# data[].attributes.body
Topic:  The inadequacies of the proper instruction, support, and material for ESL/bilingual education.

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: the fact that there is a national shortage of ELL teachers could be one of the key reasons as to why there is a major lack in instruction and support for ESL/Bilingual students

APA Citation:
Corey, M. (2018). The National Shortage of ELL Teachers Has Caught the Eye of Congress. Education Week. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2018/01/solve_ell_teacher_shortage.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A group of Democrats in Congress has introduced a bill designed to remedy the national shortage of teachers who work with English-language learners.

The Reaching English Learners Act would create a grant program under Title II of the Higher Education Act, the part of the law that governs teacher preparation, to pave the way for colleges and school districts to develop curricula for aspiring ELL teachers.

In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education reported that at least 32 states have a shortage of teachers to work with English-learners, but the problem is not new. School districts have struggled for decades to find qualified bilingual teachers, especially in communities where English is not the first language for many students.

With the nationwide growth in the number of English-language-learner students, more districts are tapping a thin talent pool-and challenges remain even after schools fill vacancies. A 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that teachers who work with English-learners are often underprepared for the job.

Democratic U.S. Reps. Alma Adams of North Carolina, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and Jim Langevin of Rhode Island co-sponsored the legislation. Adams, Espaillat, and Grijalva are all members of the House Education Committee. The lawmakers want the grants to help develop educators who can recognize and address the social-emotional needs of English-learners, identify and teach English-learner students with disabilities, and promote family and community engagement in ELL programs.

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, TESOL International Association, the organization for teachers who specialize in working with English-learners, and UnidosUS are among the organizations supporting the legislation.

Here's a look at the bill and a summary:

Reaching English Learners Act by corey_c_mitchell on Scribd

Reaching English Learners Act Summary by corey_c_mitchell on Scribd
Related Stories Policy Changes Could Solve the Nation's Bilingual Teacher Shortage, Group Argues Schools Are Falling Short for Many English-Learners Need for Bilingual Educators Moves School Recruitment Abroad Photo Credit: Teaching assistant Richard Nolasco listens to Joshua Flores and Ke'mari Barnes during their prekindergarten class at Tulsa's Dual Language Academy. The population of Oklahoma's second-largest school district has shifted dramatically in recent years, with nearly 1 in every 3 students coming from homes where Spanish is the primary language. --Shane Bevel for Education Week

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The National Shortage of ELL Teachers Has Caught the Eye of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A group of Democrats in Congress has introduced a bill designed to remedy the national shortage of teachers who work with English-language learners. The Reaching English Learners Act would create a grant program under Title II of the Higher Education Act, the part of the law that governs teacher preparation, to pave the way for colleges and school districts to develop curricula for aspiring ELL teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: discusses the different age groups of bilingual/esl students, solutions for teachers in order to help students become  more successful. Also explains the different types of instruction, and support and the problems that are faced with students and what teachers should do in order to help students.

APA Citation:
Bell, .D, &amp; Bogan, B.L. (2013). English Language Learners: Problems and Solutions Found in the Research of General Practitioners of Early Childhood. The Journal of Balanced Literacy Research and Instruction. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=jblri

# data[].attributes.body
José Cárdenas, Ed.D.
Notes:
He explains his main points of his article for the difficulties of ESL and bilingual education as:

Inadequacies of instructional materials

Premature transition to English limited use of the native language

Lack of language development opportunities

APA Citation:
Cardenas, J. Ed.D. (1993) Current Problems in Bilingual Education: Part I. IDRA. Retrieved from https://www.idra.org/resource-center/current-problems-in-bilingual-education-part-i/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In casual conversations, as well as in formal presentations, persons who are familiar with my twenty-five years of advocacy for bilingual education frequently ask me about the impact of bilingual education programs. "How successful has bilingual education been?" I am always tempted to respond, "I don't know. We have never tried it."
I am reluctant to use this response because in general bilingual programs have been very successful. But success has been severely limited by constraints in the implementation of the programs.

I see nothing wrong with the rationale of bilingual education, nor do I have any reservations about the soundness of the pedagogy. Unfortunately, as a program commonly externally imposed it has not received general acceptance by the education community. Bilingual programs are often reluctantly implemented, inadequately staffed, limited in resources and poorly administered.

The success of bilingual programs in this country would soar if attention were paid to problems in implementation. The following article describes ten of the most common problems found in bilingual education programs.

In its simplest form bilingual education is the use of two languages. In a more sophisticated context, such as an educational response to the problems of limited English proficient students in American schools, bilingual education is the use of the native language for instructional purposes while English is being learned as a second language.

