Archive for the ‘World Languages’ Category

The Great Divide Between Federal Education Policy and Our National Need for Bilingual Citizens

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

by Wayne E. Wright
University of Texas at San Antonio

In the United States, there is a great divide at the federal level between education policy and the national need for bilingual citizens. The federal government is painfully aware of its lack of bilingual employees. The National Security Education Program (NSEP) (2001a) in an analysis of federal language needs—conducted the same year as the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—found that difficulty in hiring bilingual candidates at 80 national-security-related federal agencies led to adverse impacts on operations. The NSEP also found unmet language needs in other agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control, Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Customs Service, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard. We also lack bilingual citizens to fulfill the myriad jobs in the service, business, and education sectors to interact with immigrants, international tourists, and other visitors, and to help ensure American success in international relations and global business.

Later in 2001, at the NSEP National Briefing on Language and National Security, speaker after speaker across federal agencies testified of the urgency to increase the country’s foreign language expertise. Richard Brecht, the Director of the National Foreign Language Center, testified, “the U.S. government’s language capabilities remain grossly inadequate. …. We need more linguists in more languages at higher levels of proficiency than ever before.” He recommended a long-term strategy which included the mandate that “government language schools recruit from the education system and the U.S. heritage communities linguistically competent professionals with existing skills that can be enhanced and specialized to meet required federal tasks.” (p. 20)

Regarding Brecht’s comment on the need to recruit from K-12 schools and from heritage language communities in the United States, Stephanie Van Reigersberg, a former recruiter of interpreters for the State Department, made a telling comment about her frustrations trying to recruit “heritage speakers” in languages of great need. She testified:

I think that as I look back on the last 30 years of testing interpreter candidates, it’s very clear to me that the attempt made in our private and public schools to annihilate any knowledge of the language spoken at home has been very successful, and I think we’ve got to overcome that. (p. 29)

Over a decade later, little progress has been made. Ironically, at a time when these hearings on the need for bilingual citizens were taking place, federal education policy moved in the opposite direction with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2000. Congress eliminated the Bilingual Education Act, and removed the word “bilingual” from the text of federal education law along with all recognitions of the individual and societal values of bilingualism.

While bilingual and other heritage language programs are still allowed, there is no longer any direct federal support or encouragement for these types of programs. Furthermore, NCLB’s focus on high-stakes testing as the sole measure of student achievement, and teacher and school quality, has discouraged schools from offering such programs (Wright, 2007, pp. 1-26). As the vast majority of language minority students are required to take these tests only in English, narrow test-preparation curriculum is focused on both the content and language of the test. When the top priority of schools is raising their average test scores to avoid harsh accountability penalties, school leaders may view heritage language programs as unnecessary and as diverting time and resources away from this goal.

When President Barack Obama was sworn into office in 2009, there was great hope among language minority advocates for change that would create more space for quality heritage language programs. The administration has appeared open and supportive of such programs. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in a May 2010 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, made the following comments:

We also support innovative approaches to language learning and proficiency assessment through our network of Language Resource Centers. Just one example is the National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA. They sponsored their first international conference on heritage and community languages last February. The millions of heritage language speakers at varying levels of language proficiency in the U.S. represent a tremendous reserve of students and potential teachers who can put their skills to work improving our cultural understanding as well as our ability to compete, collaborate, preserve national security, and advance international peacekeeping efforts.

Statements such as these are a positive sign, as is the apparent support for bilingual education in an early draft of the Obama Administration’s proposals for the re-authorization of NCLB. However, the focus on accountability through high-stakes testing has not only remained, but has gotten worse. A key element of the administration’s school reform efforts through initiatives such as Race to the Top is tying teacher performance evaluation to their students’ test scores, thus making the stakes and the pressure to raise language minority student test scores higher than ever before.

As long as high-stakes tests remain the sole indicator of student achievement and school and teacher quality, there will be little incentive for schools to promote heritage language programs. A multiple-measurement system is needed where test scores are but one factor among many in determining school quality. Such a system could rectify the great divide at the federal level by recognizing and rewarding schools with quality heritage language programs—programs which ensure our nation will have the bilingual citizens it desperately needs.

