Bilingual Education in the 21st Century

A Global Perspective

Ofelia García

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781444359787
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Bilingual Education in the 21st Century examines languages and bilingualism as individual and societal phenomena, presents program types, variables, and policies in bilingual education, and concludes by looking at practices, especially pedagogies and assessments. This thought-provoking work is an ideal textbook for future teachers as well as providing a fresh view of the subject for school administrators and policy makers.

• Provides an overview of bilingual education theories and practices throughout the world
• Extends traditional conceptions of bilingualism and bilingual education to include global and local concerns in the 21st century
• Questions assumptions regarding language, bilingualism and bilingual education, and proposes a new theoretical framework and alternative views of teaching and assessment practices
• Reviews international bilingual education policies, with separate chapters dedicated to US and EU language policy in education
• Gives reasons why bilingual education is good for all children throughout the world, and presents cases of how this is being carried out

Part I

Bilingual Education for All

1

Introducing Bilingual Education

Scenarios

A Bilingual Education Classroom in New York, U.S.

“Go to the computers in your head,” Ms. Acuña says, as twenty-five pairs of hands grasp their heads and begin making motions. Children tap their foreheads intently, determined to find “their computer.” This is a bilingual kindergarten classroom in Queens, New York. Ms. Acuña’s class is comprised of U.S. Latino students of different backgrounds who are learning English. Her students speak Spanish at home, but Ms. Acuña will focus on promoting literacy and numeracy in both Spanish and English. She continues, “Find your mouse and press English only. Okay? Is everybody there? English only, no español.” Now that the kindergarten class is set on English only, Ms. Acuña reads a book in English, asks questions in English, and expects her students to respond accordingly. Patricia tells Ms. Acuña that the first thing to do when it is time to read is to “look at the title.” Yuniel raises his hand and says, “I see a bear.” The comments begin with a flood – “I see a basket.” “I see two bugs.” “I see un carruaje.”

When it is time for the math lesson, Ms. Acuña tells the students to go back to their computer, this time to switch to Spanish. The class will count backwards and forwards, using their dedito señadito to track the numbers on the page – “cero, uno, dos, tres...” They learn the value of a penny, and one student counts five pennies. “Son cinco pennies,” he says. To this, Ms. Acuña responds, “Sí, tienes razón, pero estamos en español. ¿cómo se dice pennies en español?” (That’s right, but remember we are in Spanish. So, how do we say “pennies” in Spanish?) This gentle reminder acknowledges a correct answer without complaining about the language in which it is given.

In this classroom, both languages are correct. They are valuable tools the children access, via the computer in their brains, to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. A glance at the walls reinforces this idea. The room is adorned with posters, calendars, wall charts, alphabet, and other visuals labeled twice, in red and blue – blue for English, red for Spanish. And there’s a poster that reads “Te lo digo, y no hay engaño, ser bilingüe es una dicha que nos dura todo el año” (I tell you, and it’s no joke, being bilingual is a happiness that lasts throughout the year). Bilingualism is highly valued in Ms. Acuña’s class. Although all of the children are Spanish speakers, the class spends each school day toggling back and forth from one language to the other without so much as a flinch.

Written by Kristin Jefferson, December 11, 2006

A Bilingual School in Japan

On the floor of a second-grade classroom, Atsuko and Michiko are working on math problems in English. One of them says: “We start with four. We take away one. How many are left?” The other one replies: “Three are left.” Afterwards, the other child initiates the dialogue and changes the numbers. They are in an immersion program in Katoh School where, in the first three grades, approximately two thirds of the instruction takes place in English, whereas one third of the time is devoted to developing Japanese language and literacy. In fourth grade, approximately 50 percent of the instruction is in English and 50 percent is in Japanese. Atsuko and Michiko will continue into high school where they will follow both the Japanese curriculum and that of the International Baccalaureate. They will then be taking most of their classes in English.

For more on this school, see www.bi-ingual.com/School/ElementaryProgram.htm.

Overview

In this introductory chapter, we consider the following features of bilingual education:

• its definitions and characteristics;
• its beneficiaries and reasons;
• its geopolitics and language orientations.

Introduction

This chapter develops the main thesis of this book: that bilingual education is the only way to educate children in the twenty-first century. In this chapter, we develop an integrated plural vision for bilingual education, by which bilingualism is not simply seen as two separate monolingual codes – a vision that goes beyond “one plus one equals two.” This plural vision depends upon the reconceptualization of understandings about language and bilingualism, further developed in Part II of this book – Bilingualism and Education.

Here we reconstitute the activity known as “bilingual education;” we reposition bilingual education for the twenty-first century, while building on the scholarship of the past; and we outline how this inclusive plural vision of bilingual education has the potential to transform the lives of children and adults throughout the world.