Pedagogues tend to make the rationale of bilingual education unnecessarily complicated. Interrupting and delaying cognitive development and the acquisition of skills and knowledge until a new language is acquired is a waste of time and produces academic retardation and overagedness, which in turn produce under performance and a propensity for dropping out of school.

At periodic intervals I go out and buy a new suit. Invariably the new purchase has to be fitted and altered before it is delivered. It is unnecessary, undesirable and a waste of time for me to sit naked in my house for two or three weeks waiting for the new suit to be delivered. I continue going to work in my old clothes until such time as the new suit arrives. When it does arrive, I simple make the transition from my old suit to the new one, though I sometimes continue to use the old one for certain occasions.

I do not see the period of time in which I am waiting for my new suit to be delivered as the appropriate time to get my old suit dry cleaned, altered or repaired. Doing so would place me back in the house waiting for two suits with nothing to wear.

Using the old suit while waiting for the new one is neither unpatriotic nor divisive; it is simply practical. Contrary to pedagogical myths, wearing the old suit does not delay nor inhibit the delivery of the new one. The continued alternative use of the two suits presents no extensive dilemma, nor am I likely to become schizophrenic. I have developed sufficient judgment to determine which of the two suits to use in a specific social context.

In spite of almost twenty-five years of recent bilingual program implementation in the United States, the status of bilingual education is still unresolved. Though most studies of the impact of bilingual education indicate very positive findings, I am of the opinion that success is still constrained by limitations in program implementation. Having visited bilingual programs in many cities in a large number of states, and having continuous contact with bilingual education personnel throughout the country, I have observed many limitations of bilingual education programs which need to be addressed.

Lack of Language Development Opportunity

There exists an astounding relationship between language proficiency in general, and English language proficiency specifically, and language development activity in the classroom. As documented by research studies, students with the least oral language skills spend the most time in desk oriented, non-verbal instructional activity. The converse is also true, students with the most oral language skills spend the most time in verbal instructional activities.

Either in bilingual or monolingual programs, the most pressing need of limited English proficient children is language development. Since oral language development usually precedes written language development, written activity is relatively non-productive without the prerequisite oral language capability. In general, this need is not being met.

It is not unusual to visit a classroom with a large number of limited English proficient students in which there is a minimum of verbal communication. When asked what is the most pressing need of these students, teachers will invariably respond, "Lack of oral language development."

Limited Use of the Native Language

A few years ago, Dr. William Bennett, then Secretary of the Department of Education, criticized bilingual education programs as programs which did not teach the English language, used the native language exclusively for instructional purposes, and had instructional content composed only of learning the culture of the native language. In an article I wrote, and in a personal confrontation, I challenged the Secretary to identify one classroom in any public school in any city of the country in which there was native language utilization without English language instruction. The Secretary stated that I had misinterpreted his statement, though I had a copy of it released by his office, but he failed to identify any such program.

I knew that he couldn't, because I am certain that such a bilingual program does not exist. On the contrary, I could have similarly challenged the Secretary to identify a bilingual program in which the native language was being used extensively for instructional programs. In the infamous American Institute for Research study of bilingual education programs, more than half of the teachers with five or more years of experience as bilingual teachers indicated that they knew no language other than English. The shortage of bilingual teachers nationwide indicates that a large number of bilingual programs are staffed by monolingual teachers.

Premature Transition to English

Where bilingual programs actually use native language instruction, teachers are under tremendous pressures to make a premature transition into English language instruction or to exit the students from the bilingual program into regular English language classrooms.

Premature transitioning is forced by a shortage of bilingual teachers, opposition to bilingual education and early subject matter achievement testing in the English language. Extensive premature exiting from bilingual programs also results from the use of a student's facility with the English language in a social context rather than English language facility in an academic context.

When asked, "How long should a student stay in a bilingual education program?" I invariably respond, "As long as necessary." That is, as long as it takes to be assured that the student has sufficient English language mastery so that it is no longer a variable in the success/failure of basic skill and content material acquisition.

The length of time necessary in a bilingual program will vary from student to student, but the fact that English speaking children spend four or five years in English language acquisition in the home before facing academic tasks in school should be recognized.

Inadequacies of Instructional Materials

In spite of some investments into the development of bilingual instructional materials, there is still a marked shortage in the field. Early native language materials were usually obtained from foreign publishers. Though syntax and morphology were generally acceptable, the lexical characteristics and context of the materials were inappropriate, unfamiliar and confusing for the limited English proficient children raised in the U.S.