Dr. Wayne E. Wright is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas, San Antonio and the author of Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners: Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice (http://caslonpublishing.com/publication/foundations-teaching-english-language-learners/)

A lengthier critique by Dr. Wright on the effects of NCLB and its emphasis on testing for English Language Learners can be found here in the publication Educational Leadership.

REFERENCES

Duncan, A. (2010). International Engagement Through Education: Remarks by Secretary Arne Duncan at the Council on Foreign Relations Meeting, May 26, 2010. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/news/speeches/2010/05/05262010.html
National Security Education Program. (2001). Analysis of federal language needs. Retrieved March 14, 2006, from http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_cr/s032201.html
National Security Education Program. (2002). National briefing on language and national security. Retrieved March 14, 2006, from http://www.ndu.edu/nsep/January16_Briefing.htm
Wright, W. E. (2007). Heritage language programs in the era of English-only and No Child Left Behind. Heritage Language Journal, 5(1), 1-26.

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Lessons from Utah: How a ‘Red State’ is Building Thriving Language Immersion Programs

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

The following is part 1 of an email interview with Gregg Roberts, World Languages & Dual Immersion Specialist for the Utah State Office of Education.  Despite having designated English as the official language of the state and traditionally conservative politics, Utah has become a leader in language immersion education.  Roberts shares his insights and perspectives with us here.

In the conservative Salt Lake City newspaper, Deseret News you were recently quoted as saying “Our main goal is to mainstream immersion…to make that option available to all parents.” How would you characterize the overall reaction of parents and other Utah citizens to the news that Utah plans to “mainstream immersion”?

For the most part I would say it has been very enthusiastically received, especially in the business community, the state legislature, the educational establishment and amongst younger parents. The opposition is coming from the older generation, the less educated populace, and teacher unions who are worried about the jobs of underperforming monolingual teachers.

How long has elementary school language immersion been happening in Utah and what does the future hold for immersion education there?

The first elementary Spanish immersion programs in Utah began back in the early eighties. However, there has not been much growth until the State Legislature created the Utah Dual Immersion program in 2008 with Senate Bill 41. There will be an additional 14 new programs this year bringing the total to 51 for the 2010-11 school year. Our goal is to have 100 programs in five different languages by the 2014-15 school year, so we will need to add 12-14 programs each year to stay on pace. Utah currently has programs in Chinese, French, and Spanish, and will add German in 2011 and Russian in 2012.

Has Speaking in Tongues been useful in helping citizens to understand the goals and challenges of immersion education?

Speaking in Tongues has been extremely useful particularly with business, government and education leaders. We found the Chinese examples particularly useful, and worked with Patchworks Films on a special short video, Inside Immersion: A Chinese Example. However, one must remember that the politics in Utah are counter to one of the principal arguments in the film, English Only, which become problematic for us in Utah. The official language of the State of Utah is English; paradoxically immersion programs are flourishing all over this conservative state. In my opinion, Immersion education should NOT be linked to English only and immigration. Dual Immersion in Utah is NOT a red issue or a blue issue; it’s a purple issue meaning that it should be a non-partisan issue. It’s all about preparing our students for the 21st Century and not continuing to live in the 20th. Finally, in Utah, giving the gift of a second language to a child is all about economics!

What were the motivating factors prompting Utah’s decision to launch so many new immersion programs at one time?

Economic, Economic, Economic! Utah is a small state, so for our economic survival and the national security of our country we MUST educate students who are multilingual. In these tough budget times, the only reason why the State Legislature continues to fund this program, while all others have been cut or reduced, is because this program is tied directly to the future economic development of Utah.

What about the practical struggles of implementing these programs, for instance, how did you find so many teachers so quickly?

Yes, there have been struggles in finding qualified teachers. However, Utah has the highest percentage of native English speakers who can speak a second language so we already had some highly trained elementary teachers who were highly proficient in the immersion language. In addition, Utah has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with China, Spain, Mexico, France, and Taiwan, and these agreements are currently providing about 30 highly skilled elementary International Guest Teachers. In addition, Utah has two renowned universities, University of Utah and Brigham Young University, which are starting to produce elementary teachers who are either native speakers or highly proficient in the target language. Finally the Utah State Office of Education has created an outstanding Alternative Routes to Licensure (ARL) program that has produced some excellent native speaking or highly proficient in the target language teachers who have come from other professions.

What type of choice do parents have in selecting immersion (or not) for their children?

