Cover Story: And The Survey Says...

Spanish was sprinkled among the squeals of children on the playground. A bilingual teacher at the southern Texas border school commented acerbically, "Listen, they're speaking nothing but Spanish! How are they ever going to learn English when they hardly ever hear it!"
These words, spoken out of utter frustration over the difficulty of teaching subject matter and English to language minority students summed up the sense of frustration that existed throughout the school. The teachers were under intense pressure to get students up to speed in English "as quickly as possible." So the approach favored by most bilingual educators (developing literacy and thinking skills in the native language as students learn English, and gradually introducing more content instruction in English as students become more proficient) was felt to be redundant. Two-thirds of the school's teachers believed that their bilingual program wasn't effective. Teachers here tended to view Spanish, the first language of nearly all their students, as an obstacle to learning. We'll call this school Valle del Sol.
Meanwhile, at another school located in a major Texas city, a bilingual teacher stated emphatically, "English is a language, not an education!" There was no sense of frustration expressed by bilingual teachers that their task was insurmountable; the nearly unanimous belief of all the school's teachers was that their bilingual program was effective and that the academic work conducted in Spanish was not a waste of time. Teachers at this school tended to view Spanish as a resource. We'll call this school Levin Elementary.
When I began my research on expectation climate at bilingual schools (see definitions on p.37), I wanted to see how political beliefs impacted on attitudes and practice in schools with similar student populations.
I was also interested to determine how expectation was dealt with in an Accelerated School _ one that was involved in a transformative school level effort _ a restructuring approach for schools with large numbers of "at risk" students. Through my research I determined that although teacher expectation as a term refers to beliefs in student capability, most teachers regard expectation as a performance standard. I found that there is an important interaction between standards pursued by the school and the teachers' beliefs about student capability to meet those standards. In essence, having high standards may not be followed by high expectations. Teachers at the Accelerated School ("Levin") whose curriculum emphasized enrichment education tended to possess higher expectations for their students than those at the more traditional school.
I also discovered that there was a powerful link between language politics and expectation climate. Levin teachers rejected the hypothesis that students fail because of their home environments while one-third of Valle del Sol teachers believed that it determined their success or failure. Most of the Levin teachers believed in their capabilities to reach the most difficult students while a majority of the Valle del Sol teachers disagreed (see Tables 1 and 2 on p.23).
Table 1. Teacher response to statement, "When it comes right down to it, a teacher can't do much because most of a student's motivation and performance depend on
his/her environment."

Table 2. Teacher response to statement, "If I really try hard, I can get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated student."
Table 3. Percentage of teachers who recommended 50% or more instructional time in Spanish as per grade level of students.
Teachers at the two schools differed regarding the use of Spanish for content instruction, particularly the mainstream teachers. Table 3 shows how they responded when given the opportunity to "design" their own bilingual program. Although the majority of Valle del Sol teachers did not believe in the efficacy of their bilingual program (early exit transitional), many used it as a model. The Levin teachers also favored their own approach (late exit bilingual). But the difference between the mainstream teachers from the two schools was dramatic. Those from Levin showed strong support for bilingual approaches whereas teachers from Valle del Sol recommended far less Spanish as a medium of instruction.
Table 4. Percentage of teachers who would "compromise" their bilingual "recommendation".
When given the opportunity to "compromise" their program to favor more English or more Spanish, Valle del Sol teachers supported increased use of English. At Levin, the bilingual teachers favored more Spanish while the others either favored more English or wrote "it depends" indicating the solution would depend on the needs of students.
Table 5. Percentage of teachers who permit students to use Spanish when working together even when they are teaching in English.
I was astonished to find bilingual teachers at Valle del Sol who did not allow the use of Spanish in their classes. At Levin, freedom to use either language was central to the teaching philosophy of two-thirds of bilingual teachers and not one teacher objected to students using Spanish.
Table 6. Bilingual teacher responses to statement, "I often use English in classes I'm supposed to teach in Spanish in order to increase my students' knowledge of English."
Table 6 shows how frequently bilingual teachers actually used English when teaching content scheduled in Spanish. The biggest difference was in the primary grades (K-2nd) where 60% of the bilingual teachers at Valle del Sol admitted that they used English when they were supposed to be teaching in Spanish whereas not one of the Levin teachers did so. Given the critical importance of establishing literacy and thinking skills in the native language, the practices at Valle del Sol were disturbing.
Table 7. Percentage of bilingual teachers who report that they often find ways to make lessons less difficult when teaching in English.
Making that link between language use practices and expectation is demonstrated in Table 7. When bilingual teachers were asked whether they found ways to make lessons less difficult when teaching in English, the results were startling. Not one of the Levin bilingual teachers (who used enrichment approaches in their teaching) indicated that they diminished the level of challenge when teaching in English compared to 63% of upper grade and 70% of lower grade bilingual teachers at Valle del Sol.
Conclusion
Carol Persell theorized that teacher expectations were products of societal level biases which impacted on individual communities and school-level environments. Thus, Valle del Sol teachers were being affected by biases against the use of native language instruction. These biases were creating contradictions in their bilingual education program. The teachers believed in the myth that native language instruction is an obstacle to learning English. By pushing ever harder to insert even more English medium instruction, they were reducing the impact of Spanish language skills in the development of academic proficiency in English. In short, Valle del Sol bilingual teachers were forced to reduce the challenging nature of their instruction in English simply because the level of English proficiency was not sufficiently developed to emphasize higher levels of thinking in that language.
On the other hand, Levin Elementary emphasized research-based approaches and "Unity of Purpose" in their restructuring efforts and all teachers were on the same page regarding the value of bilingual education and the ability of their students to meet their standards. By gradually introducing content instruction in English, the bilingual teachers felt that their students' capability in English was sufficient to perform at high levels and that the earlier efforts in Spanish yielded students who were better prepared to handle academics in either language. Here, language was not the concern but rather that the students received an enriched education and the opportunity to express themselves critically.
In observing classes at the two schools, I found that the Levin students in third through fifth grade seemed more comfortable with their English than their counterparts from Valle del Sol.
Because Levin built on the strengths of their students, their capabilities were evident. Because Valle del Sol teachers emphasized English proficiency, they tended to view the capability of their students on that criteria alone. As the saying goes, when you define your problem as nails you tend to look to hammers as the solution. Valle del Sol teachers defined English as the problem, so they believed that more English was the solution. Such attitudes, common in many schools teaching language minority students, limit the expectations teachers can realistically have of their students.
Key Terms
Bilingual Education Schools: Here, schools with a large proportion of limited English proficient (LEP) students within its student population (approximately 40% or higher) and which utilize bilingual (Spanish/English) educational approaches in teaching these students.
Expectation Climate: That aspect of school climate referring to the predominant conceptions of student strengths and weaknesses, beliefs in student capability, and theories of student performance that appear to govern and/or to be defined by the pedagogical actions - or lack of them - pursued by teachers and administrators whether or not these conceptions, beliefs, or theories are officially articulated or not.
Interactive/Experiential Philosophy: The approach used by a school and/or teacher based on the assumption that language minority students and their families bring certain strengths to the school setting and the school/teacher's role is to build from those strengths.
Teacher Expectations: Inferences that teachers make about the future behavior or academic performance of their students based on what they believe they know about those students now.

Robert J. Johnson, Ph.D., Department of Urban Education, University of Houston-Downtown, Texas.