We also introduce the reader to the ways in which sociohistorical positionings, geopolitical forces, and language ideologies interact to sustain different kinds of bilingual education policies throughout the world. In considering this, the chapter introduces another complexity to the topic of bilingual education: states, nations, and social groups have different histories, needs, challenges, and aspirations for their children; therefore different educational options need to be available. This point will be further developed in Part III of this book – Bilingual Education Policy where bilingual education theoretical frameworks and types, as well as languagein-education policies throughout the world, will be reflected upon.

In considering definitions of bilingual education, we also approach another main thesis of this book: that bilingual education practices must be extended to reflect the complex multilingual and multimodal communicative networks of the twenty-first century. Part IV of this book – Bilingual Education Practices – suggests curricular, pedagogical, and assessment practices that respond to this complexity.

What Is Bilingual Education?

Definitions and characteristics

What is bilingual education? We think immediately of someone who has a good command of two languages as bilingual; and of the use of two languages in education as bilingual education. But, as Cazden and Snow (1990) point out, bilingual education is “a simple label for a complex phenomenon.” Colin Baker (1993: 9), one of the most perceptive scholars in the field of bilingual education, suggests that sometimes the term bilingual education is used to refer to the education of students who are already speakers of two languages, and at other times to the education of those who are studying additional languages. Some students who learn additional languages are already speakers of the majority language(s) used in their society, while sometimes they are immigrants, refugees, Indigenous peoples,¹ members of minoritized groups,² or perhaps even members of the majority group,³ learning a different language, the dominant language, in school. Bilingual education refers to education in more than one language, often encompassing more than two languages (Baker, 2001). Because of the complexity surrounding bilingual education, many people misunderstand it. In the United States, for example, many lay people think that teaching immigrants using only English is bilingual education.

Bilingual education is different from traditional language education programs that teach a second or a foreign language. For the most part, these traditional secondor foreign-language programs teach the language as a subject, whereas bilingual education programs use the language as a medium of instruction; that is, bilingual education programs teach content through an additional language other than the children’s home language. For example, in the scenarios at the beginning of this chapter, Spanish and English are media of instruction in Ms. Acuña’s kindergarten, whilst Japanese and English are used in instruction in the program in Japan. More than anything else, bilingual education is a way of providing meaningful and equitable education, as well as an education that builds tolerance towards other linguistic and cultural groups. In so doing, bilingual education programs provide a general education, teach in two or more languages, develop multiple understandings about languages and cultures, and foster appreciation for human diversity. Traditional second- or foreign-language programs often aim to use only the target language in instruction, whereas bilingual education programs always include some form of more than one language in at least some parts of instruction. Although the approach may be different, the development of some type of bilingualism is accomplished in both language-teaching programs⁴ and bilingual education programs.

Depending on the type of language-teaching and bilingual education program followed, it may be difficult to differentiate between bilingual education and second- or foreign-language teaching programs. As we shall see, language-teaching programs in the twenty-first century increasingly integrate language and content, therefore coming to resemble bilingual education; and bilingual education programs are paying more attention than ever to explicit language instruction, therefore coming to resemble language-teaching programs. And although many second-language and foreign-language programs pay lip service to using only the target language in instruction, in reality bilingual ways of using languages (more on this below) are very often present in these programs – in the instructional material used, in the language use of the teacher, and certainly in the language use of the children. Moreover, sometimes in bilingual education programs one finds a language ideology that is very similar to that found in language-teaching programs, with teachers attempting to use only the target language in instruction: that is, no translation is provided and the teacher never uses both languages within the same lesson. But what continues to separate these two kinds of programs has to do with the broader general goal of bilingual education – the use of two languages to educate generally, meaningfully, equitably, and for tolerance and appreciation of diversity⁵ – and the narrower goal of second- or foreign-language teaching – to learn an additional language. In educating broadly, bilingual education focuses not only on the acquisition of additional languages, but also on helping students to become global and responsible citizens as they learn to function across cultures and worlds, that is, beyond the cultural borders in which traditional schooling often operates. In educating equitably, bilingual education focuses on making schooling meaningful and comprehensible for the millions of children whose home languages are different from the dominant language of school and society. This last aim is particularly relevant for the education of immigrants, refugees, Indigenous peoples throughout the world (for example, Tribal peoples in India and Bangladesh), autochthonous minorities, and many African and Asian children. The differences between bilingual education and language education programs are displayed in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Differences between Bilingual Education and Language Education

	Bilingual Education	Foreign or Second-Language Education
Overarching Goal	Educate meaningfully^6 and some type of bilingualism	Competence in additional language
Academic Goal	Educate bilingually and be able to function across cultures	Learn an additional language and become familiar with an additional culture
Language Use	Languages used as media of instruction	Additional language taught as subject
Instructional Use of Language	Uses some form of two or more languages	Uses target language mostly
Pedagogical Emphasis	Integration of language and content	Explicit language instruction

Even the widely accepted definition of bilingual education being the use of two languages in education is not straightforward. As Baker (2001: 4) points out, “the ownership of two languages is not so simple as having two wheels or two eyes.” And being educated bilingually cannot be equated to being given two balanced wheels like those of a bicycle: bilingual education is not simply about one language plus a second language equals two languages. The vision of bilingual education as a sum of equals reduces bilingual education to the use of two or more separate languages, usually in different classroom spaces, time frames, contexts, or as spoken by different teachers. In this reductive view, bilingual education has been often interpreted as being the simple sum of discrete monolingual language practices. Separate and full competencies in each language are expected of students. Furthermore, these “idealized” bilingual education practices take little account of how languages are used in society, or of real bilingual and multilingual practices.