Textbook publishers have been reluctant to invest in the development of materials in any language other than English due to limited marketability. The same holds true for supplemental and reference materials. Aside from basic reading materials and basic arithmetic, very little is commercially available in support of bilingual education, especially for secondary students.

The lack of appropriate cultural representation in curriculum materials has also been a problem. Early publisher reaction to the need for such materials for use in bilingual and other multicultural programs left a lot to be desired. A common response was to use a little brown or black ink to give color to people in the pictures. This resulted in the typical minority family being made up of Father, Mother, Dick, Baby and their dog, Spot, with everyone including the dog having dark complexions.

Bilingual materials were prepared by an all White Anglo staff with a copy made available to a university foreign language professor for translation. I remember getting one such copy of a math workbook to be translated into Spanish in which the items for mathematical manipulation were creampuffs. One could conclude that there are dozens of Spanish translations for the word "creampuff," though I am prone to argue that there is no translation for the word "creampuff." Since the English version of the new curriculum was already complete, and the graphics already included the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of creampuffs, the inappropriateness of this pastry for translation resulted in a major disaster.

For the past twenty-five years, a significant part of a bilingual teacher's time has been spent scrounging for appropriate instructional materials in addition to the normal hours teachers spend in instructional and other duties.
Editor's Note: Part II of Dr. Cárdenas' article, a continued discussion of current problems in bilingual education and the author's conclusions, will appear in October's IDRA Newsletter. A nationally recognized education expert, Dr. José A. Cárdenas is founder and Director Emeritus of IDRA. Comments and questions may be directed to him via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.
[©1993, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the August 1993 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Current Problems in Bilingual Education: Part I - IDRA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by José Cárdenas, Ed.D. * IDRA Newsletter * August 1993 In casual conversations, as well as in formal presentations, persons who are familiar with my twenty-five years of advocacy for bilingual education frequently ask me about the impact of bilingual education programs. "How successful has bilingual education been?"

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: supports the lack of resources for esl/bilingual students and their education.
- Spanish speaking students
-lack of resources in the programs for these Spanish speaking students
(gives a good supporting example for proposal)

APA Citation: Cooley, M.E. (2014). The Effect of the Lack of Resources in Spanish for Students in Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs. The College at Brockport: State University of New York. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1392&context=ehd_theses

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: the different struggles in schools considering bilingual students and how different negatives in the schools effects these children:

For example: schools live by a standardized testing curriculum, its just as hard for English native speakers and even more difficult for ESL/emergent bilingual students.

ESL/bilingual students culture and language is also "exterminated" making them the victims.

APA Citation:
Sanz Rios, E. (2019).  The Overlooked Struggle of Bilingualism. Tedx Talks: YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbijUdgivQ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Overlooked Struggle of Bilingualism | Emilia Sanz Rios | TEDxPhillipsAcademyAndover

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: This is a teachers view and perspective on teaching English to English language learners here in the united states. this is a good source to support the way English should be taught coming from a teacher to understand what works best for these students.

APA Citation: Berwick, C. (2018). Teaching English Language Learners: A Complex Endeavor. Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-english-language-learners-complex-endeavor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Three middle-school-aged boys draw pictures in chalk on a blackboard on a bright Saturday afternoon. "Write the word below the drawing," I say. The word apple goes under the apple, tree under the tree. Afterward, they practice with vocabulary flashcards for a half hour. At a bathroom break, all three bolt down the hall in search of a soccer ball, teasing each other in Arabic.

They might be eager to learn English, too-but I feel I've lost them already.

The three are recent arrivals from war-torn Syria, and have been in the country for only a year. Though the civil war has raged since 2011 with more than 400,000 casualties and millions of refugees, these boys bear little obvious impact of the traumas they've been through and the elaborate screening process it took to get here-and we don't ask. In many ways, they seem like average tweens, enthusiastic and eager to learn.

As a teacher of high school English, I've decided to volunteer at an English as a second language (ESL) Saturday tutoring session, a program established in response to the growing community of refugees here in Jersey City. Despite my years of experience in the classroom, I'm finding out what ESL teachers everywhere know: that teaching English as a second language to students with varying levels of preparedness is a complex, and often stressful, endeavor. Good intentions aren't enough.

America's Future Classrooms

Newcomer English language learners (ELLs) with interrupted educations have distinct challenges-among them jumping into an upper grade with few formal school skills, living in households with unstable incomes, or coping with buried traumas-but in many ways, they mirror the future of classrooms in America.

The impact on the U.S. school system has been vast. From coast to coast, in both large cities like Los Angeles and smaller towns like Troy, Michigan, and Lewiston, Maine (population 36,000), there has been an influx of ELL students and families who speak a bewilderingly wide range of languages- from Creole to Tagalog and Urdu.