Utah is an open enrollment state, which means parents can chose the school their child attends. All of our Dual Immersion programs are strands that exist in the same school as traditional education since choice in education is extremely important in Utah. Each district participating in the program is permitted to set their enrollment policy and it differs from district to district. However, districts have been great about opening more Dual Immersion programs as the demand increases, thus it is all about meeting the needs of parents and students.

Utah is the first in the nation to develop standardized immersion curriculum. What sort of expertise was required for this curriculum development? How has it been received? Do you feel it could be improved?

Utah has brought in some of the finest immersion experts in the country to work hand-in-hand with our highly skilled curriculum development team. Please remember that the main premise of immersion education is to teach the core content areas through the medium of another language. Thus, our state-approved curriculum aligned to the Utah State Core has been warmly received. In addition, we have also created an enhanced literacy strand in each immersion language. Of course we feel our curriculum can always be improved and we are proud to be releasing our new and improved integrated curriculum (Science and Social Studies) in Chinese, French, and Spanish this year. Utah has agreed to move to the Common Core Standards so this year we will be working on aligning our Math and Language Arts curriculum to the Common Core.

I noticed that your programs are designed for 50/50 immersion meaning that students will spend half their day in English instruction and half their day in the target language. In other programs, such as San Francisco’s public schools, the model is to begin with 80-90% of a child’s instruction in the target language and gradually increase the amount of English instruction time as the children age. How will Utah’s programs change for the students from year to year, and what informed the decision to do 50/50 rather than 90/10 or 80/20?

I personally abhor anything but a 50/50 model for instructional and political reasons! In Utah we use a balanced two teacher model to clearly respect the separation of languages. In addition, our model is a K-12 model where students receive 50/50 instruction grades 1-6, two content course in the target language in grades 7-9, take the AP exam in grade 9, then enroll in university 300-level language courses in grades 10-12. Our goal when these students graduate from high school is to hand them off to universities or the workforce at the advanced level of proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing.

In June, representatives from Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and North and South Carolina dropped in to take a peek at the state’s program. How do you feel about being a role model for immersion programs across the country?

We feel very honored and fortunate. I strongly believe if Utah can do this, so can (some) other states. Of course, all politics being local, and yes there are plenty of politics in immersion education, they may need to tweak our model to meet their own unique landscape.

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Watch Speaking in Tongues on TV–With Friends!

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Speaking in Tongues isn’t just a film that should be watched. It’s a film that should be talked about. The issues are relevant and timely, and the stories are compelling. I personally don’t know of anyone who could get through the scene of Jason’s graduation without at least getting choked up (I cry every time I see it).

Fortunately, the National PBS Broadcast is in full swing, giving folks all over the U.S. an easy opportunity to see and discuss the film. Broadcasts are scheduled throughout September including repeats in several regions. Check the SIT website to find broadcast times and stations where you live.

And if you plan to watch Speaking In Tongues on television, why not invite some friends over to watch with you and discuss afterward? It’s a great way to increase the film’s impact and broaden the conversation about multilingual education, English-only policies, globalization, immigration, and cultural heritage.

Hosting a house party doesn’t have to be a big deal. It could mean inviting the next door neighbors over for take-out, or gathering some families from your children’s pre-school or daycare. Sweeten the deal by making it a dessert potluck. If you are on neighborhood, school, church, or parent email lists in your community, you could toss the idea out on the list. If you happen to live in an area where the film is only broadcast at times that aren’t very party-conducive, set your TiVo (or other device) to record. Once the film has aired, drop a line to the list letting folks know that you have it available and are willing to show it at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. rather than 4:00 in the morning!

Community and Town Hall screenings of Speaking in Tongues have already played an important role in changing the way people think about these issues. As an example, check out this earlier guest blog by Sara Shorin, whose efforts helped to secure the future of a successful Spanish immersion program in Lake Tahoe, Calif. If you’re interested in increasing thinking about the issues raised in the film, there’s no better place to start than your own living room. Who knows, maybe after viewing and conversation you will find yourself in the company of a group of activists ready to make change in your community and in the future of multilingual education!

Here are some tips for throwing a viewing party, courtesy of the transpartisan national organization, Moms Rising: http://bit.ly/moms-rising-house-party-how-to-guide Of course you’ll have to adapt it to suit your purposes, but these folks have really thought of everything!

