Educating Limited English Proficient Children

Christine Rossell evaluates programs that are used to teach young learners whose first language is not English.

Transitional bilingual education is thought to be the superior method of educating limited English proficient children. In transitional bilingual education, the student is taught to read and write in the native tongue, with subject matter also taught in the native tongue. The second language (English) is initially taught for only a small portion of the day.

There are three other educational programs for instructing LEP children. The first of these is submersion or "sink-or-swim." In this model, the LEP child is placed in a regular English classroom with English monolingual children and given no more special help than any child with educational problems. A second alternative technique is English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction, which consists of regular classroom instruction for most of the day combined with a special pull-out program of English language instruction for one or two periods a day, or in some districts two or three periods a week, and participation in the regular classroom for the rest of the time.

A third alternative instructional technique is structured immersion where instruction is in the language being learned (in this country it is English) in a self-contained classroom of Limited English Pro-ficient (LEP) speakers. The second language used in these programs is always geared to the children's language proficiency at each stage, so that it is comprehensible and the student thus learns the second language and subject matter content simultaneously. This is the program that is required by Proposi-tion 227 in California (unless the parent visits the school and signs a waiver).

The majority of elementary bilingual education school programs have as their goal exiting a student after three years. But these programs also allow students to stay in the program longer than three years if they are judged to be below par in English language skills. Indeed, many Spanish speaking LEP children stay in bilingual programs throughout their elementary school career, but this is less a reflection of the program than it is of unattainable criteria (see Rossell and Baker, 1988; Ramirez, 1991; Rossell, 1992; Rossell, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2000d). Transitional bilingual education is less common once a child reaches the grade where departmentalization occurs (different subjects taught by different teachers) and the typical LEP child enters a regular English program at junior high school.

It is quite clear from my classroom visits over the last decade and a half, and from reading evaluation reports, that virtually the only children receiving native tongue instruction in the U.S. according to the theory - learning to read and write in the native tongue and learning subject matter in the native tongue - are His-panic children. This is because only Hispanic children are likely to have enough students speaking one language to fill a classroom and to have a teacher who is fluent in their na-tive tongue. They also have a Roman alphabet language similar to English, so many skills are transferable from one language to the other. If you can read in Spanish, you can read in English even if you do not understand what you are reading.

This is not true, however, of the non-Roman alphabet languages, which is one of several reasons why even if the program is called "bilingual," it is not taught in the same way as the Spanish bilingual programs - that is, learning to read and write in the native tongue and transitioning to English when native tongue literacy is achieved. The Asian, African, and European students in so-called bilingual education programs learn to read and write in English, exactly the opposite of the theory, and receive little native tongue instruction beyond learning the alphabet and a few words or phrases. Thus, claims for the success of Asians in bilingual education programs tell us nothing about the bilingual education received by the Spanish speakers. Indeed, the Asian and African bilingual education programs are generally closer to what is called structured immersion (that is, instruction in English in a self-contained classroom of LEP students), even though for political, legal, or funding reasons they may be described as "bilingual education." The European bilingual education programs (e.g. Russian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, etc.) stray even further afield from the theory. Many of them are simply regular classroom instruction with ESL pull-out support if needed. This lack of consistency in the treatment only complicates the issue of evaluating and analyzing the effects of bilingual education programs.

The research evidence on bilingual education - defined as learning to read and write in the native tongue and transitioning to English when native tongue literacy is achieved - indicates that bilingual education is not a superior form of instruction for LEP children. This conclusion comes from a research review conducted by Keith Baker and I (Rossell and Baker, 1996a; 1996b), updating our earlier reviews of the research on bilingual education - Baker and de Kanter (1981, 1983) and Rossell and Ross (1986). The total number of studies and books we have read on bilingual education now numbers ab-ove 500, of which 300 are program evaluations, in the sense that their purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness of transitional bilingual education or some other second language acquisition technique. Research findings of 300 program evaluations, we found 72 - about a quarter of the total - to be methodologically acceptable. Methodologically acceptable studies had treatment and control groups of the same ethnicity and similar language background. Students were assigned to these groups either randomly or matched on factors that influence achievement or these factors were statistically controlled for.

