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“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.

Tags: California, Education, Lake Tahoe, Multilingual, Outreach, Parental Choice, Public Schools, State Tests
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.

Tags: Brain Function, Cognitive Development, Education, Multilingual, Parental Choice, Public Schools
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.

Tags: Education, Mandarin, Multilingual, Parental Choice, Public Schools, San Francisco
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.

Tags: Education, Immersion, Mandarin, Multilingual, Public Schools, San Francisco
Posted in Heritage Languages, Language Immersion, Mandarin, Navajo, Parents, Public Schools, World Languages | 1 Comment »