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Keeping Up With a Second Language Over Summer Vacation

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

School will start again soon. I’m looking forward to it in many ways. I’ll have more time for the blog, for one thing. Of course I’m a little nervous about my baby going off to kindergarten—and how he will handle the immersion environment. I’m also a little concerned about his older brother who will enter second grade and may have a brand new teacher since there has been some shuffling around of staff at their school. And, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I’m also a little concerned about my older son’s Mandarin.

Going from 5 hours a day 5 days a week of Mandarin immersion to, well, pretty much zero for 10 weeks of summer will definitely cause some backsliding. I’ve tried to keep his language skills up over the summer, but, I admit it, I haven’t tried as hard as I could have. He has friends who actually traveled to China or Taiwan this summer and others who attended Chinese summer camp at the Chinese American International School.

I did show him this amazing magic trick performed by the famous Liu Qian (I was pleased to have him explain some of the jokes to me, but the illusion is awesome even if you don’t understand Mandarin). He has read along with some stories from the fabulous Taiwanese reading program, 5Q Channel. One day I got him to order everyone’s lunch in Mandarin at the deli near his school where we often go for smoothies (which he also orders). If we had a television that picked up digital signals, I would definitely be letting him and his brother watch the Taiwan Public Television show, Fruity Pie, a wacky-looking program that other parents at his school speak highly of. I have quizzed him, over dinner, about the vocabulary printed on his placemats, purchased as a fund-raiser for Jose Ortega Elementary School. I am pleased to say that judging by his lack of derision, my own Mandarin pronunciation must have improved somewhat.

He has written (minimally) in his Chinese journal that was sent home for the purpose, but I’m not good at pushing homework during the summer. Indeed, I worry that our relationship may would suffer irreparable damage without this all-important break in the nagging schedule! But I do strive for gentle encouragement.

I prefer the practical, real-world reinforcement of using a language as a means of practicing the language, thus the contrivance of getting smoothies but only if he orders them in Mandarin (and only because the deli worker can speak Mandarin!). When he learned about Chinese Chess, or Xiangqi, at school last year I agreed to buy a set for home if he could handle the transaction entirely in Chinese. He sailed through that one to the astonishment of the Chinatown shopkeeper. She asked me, in Mandarin, if I knew how to play. I answered with a dumb look, and she repeated the question in English.

“No,” I replied. “But he does.” (I learned later that this was a bit of a stretch.)

I probably get a little lazy because I know my son has already proven he has some facility with language. I am certain he will start school a little further behind in his Mandarin than he or I would like, but I am confident he’ll catch up pretty quickly. I do have some new school year resolutions such as obtaining more books in Chinese for our home and upping the Mandarin media quota for our sons. Next summer, I plan to try harder at getting them some practice (my preference would be for a few weeks abroad). And of course by then both of my children will have an incentive to speak Chinese to each other: their parents won’t know what they are saying!

Meanwhile, I’ll try to be gentle on both of us for letting his language practice lapse. It’s summer after all. He has gone to camp, taken swimming lessons, read a lot (in English…sigh, see my new-school-year resolution above), conducted science experiments and will visit his cousin and friends on a trip to Disneyland next week. We haven’t been wasting time. Maybe we’ll play lots of Chinese children’s songs in the car on our way to Southern California. There’s an idea!

I’m curious what others do to maintain their children’s language skills over the summer and how much teachers feel the students lose when they return from a summer of, more or less, English-only living.

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Posted in Chinese, Guest Blogs, Language Immersion, Mandarin, Multilingual Education, Parents, Public Schools, Students, World Languages | 2 Comments »

Ways of Speaking, Ways of Thinking

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

It has always seemed to me that once we start thinking in words, the shape of those words becomes the shape of our thoughts. More accurately, it is the language itself—how those words are put together and what they can convey—that shape our thinking. Following from this, it makes sense that different languages lend themselves more or less easily to different ways of thinking.

