Cover Story: Looking For Bilingual Balance

The question continues to be asked: How can bilingual education possibly work? If we teach children in Spanish, how will they ever learn English?

My suspicion is that a substantial percentage of the public is unaware of a basic fact about bilingual education: Bilingual education is good for English. Specifically, they are unaware: that bilingual educators value English language development highly; that a major goal of bilingual education is the development of academic English proficiency; and that well-designed bilingual programs actually produce better achievement in the second language than programs that do not utilize the primary language.
In addition, it is not clear to many people why bilingual education should be successful in helping English language development. In fact, a large number of people are convinced that many, if not most, successful second language acquirers succeeded without bilingual education.

Saying that educating a child in the primary language will help English seems to defy common sense for many people. But providing education in the first language can greatly help second language development. It does this in two ways:
(1) When we provide students with solid subject matter teaching in the first language, it gives them knowledge. This knowledge helps make the English they hear and read much more comprehensible. A limited English proficient child who is well prepared in math, thanks to education in the first language, will understand more in a math class taught in English than a limited English proficient child without this background. The well-prepared child will learn more math, and will acquire more English, because the English heard in class is more comprehensible.
(2) Developing literacy in the first language is a short cut to literacy in the second language. It is easier to learn to read in a language you understand, and once you can read in one language, this knowledge transfers rapidly to any other language you learn to read. Once you can read, you can read.

In my interpretation of the research, correctly set up programs (that supply background information and literacy in the primary language, and, of course, also provide comprehensible input in the second language) typically succeed in teaching the second language better than alternatives that do not utilize the primary language. Support for this conclusion comes not only from studies in the United States but from other countries as well (Krashen and Biber, 1988; Krashen, 1996, 1999).

Success without bilingual education?

Perhaps the most frequently used counter-argument to bilingual education is the reported success of those who did not have it. But a closer look at case histories of immigrants actually supports bilingual education and the theory behind it.

Those who do well in English academic language development frequently had a good education in their primary language before coming to the US (Krashen, 1996, Ramos and Krashen, 1996) and may have had extra help in their primary language after they came, outside of school. Tse (1997) is a good example. Today a Ph.D. and professor of education, Tse arrived in the US at age eight, and lived in a neighborhood with few native speakers of her primary language. She had, nevertheless, help in her primary language: "I got help in my schoolwork from my parents and my older and more English-fluent sisters – in Chinese... In some subjects like math, I had already learned the concepts being taught in class in my native country and understood the lessons in English, at least initially, without much assistance. I was exposed to good English instruction from my siblings and from the English-speaking children on our block ... I also knew how to read and write in Chinese ... Knowing how to read and write in the native language helps tremendously when facing the same task in another tongue."

Thus, Tse had the "essential elements" of bilingual education:
1) Subject matter knowledge in the first language from her previous schooling and from her parents and older sisters.
2) Literacy development in the primary language from previous schooling.
3) Comprehensible input in English, from siblings and other children.

As Tse notes, "However, not all students get, outside of school, the three things that good bilingual programs provide: help with school subjects in the native language, quality English instruction and literacy development in the native tongue so that reading and writing is easier in the new language. Unless these students get bilingual education through school, they are unlikely to learn well and succeed in school."

This case, and many others like it, shows that success did not occur without bilingual education; successful immigrants such as Tse had de facto bilingual education, and they provide strong confirmation of the theory.1
Public Opinion
Contrary to popular opinion, surveys actually reveal strong support for the use of the primary language in school (Krashen, 1996,1999). Fay Shin’s research is particularly informative. Shin did not ask people if they supported bilingual education; instead, she asked about the underlying principles, asking whether people thought "developing literacy through the first language facilitates literacy development in English" and whether ‘learning subject matter through the first language helps make subject matter study in English more comprehensible." Results were encouraging; these principles apparently make good sense:

• Developing literacy through the first language facilitates literacy development in English.
  Percent agreement:
  Hispanic parents = 53% (Shin and Gribbons, 1996); Korean parents = 88% (Shin and Kim, 1996); Hmong parents = 52% (Shin and Lee, 1996); Administrators = 74% (Shin, Anton and Krashen, 1999)
  Teachers = 74% (Shin and Krashen, 1996)
  
• Learning subject matter through the first
  language makes subject matter study in
  English more comprehensible.
  Percent agreement:
  Hispanic parents = 34% (33% were "not sure") (Shin and Gribbons, 1996) ; Korean parents = 47% (Shin and Kim, 1996); Hmong parents = 60% (Shin and Lee, 1996);
  Administrators = 78% (Shin, Anton and Krashen, 1999); Teachers = 70% (Shin and Krashen, 1996).
• It is important to note that Shin’s subjects were not recent graduates of language education programs, or bilingual teachers: Most were, in fact, "civilians."

Of course, English language development is not the only goal of bilingual education (see e.g. Krashen, Tse and McQuillan, 1998). But many people still think that the bilingual education "debate" is between rational people who think that children should learn English and irrational fanatics who think they should be prevented from learning English. This misunderstanding needs to be corrected immediately: Bilingual educators are deeply concerned about English language development and properly organized bilingual education programs are very helpful for English language development.

It should not be impossible to correct this misunderstanding: The research supporting bilingual education is strong, and the rationale underlying the success of properly organized bilingual education programs appears to be reasonable to a lot of people.
Note 1: This argument applies to school success. What about economic success without bilingual education?
Those who appeal to this argument are typically talking about immigrants who came to the US in the first part of the twentieth century. In those days, few people had much education, whether native speakers or second language acquirers: in 1910, only 13.5% of the population had graduated high school, compared to 81% in 1994.

But many were able to get good jobs without a lot of education: This is simply not possible today.

References:

Krashen, S. 1996. Under Attack: The Case Against Bilingual Education. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates.
Krashen, S. 1998. Condemned without a Trial: Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Krashen, S. and Biber, D. 1988. On Course: California’s Success in Bilingual Education. Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.
Krashen, S., Tse, L., and McQuillan, J. (Eds.) 1998. Heritage Language Development. Culver City, CA: Language Education Associates.
Ramos, F., and Krashen, S. 1997. Success without bilingual education? Some European cases of de facto bilingual
education. CABE Newsletter 20,6:7,19.
Shin, F. and Kim, S. 1996. Korean parent perceptions and attitudes of bilingual
education. In R. Endo, C. Park, J. Tsuchida and A. Abbayani (Eds.) Current Issues in Asian and Pacific American education. Covina, CA: Pacific Asian Press.
Shin, F. and Gribbons, B. 1996. Hispanic parent perceptions and attitudes of
bilingual education. The Journal of Mexican American Educators, pp. 16-22.
Shin, F. and Lee, B. 1996. Hmong parents: What do they think about bilingual
education? Pacific Educational Research Journal, 8: 65-71.
Shin, F. Anton, M. and Krashen, S. 1999. K-12 Administrators’ views on bilingual education. NABE News 22(8):11-12,29.
Tse, L. 1997. A bilingual helping hand. Los Angeles Times, December 17, 1997.

Stephen Krashen is Professor of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. An earlier version of this paper was published in the Newsletter of the Texas Association for Bilingual Education (TABE News, 1999, volume 18, number 3).