immersive model. In particular, studies have demonstrated that students who participate in these sorts of programs can more effectively code-switch between their languages and have generally had a more effective time grasping English without the necessity of sacrificing their heritage language (p. 57). Especially as these programs target students when they are younger, the students at these schools generally have an easier time being flexible with the rules and conventions of both languages, and have demonstrated a generally easier time in acquiring knowledge in texts from the languages they are immersed in (p. 58). While it might seem preferable to choose the faster method of English-only instruction, it could be argued that, as Aesop put it, "slow and steady wins the race."
Of course, there are issues about bilingual education that expand beyond matters of language acquisition speed and test scores. As Shwinge illustrates in the same article, not only are these programs the target of state and federal reforms as they do not offer the testing results these entities desire (which often results to lower funding in these institutions), but it is not well-proven that the educators teaching kids in these environments are biliterate themselves (pp. 59-60)! If a parent were given the option of having their students be taught by a proven English educator and a teacher who is trying their best to teach in their children's language - albeit ineffectively - it is obvious why many would choose the former.
Works Cited
Schwinge, D. (2008). Conceptualizing biliteracy within bilingual programs. In J. Cummins and N. H. Hornberger (eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education (2nd edition), Vol. 5: Bilingual Education, pp. 51-63.
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My Response to Melinda Oakes:
Moving was definitely something that I wasn't considering when I was watching a video. It seems as though, for these two-way programs to work, parents must be willing to commit themselves and their children through the process for years. If parents waver, or a parent faces a situation at their job that forces them to move away, then students will be worse off. I mean, imagine another school placing a student into remedial English courses because they weren't equipped with the adequate English skills in their language immersion program. The parents would be furious, and the student will be both embarrassed and possibly less willing to trust what their teachers have to say. It seems to be too much of a gamble for my liking.
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My Response to Asma Alzahrani:
I definitely didn't take the time to consider how a two-way bilingual program affects a student's home and social life. I'm not a parent, but I imagine it would be really frustrating as a parent of younger children to not be able to understand and help your students in their homework assignments because of the language barrier. Likewise, while I imagine English-speaking students wouldn't have as difficult of a time developing relationships with English-speaking peers outside of the program, for Chinese and Mandarin-speaking children, it might actually serve as an obstacle in their social English development, which as we've seen from the readings, is usually the first thing these students tend to master in English-only instructional settings.
Discussion 2: Reading Reflection
My Response:
To be honest, out of all the readings that came to mind to reflect upon this week, by far the one that impacted me the most was Yuankao Yao et al.'s (2009) article about the perceptions about e-Portfolios. When I read about the assignment at the end of last week, I had some questions about its utility. In some sense, it felt redundant, as since we are already submitting our assignments in digitally on a weekly basis, creating a website to hold our assignments for this quarter seemed unnecessary. Moreover, if we are going to be placing all the work that we are doing for this class on a digital portfolio, I wonder why this wasn't an iterative process that we began working on at the beginning of the quarter - as it definitely would have made the creation of this assignment feel less like busy work after the two large assignments we've been working on over the past few weeks. However, with all my ranting aside, having read Yao et al.'s article, I definitely do see some utility in this process.
The first thing I like about the e-Portfolio project is that, much like what the subjects from the study pointed out, I definitely can see myself using the lesson plan I created with my students next year (p. 32). It is actually kind of nice knowing that a curriculum that I designed can be easily accessible since it is on a website I create and maintain. Moreover, as the assignment did provide some examples that I could model the design of my e-Portfolio off of, I definitely could say I did not feel as insecure about the expectations when it came to the design or the consistency of my website (p. 32). Sure, it would have been even better if we all used a singular resource, but after tinkering with things, I found Wix to be a pretty easy platform to navigate. Also, it is nice to generally have curriculum plans I can easily present for future employers (p. 32).
With that said, while there are things I like about this project having worked on it considerably and having read this article, there are still a few objections from the participants that I agree with concerning the project. First of all, while I'm fairly proficient in technology, I can see Emelda's concern about the fact that not everybody has the technological know-how to create an e-Portfolio (p. 35). Likewise, while I feel satisfied in my lesson plans, I don't know how effective this unit is until I implement it. If it is ineffective, I would feel like I wasted a considerable amount of time on this project. I definitely love the idea of this project, but only time will tell in its actual efficacy.
References
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Yao, Y., Aldrich, J., Foster, K., & Pecina, U. (2009). Preservice teachers’ perceptions of an electronic portfolio as a tool for reflection and teacher certification. Journal of Educational Research & Policy, 9(1), 25-43.
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My Response to Asma Alzahrani:
When reading your comment, the first thing that came to my mind was how much of an adjustment it could be for many of the students I taught in the two rural Alaskan villages to shift away from "Village" English to what we consider to be "academic" English. To be fair, I think my approach to teaching them in high school wasn't the best (I did point out to them when students were using this dialect), but considering how vital this dialect is for many parts of "Bush," maybe there's a way I could have incorporated this dialect into my instruction.
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My Response to Melinda Oakes:
I think the reason why many schools tend to be English-only is for practicality's sake. While there are some schools that are fortunate enough to have only one foreign language to account for in their student body, for many this is not the case. While it is true that most teachers in bilingual programs are not fully literate in foreign languages themselves, I imagine most districts would like to ensure that staff members are at least partly literate if they attempt to make their instruction bilingual. Likewise, while schools like mine are lucky to have teachers who are knowledgeable in Spanish and Tagalog, they also happen to be full-time staff members who teach Biology and English. With the limited resources that we have as a small school out in the middle of the Aleutian Islands, it makes sense why the school does not take as much time as they could to help fellow staff members understand some Spanish and Tagalog that could perhaps help in making the curriculum a bit more bilingual.