Stanford Psychologist Lera Boroditsky explores this very theory in a recent Wall Street Journal article, asserting that language itself influences culture. She backs up this theory with anecdotes from research, and her examples are fascinating.  What I find almost more interesting, however, is that many linguists have disregarded this theory, sometimes referred to as linguistic determinism, (though many believe that language’s effect on thought exists more on a continuum, which seems reasonable) for the last 40 or 50 years. None other than celebrated linguist Noam Chomsky asserts that all languages have a “universal grammar” and that each is, more or less, equal to the tasks for which human beings have created and used language. But decades of research, according to Boroditsky, have debunked this idea, and people are beginning to study, instead, just how language shapes the culture that creates it or, if you will, the culture it creates.

In his 2008 book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell compares the counting system of English to that shared by certain Asian languages including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The Asian system is very regular and consistent: what we know in English as twelve translates literally into Mandarin as ten-two. Thirteen is “ten-three” and so on. Twenty-two is “two tens-two”—the value is inherent in the way the number is stated. When we say “twenty-two” in English our minds actually have to translate that word into the number value associated with it, and, although we soon come to do this with ease, our brains must still take an extra step to internalize the number value.

Is it any wonder that Asian children consistently outperform their peers in the U.S., France, Germany, England and other Western industrialized nations on mathematics exams? Of course one can argue that factors beyond language influence the scores, but the discrepancy, as reported in US News & World Report is so dramatic, and the language studies so compelling, it is hard to deny that the math engines built into these languages facilitate math learning to some extent.

Many of us have had the beautiful experience of learning an untranslatable word from a friend who speaks another language. Once we are able to get our heads around the concept signified by this foreign word—a concept our own language and culture has not formally recognized with language—we are thrilled. We haven’t simply learned a new word, we’ve learned something new and even somewhat mysterious (it can’t be translated after all) about the people who use that word.

My personal favorite, the Portuguese word saudade, can be described as something akin to the English word nostalgia, but without the gloppy sentimentality or, if I understand it right, quite the same flavor of melancholy. While saudade does convey longing for a past that can never return (as well as a future that will never happen or a present that is not turning out as one had hoped), acceptance of this reality is somehow built into the word. Saudade embodies all that is positive of a time or feeling that is no longer, while also deeply acknowledging the sadness of this truth. It can be found all over grave markers in Brazil, (and probably Portugal, too, but I’ve never walked through a Portuguese cemetery, so I don’t know). Brazilians even have an official day devoted to commemorating saudade (January 30). It’s hard to deny that this untranslatable word has an influence on the culture.

One day after school last spring, my son’s teacher sent him off with a string of Chinese that, by nature of the delivery, seemed important and meaningful.

“What did she say?” I asked my six-year-old.

“I can’t tell you” was his reply.

“You didn’t understand?”

“No, I understood, but I don’t know how to tell you.”

“Is it something you don’t want me to know about?” I pressed.

“No. It’s something good. I just don’t know how to say it in English.”

Perhaps as his abilities in both languages improve, once he learns more about nuance and increases his vocabulary, he can try to make me understand, just as my bilingual Brazilian friends have helped me with saudade. In the meantime, I will enjoy watching him learn how to speak–and to think–in more than one language.

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Posted in Brain, Chinese, Critical Thinking, Language Immersion, Mandarin, Math, Multilingual Education, Parents, Portuguese, Standardized Tests, Students, World Languages | 2 Comments »

“Speaking in Tongues” Helps Save Successful Spanish Immersion Program

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

Guest Blog
by Sara Shorin

When confusion and misinformation threatened the future of the highly successful Spanish immersion program my daughters attend in the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, parents set out to share their own stories and provide accurate information about immersion education.  It was unimaginable to me that the program, which began in 1998 with a single Kindergarten class and has grown to serve children in two schools through 8th grade, might be terminated.

A budget crisis required the district to maximize staffing and facilities, stirring up emotion and vocal opposition among local critics of immersion education. The towns where the schools are located, Kings Beach and Tahoe City, are now 85% Latino and 99.9% White, respectively.  The school board realized it could save money by making Kings Beach all immersion and shifting the English mainstream program to Tahoe City. This would maximize district resources while also resulting in better integration, and therefore, better language outcomes among English- and Spanish-speaking  students in both programs. But loud and angry voices continued to suggest that the district consider dismantling the immersion program altogether.