Throughout this book, we refer to the language ideologies that support language practices in bilingual education as being like the two balanced wheels of a bicycle, as “monoglossic.” Monoglossic ideologies of bilingualism and bilingual education treat each of the child’s languages as separate and whole, and view the two languages as bounded autonomous systems. We contrast this monoglossic language ideology to one based on Bakhtin’s (1981) use of heteroglossic as multiple voices. A heteroglossic ideology of bilingualism considers multiple language practices in interrelationship, and leads to other constructions of bilingual education, which we consider in the next section.⁷

A new angle

In the twenty-first century, our complex multilingual and multimodal global communicative networks⁸ often reflect much more than two separate monolingual codes. More than a bicycle with two balanced wheels, bilingual education must be more like a moon buggy or all-terrain vehicle, with different legs that extend and contract in order to ground itself in the ridges and craters of the surface. Communication among human beings, and especially of children among themselves and with their teachers, is full of craters, ridges, and gaps. And when this communication occurs among children speaking different languages, or among children speaking one language and the teacher speaking the other, these features are particularly salient. A bicycle just would not do for this terrain. And so, a bilingual education that values only disconnected wholes and devalues the often loose parts, and insists on the strict separation of languages is not the only way to successfully educate children bilingually, although it is a widely conducted practice.

As will be seen in Part III of this book, there are many paths (and types of programs) that lead to differentiated levels of bilingual practice and use. Bilingual education that is adaptive, able to expand and contract, as the communicative situations shift and as the terrain changes, is precisely what all children in the twentyfirst century need. What is important for bilingual education, then, may not always be the full language parts in isolation, but the quality and the effectiveness of the integrated sum. One plus one does not always equal two.

The complex networks in which children participate require us to have a different vision than the linear and directional one embodied in the traditional sum. Language practices are not unidirectional but polydirectional. We could compare today’s language practices to the South Asian banyan trees,⁹ which grow up, out, down, horizontally, or vertically through the air until they come upon something solid. The language practices of bilinguals are interrelated and expand in different directions to include the different communicative contexts in which they exist. The varied bilingual practices in schools protect identities, communities, and relationships, much in the same way that the roots of banyan trees in, for example, the doorway in the Ta Prohm Temple at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, help preserve the structure.

Children do not enter school as cohorts with static and homogeneous language uses. Their language practices cannot be added to in linear fashion, since the children come and go into schools at different times, in different grades, having different language resources. And they bring a variety of language practices to the classroom that interact with the language practices of school, changing their own and those of the schools. What is needed today are practices firmly rooted in the multilingual and multimodal language and literacy practices of children in schools of the twenty-first century, practices that would be informed by a vision starting from the sum: an integrated plural vision.

Educating children bilingually enables language practices that, like the banyan trees, build on each other in multiple ways and directions – up, out, down, across but yet rooted in the terrain and realities from which they emerge. Bilingual education, for us, is simply any instance in which children’s and teachers’ communicative practices in school normally include the use of multiple multilingual practices that maximize learning efficacy and communication; and that, in so doing, foster and develop tolerance towards linguistic differences, as well as appreciation of languages and bilingual proficiency. Our definition, then, does not depart greatly from the ways in which others have defined bilingual education. Where we perhaps differ is in grounding bilingual education firmly on the language and literacy practices that we observe in schools, on what has become widely known as “bilingual encounters” (Martin, 2003), instead of on theoretical frameworks of how language ought to be and ought to function, frameworks that have little to do with actualizing the potential of children’s intellect, imagination, and creativity. In other words, we aim to have bilingual education reconceptualized in response to the social interaction among students, teachers, and other members of the educational community, using two or more different languages, not merely as abstract language practices devoid of the complex social realities of multilingualism. These more complex understandings of languages and bilingualism, or, rather, of the way that people use languages, are the topic of Part II of this book. And this reconceptualization also has important implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in bilingual education, the subject of Part IV of this book.

Reimagining

Bilingual education in the twenty-first century must be reimagined and expanded, as it takes its rightful place as a meaningful way to educate all children and language learners in the world today. In this book we have chosen to use “bilingual education,” rather than “multilingual education,” as the umbrella term to cover a wide spectrum of practice and policy. Bilingual education, as we shall see in future chapters, takes on many different forms, and increasingly, in the complexity of the modern world, includes forms where two or more languages are separated for instruction, but also forms where two or more languages are used together in complex combinations. All of these are, to us, instances of bilingual education. For the sake of brevity, and for con...