TBE Versus Doing Nothing
When we examined these scientific studies, we found that for second language reading, 22 percent of the studies showed transitional bilingual education to be superior, 33 percent showed it to be inferior, and 45 percent showed it to be no different from submersion - that is, doing nothing. Altogether, 78 percent of the studies showed TBE to be no different from or worse than the supposedly discredited submersion technique.

In a standardized achievement test of language, a test of a student's understanding of grammatical rules, transitional bilingual education does even worse than it does in reading. Seven percent of the studies show-ed transitional bilingual education to be superior, 64 percent showed it to be inferior, and 29 percent showed it to be no different from submersion - doing nothing. Altogeth-er, 93 percent of the studies showed TBE to be no different from or worse than doing nothing at all.

In math, nine percent of the studies show TBE to be superior, 35 percent show it to be inferior, and 56 percent show it to be no different from TBE. Altogether 91 percent of the studies showed it to be no different or worse than the supposedly discredited submersion technique in developing math proficiency.

TBE v. Structured Immersion
We also found some scientific studies that compared TBE to structured immersion. Most of these studies come from the Canadian immersion programs, which come in several carefully documented types__ early immersion (late bilingual); delayed immersion (early bilingual), dual immersion, and so forth. In many cases, we had to "translate" the programs into U.S. terminology. Twelve studies had reading outcomes, one study had language outcomes, and eight studies had math outcomes. No studies showed TBE to be superior to structured immersion in reading, language, or math. In reading, 83 percent of the studies showed TBE to be worse than structured immersion and 17 percent showed no difference. In language, the one study showed no difference. In math, five studies showed no difference and three studies showed TBE to be worse
than immersion.

Structured Immersion v. ESL
There were also three studies that compared structured immersion to ESL specifically. These studies all showed structured immersion to be superior to ESL in reading.

Conclusions
The results presented here suggest that the best program for second language learners is "structured immersion", where instruction is in English at a level the students can understand in a self-contained classroom consisting entirely of LEP students. This is the program that is required by Proposition 227 in California. Nevertheless, it cannot be emphasized enough that the research clearly shows, as with all other educational interventions, that the intervention itself is only one of many important factors explaining achievement. Indeed, the most important factors in a child's acquisition of English and other subjects are the child's family characteristics, his or her intelligence, the characteristics of his or her classmates, and the intelligence and talent of his or her teacher. For most students, at least in an educational system in which all programs ultimately provide substantial amounts of English, the exact percentage of each language has, on average, explained only a small portion of the variance in achievement.

For any single student, however, there could be serious consequences to having little English instruction. Substantially more studies show a harm to TBE, compared to all-English instruction, than show a benefit and this disparity increases when the all-English program is structured immersion. Thus, the risk of academic deficiency in English is greater for TBE than for all-
English instruction.

Nevertheless, transitional bilingual education as actually implemented is typically not a disaster, despite its potential to be so. The facilitation theory justifying bilingual education states that students must be taught to read and write in their native tongue until they reach proficiency in the native tongue (called the threshold effect) in order to achieve the highest level of cognitive development and English language achievement. This theory, if blindly followed, could result in a child never transitioning out of the native tongue and never learning English. Yet students in TBE do learn English and master content areas in English, although they may be behind their LEP schoolmates who are taught completely in English.

I suspect that the major reason why TBE is not more harmful is that many, if not most, bilingual education teachers are using common sense, rather than blindly following the theory. Instead of waiting until their students are proficient in reading and writing in their native tongue as the theory advocates, the average Spanish bilingual teacher transitions his or her students into English fairly quickly, including teaching subjects other than English in English.