I attended school board meetings as part of an effort to save the program and soon realized that many of the critics did not fully understand the immersion program goals, methods, and benefits.  Most of the opponents I spoke to did not know:

  • how a second language is acquired,
  • the overall benefit of becoming bilingual for both English and Spanish speakers,
  • that Spanish speakers learn English in the immersion program,
  • that it is not a remedial program for Spanish speakers and an enrichment program for English speakers,
  • that both English and Spanish speakers score higher on state tests than English mainstream students

I had long wanted to create an outreach program to explain immersion education to both English- and Spanish-speaking parents so that they could better understand their choices. Unexpectedly, this controversy launched what would become our Parent-to-Parent Immersion Outreach group. Immersion parents realized that we needed to enter the conversation to dispel the myths and misinformation that threatened to end this valuable program. Speaking in Tongues became the foundation for our outreach and enabled us to share information in a way that did not come across as defensive or self-serving.

First, we showed the film to immersion parents to solidify our message and formulate a plan for  sharing information that would include research articles, FAQs about our program, a film checkout from the school office (we purchased 6 copies), a Google group, a link to an immersion website from the main district site (still under construction), and program tours.

Next, we arranged a bilingual “Immersion Information Night” that included a public screening of Speaking In Tongues. We also introduced our teachers who led a PowerPoint presentation of  the program and translated for the attendees.   This was a great opportunity for parents and teachers to collaborate and reinforce how and why the program works.  Parents enjoyed having the opportunity to hear from other parents and ask specific questions of the teachers.   The successful evening (with 70 attending, including local media) provided immersion teachers and parents a forum to speak openly in a positive environment. With the film as a backdrop, we didn’t appear to be simply defending our own interests.

After the Info Night, we showed the film to a smaller, Spanish-speaking parent group with a translator so that we could explain how and why the program works for Spanish-speaking children.  A few immersion parents in this group helped reinforce the fact that immersion is not only an effective route to bilingualism for English-speaking children, but equally important to Spanish speakers and other English Language Learners (ELLs), who wish to become bilingual on an academic level. Maintaining native languages helps people stay connected to their heritage and families, yet many Spanish-speaking parents do not understand how their kids would learn English in a Spanish immersion program.  This lack of understanding often leads Spanish-speaking parents to opt for the English mainstream program because they believe, like many English and Spanish-speaking parents, that to learn English, children can only be in an English mainstream classroom. At the English mainstream program in Kings Beach, however, their children were surrounded by other ELLs and few, if any, native English-speaking peers until this year when the reconfiguration went into effect. Meanwhile, Spanish-speakers (and English-speakers) in the immersion program have consistently achieved at higher levels than their peers in the English mainstream on California state testing in both English Language Arts and Math.

Finally, we showed the film in a community center in Tahoe City, where many opponents live, hoping to reach the parents who were still reachable and wanted information.

Speaking in Tongues is the foundation of our outreach program, and I’ve been told that this outreach definitely had a positive impact. The film helped us educate all parents about immersion education, which has reduced the threat to our program.  A few of the former immersion opponents have even enrolled their children in the program, and some of the most vocal critics have softened their tone.  The film gave us focus and was the springboard that we needed in a time of anger, confusion, and misinformation.  It gave us an opportunity to start a friendly, informative conversation with all parents, creating an accurate understanding of the immersion program that would naturally lead to acceptance throughout the community.

In 2010, our first immersion students graduated from high school.  Many of them, including the valedictorian, were among the top 10 graduates.  Also in 2010, the district’s first Spanish-speaking ELL students enrolled in AP English.  I think these facts alone, as well as the testing data, reflect the quality of our program, but Speaking In Tongues will continue to be an important part of our Parent-to-Parent Immersion Outreach.  In time, we believe the community will understand the immersion model and come to accept it as simply another education choice and possibly the best one for many students.

Sara Shorin has an 8th grader who went through the Spanish Immersion program in the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, and a 3rd grader currently in the program.  Since studying abroad in Germany and completing her senior thesis on bilingual education in the United States 25 years ago, Sara has remained interested in bilingual education and second language acquisition.  It is her goal to expose her children to as many languages as possible.

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Posted in Community Screenings, Guest Blogs, Language Immersion, Multilingual Education, Outreach, Parents, Public Schools, Standardized Tests, Students, World Languages | 6 Comments »

How ‘Submersion’ Differs from Immersion

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

When English speaking children enter language immersion programs in this country they typically find that their teacher speaks to them in a language they don’t understand between 50% and 100% of the day. Immersion teachers use a variety of techniques, most notably exaggerated speaking styles and animated body language, to make themselves understood. About half of the class are native English speakers, and it’s not uncommon for students to hear English spoken in the halls by parents, other teachers, and school administrators. English-speaking immersion students know they are learning a second language at school and that their native language dominates everywhere else.

It is common to compare English speaking students’ experience in an immersion program to that of an immigrant thrust into an English-only classroom, but the comparison does not hold up. An immersion teacher’s job is to get the students to understand the language so that they can also teach the content—math, reading, social studies—as effectively as possible. Mainstream teachers were hired and trained to teach content in English, not to teach English as a second language. Whereas my kids’ teachers could make up their own language and effectively use it to teach math concepts, mainstream English teachers teach, by and large, from an assumption of fluency.

When most non-English-speaking immigrant children come to the US and enroll in school, they are simply placed in a mainstream English classroom, and English is spoken all day and everywhere. They may find common language peers in their same situation, and it’s likely those kids will stick together whenever possible rather than integrate with their English-speaking classmates. This type of instruction has been dubbed “submersion” because it is akin to pushing people into water without teaching them to swim.

Unfortunately, submersion instruction happens all over the world and is one of the main reasons heritage languages such as those spoken by Native Americans and minority tribes elsewhere are dying out altogether. Children may eventually become literate in the dominant language, but not in their mother tongue. In fact, depending on circumstances, they may lose their native language altogether, thereby losing ties with their family and culture and never having the benefit of full linguistic proficiency that comes with native fluency.

Of course many talented mainstream English teachers do their best to reach every student (and do so with success) regardless of their own formal training and experience, but even the most sensitive, well-intentioned teacher may fall into habits borne of teaching in an all-English environment. In a monolingual environment, for instance, there is nothing wrong with lecturing with one’s back to the class while writing on the whiteboard, but such practices cannot help ELLs get up to speed either in language or academic subjects. By the time these students get a handle on the dominant language, they are often so far behind in the content that achieving academic proficiency has become a formidable struggle.

Two-way immersion programs, when implemented properly, create bilingual students from distinct native language backgrounds. ELLs do not receive specialized or remedial instruction (unless it is otherwise indicated, in the case of learning disabilities, for example). Both English language instruction and content instruction in English are increased as the students progress, and the dominant language, English, is supported in commerce, the media, and in the community at large. Native English speakers enrolled in immersion do not suffer from a lack of guidance in the use of their mother tongue. Indeed, both ELLs and native English speakers tend to outpace their peers in monolingual programs before middle school.

When children of different language backgrounds are combined in classrooms led by effective, bilingual teachers, multilingual adults with greater cross-cultural understanding and deeper knowledge of most academic subjects are the end product, and these individuals can speak for themselves–in more than one language.

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Posted in Brain, Cognitive Benefits, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Heritage Languages, Intelligence, Language Immersion, Math, Multilingual Education, Parents, Public Schools, Research, Standardized Tests, Students, World Languages | No Comments »

Positive Immersion Experience Dissolves Parental Apprehension

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

“Really?”

“Why Chinese?”

“Do you speak Chinese?”

“How do you help him with his homework?”

“Do you plan to learn Chinese?”

“Are you worried about him learning the other subjects?”

“Were you nervous about sending him to kindergarten?”

These are the questions I get most often since we got word, a little over two years ago, that our son would be enrolled in a Mandarin immersion program. I was pleased to get the letter, but also a little nervous—as all parents are when contemplating sending their children to kindergarten—about all of these things.

The hardest one for me to answer is “Really?” especially when it is spoken with an air of judgment about it as if the questioner thinks I might be making a mistake. My inclination is to reply with “Of course, who wouldn’t want this opportunity for their kid?” But the truth is that all those other questions often bog parents down when they are considering immersion for their children, and the lack of answers leads many to stick with the comfortable option of putting their child in an English-only classroom.

Even before I had children I knew I wanted them to be multilingual, so when it came time to shop for kindergartens (the public schools where we live are selected by parents in a complicated lottery system), I toured immersion schools almost exclusively. I had thought I would go for a language that was more approachable considering my own background (I studied French, Spanish, and Italian in college), so I took a look at every Spanish immersion school in our district, and checked out the Chinese immersion programs mainly for comparison. On one of these tours, I fell in love with my sons’ school and thus embarked on the process of talking myself and their father into going for Mandarin, a language neither of us could speak, read, write, nor understand.