Unfortunately, not all do. Moreover, al-though the LEP student may be instructed in English they could still be in a bilingual education classroom because they cannot get reclassified. This happens because the criterion for reclassification are unattainable for about 1/3 and more of all LEP students, no matter how good the program is (Rossell and Baker, 1988; Rossell, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2000d).

Transitioning to a mainstream classroom is an important part of the academic growth of an LEP child and it should occur sometime within the first year (Rossell, 2000c, 2000d). A self-contained classroom consisting only of limited English proficient students is a superior environment for an LEP child only when he or she literally knows no English because it is below grade level instruction. If the teacher is teaching in Spanish, they may be getting grade level instruction in non-language subjects (math, social studies, science), but they are way below grade level in English. If the teacher is teaching in English in a structured immersion classroom, he or she is teaching content at a slower pace because the students are assumed to not know English. If a student has been kept in these programs too long and they already understand English, they will be harmed by this slower pace.

In short, special education services can in fact harm students if they do not need the slower pace. Thus, structured immersion may be the best educational alternative for educating LEP children when they literally know no English, but any program that isolates LEP students from native English speakers is an inferior program once they can understand English. At that point in time, the mainstream classroom is a superior environment. Since we cannot rely on the tests that classify children LEP to either classify them correctly in the first place or to reclassify them properly, the default exit period from a self-contained classroom should be one year. This is the maximum amount of time LEP children will need to be isolated from English native speakers and the mainstream curriculum, although they may need, and if so should receive, extra help for their entire school career.

References

Baker, Keith & De Kanter, Adriana. 1981. The Effectiveness Of Bilingual Education Programs: A Review Of The Literature. Final Draft Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department Of Education.
Baker, Keith & De Kanter, Adriana. 1983. "Federal Policy And The Effectiveness Of Bilingual Education." In Keith A. Baker, Adriana A. De Kanter, Eds., Bilingual Education. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath And Company.
Ramirez, J., Yuen, S., Ramey, D., & Pasta, D. 1991. Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early-Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children, Vol. I. Prepared for U.S. Department of Education. San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International.
Ramirez, J., Pasta, D., Yuen, S., Billings, D., & Ramey, D. 1991. Final Report: Longitudinal Study of Structured English Immersion Strategy, Early-Exit and Late-Exit Transitional Bilingual Education Programs for Language-Minority Children, Vol. II. Prepared for U.S. Department of Education. San Mateo, CA: Aguirre International.
Rossell, Christine. 1992. "Nothing Matters? A Critique of the Ramírez, et al. Longitudinal Study of Instructional Programs for Language-Minority Children." Bilingual Research Journal 16(1&2):159-186.
Rossell, Christine. & Ross, J. Michael. 1986. "The Social Science Evidence On Bilingual Education." Journal Of Law And Education 15:385-419.
Rossell, Christine & Keith Baker. 1988. "Selecting And Exiting Students In Bilingual Education Programs." Journal Of Law And Education 17(4):589-23.
Rossell, Christine H. and Keith Baker. 1996. Bilingual Education In Massachusetts: The Emperor Has No Clothes. Boston, MA: Pioneer Institute.
Rossell, Christine H. 2000a "The Federal Bilingual Education Program: Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," in Brookings Papers on Education Policy, 2000, edited by Diane Ravitch, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2000: 215-244.
Rossell, Christine H. 2000b "Teaching Language Minorities: Theory and Reality," in City Schools: Lessons From New York, edited by Diane Ravitch and Joseph Viteritti, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: 187-218.
Rossell, Christine H. 2000c. Bilingual Education in California Pre and Post Proposition 227. Report to the Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco, CA.
Rossell, Christine H. 2000d. "Different Questions, Different Answers: A Critique Of The Hakuta, Butler And Witt Report, 'How Long Does It Take English Learners To Attain Proficiency?'," READ Perspectives,Volume VII, forthcoming October.

Christine H. Rossell, Political Science Department, Boston University.