Not one word.

I explained to my son that when he went to kindergarten his teacher would speak Chinese and he wouldn’t understand her at first but would learn to after a while. He mulled it over for a few weeks then told me he thought he’d rather go to kindergarten in English.

“But you already know English,” I responded. “Won’t it be great to learn a whole new language, too?”

This prospect did excite him, and, to his credit, he was (and is) a very good sport. His brother, who will enter kindergarten next month, is thrilled that the day is finally coming where he will learn more than how to count to ten and say hello in Mandarin. I wouldn’t be surprised to find them chattering with each other by winter break while their helpless parents look on.

I also learned from parents who had gone before that it is important to let children know that though their teacher will never speak English to them, she or he can understand it. “She will answer in Chinese, but she’ll make sure you get what you need, especially if you’re hurt or sick or have an emergency.” Knowing that they understand this definitely eases all our minds.

Two years later, I know more Chinese than I did, and am far less intimidated by it. With two live-in tutors I may just learn some useful Mandarin after all. Most of their Chinese homework (so far) consists of writing characters, which is mercifully straightforward. The math curriculum is written in English, even though it is taught in Chinese at school. When students need help that parents can’t provide, they call on each other. Like the students in Speaking in Tongues, the majority of my older son’s classmates are reading in English and doing grade-level math just like their peers in English-only classrooms. They just happen to be learning a new language and sharing new cultural experiences at the same time.

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Posted in Chinese, Language Immersion, Mandarin, Multilingual Education, Parents, Public Schools, Students, World Languages | 1 Comment »

Welcome to the Speaking in Tongues Blog!

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Hello, Ni Hao, Hola, Bonjour, and greetings to all in whatever language(s) you speak or are learning. Welcome to the Speaking In Tongues blog! I am the mother of two kids learning Mandarin at a San Francisco public school. My older son—who already holds his own in casual conversation and gets compliments on his accent every time he speaks Mandarin—is about to start second grade, and his little brother will begin kindergarten in August. Being their mother has, of course, brought me amazing experiences every day since they were born, but the budding bilingualism is making things more interesting all the time. Their father and I speak no Chinese beyond what our older son has taught us (and he doesn’t hesitate to criticize our attempts at pronunciation), and since he learned to spell, our only recourse to private conversation in front of our children has been pig Latin.

The tables are about to turn!

When we decided to enroll our kids in a language immersion program, we just thought we were taking advantage of a wonderful opportunity. We didn’t realize until watching the premiere of Speaking in Tongues at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2009 that we were trailblazers on a controversial path.

I have always felt extremely fortunate to live in a city that has not only the political support to provide immersion options in public education but also the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity to support language acquisition outside the classroom. Parents in other parts of the country who want this opportunity for their children have a much harder road to travel. Still, more schools, both public and private, are taking advantage of parent interest in immersion and the brain’s remarkable ability to learn languages at an early age. Programs in languages as diverse as Navajo, Russian, Hebrew, Hawaiian, Arabic, Korean, and more are increasing in areas from New York City to the Navajo Nation.

As the popularity of early second-language instruction increases, anti-immigrant sentiment, the English-only movement, and measures such as the controversial Arizona law SB 1070 are also making regular headlines. It is unclear how immersion programs will ultimately be affected by the No Child Left Behind mandate and Race to the Top incentive program, and many parents, though excited about their children learning a second language, are understandably concerned that their learning and literacy in English and other core subjects may suffer as a result of the immersion environment.

In this blog we hope to explore the excitement and the controversy of immersion education and second language acquisition in children. We will write about research and politics, trends and tendencies. With guest bloggers and voices of experience throughout the language education community, we hope to stimulate conversation about this very important topic and to provide a forum for parents, teachers, students, administrators, politicians, psychologists and other experts in the field of early language acquisition to share their perspectives. We hope you will come here often to explore the world that is opening up as an unprecedented number of US schoolchildren are opening to the world by learning to communicate in a language other than English.

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Posted in Heritage Languages, Language Immersion, Mandarin, Navajo, Parents, Public Schools, World Languages | 1 Comment »