Understandably, schools are struggling to comprehend the scope of the issue and provide timely solutions. For teachers on the front lines like me, answers aren't coming fast enough. Research on the topic is limited, and many of the recommended pedagogies for teaching in a classroom with a wide range of languages and proficiency levels are new and untested. And the added pressure of helping students, especially older ELLs, meet grade-level content standards can feel like salt in the wound.

There are some promising efforts in the works, though. A few districts have created separate schools solely for ELLs, while others have opted to offer bilingual instruction as early as preschool. Many have responded by hiring more ESL teachers and adding full immersion classes where ELLs learn alongside native English speakers. And in a handful of states, including New York, Arizona, and California, every teacher is now required to have coursework or professional development in teaching English as a second language.

But I'm thinking back to my kids-the third grader who hadn't learned to grasp a pencil and the outwardly confident ninth grader who was hesitant to expose his difficulty reading aloud. I started teaching English as a second language with very little to go on, just optimism in the sponge-like minds of the students and simple, seemingly obvious tips like "speak slowly" and "use visuals."

There must be a better way. So I set out to find what experts and other schools suggested for teaching ELLs.

Set High Expectations, San Francisco

The experts I talked with agree that it's critical to keep expectations high for ELLs-even if at first they seem unattainable.

"What traditionally has happened for ELLs in many systems is that they are not afforded or invited to participate," explained Maria Santos, a director at the research group WestEd and co-chair of the Understanding Language project at Stanford University. "There are some systems that say once they get enough English, then they can enter core academic courses. We are saying, 'No, they have to be involved from day one.'"

What traditionally has happened for ELLs in many systems is that they are not afforded or invited to participate.

At San Francisco International High School, all students are non-native English speakers and take regular high school classes that use teaching techniques specifically geared toward ELLs. The school is dedicated solely to newcomers, but is just one of many options for students who are still learning English in the highly diverse, 56,000-student San Francisco district-a "multiple pathways" approach representative of the options available to ELLs throughout other states.
Courtesy of Marble Hill High
While experts such as Santos recommend that ELLs be integrated with native English speakers in regular classrooms, San Francisco International High School teachers say that for many older newcomers, a school devoted solely to ELLs provides students the support they need to build confidence as they continue to learn both English and academic content.

Critical to the mission of San Francisco International is the notion that every teacher is a "teacher of language" who embeds English language learning within a traditional high school curriculum, rather than separately, says the principal, Julia Kessler. "Our students don't have time to learn English and then do high school."

And, just as importantly, when a student struggles, teachers still give them assignments that keep them challenged.

"If the student doesn't have the language to read the New York Times article the rest of the class is reading, that doesn't mean give them a children's book," Kessler says.

Meet Students Halfway, New York City

When those high expectations meet with tailored instruction, new English learners can pick up both content and language skills with surprising speed. In a recent session of Christopher Benson's AP U.S. History class at Marble Hill High School for International Studies, a public school in the Bronx set high above the Harlem River, students reviewed for an upcoming test by going over sample AP questions.

At one table, I observe four girls discussing a text by George Washington warning against the rise of political parties. "What does sectionalism mean?" one girl asked. "It's like dividing," another answered. When the whole class reconvened, students discussed a historian's interpretation of Columbus-deciding to agree with an answer from a student who did not speak English just three years ago.

Half of all students at Marble Hill High School are English language learners and 90 percent are low-income, yet 93 percent graduate within four years. Last year, the school was highlighted by Stanford University's Understanding Language group as one of six "schools to learn from."

The teachers go all the way to make sure you understand things.

At Marble Hill, all teachers receive training in strategies for ELLs. Staff members regularly review data together to catch any students in need of extra support and help ensure students grasp concepts by focusing lessons on grade-level skills and then modifying content to address any language gaps.

In an inclusion ninth-grade biology class for ELL and native English speakers, for example, a teacher helped students write up a lab report by providing a worksheet with prompts suggesting an appropriate verb or chemical substance, much like in Mad Libs. In a history class, the teacher used T-charts and sentence stems to help students develop a strong thesis for an essay about the French Revolution.

The teachers and the community building at Marble High are key reasons students say they select and stick with it.

A junior named Luis, who arrived from the Dominican Republic as a freshman and spoke no English, said the first school he tried in the district was "like a jail," and he didn't learn much. "At Marble Hill High, several teachers stay after school to work with students," he says.

"The teachers go all the way to make sure you understand things," adds Mohamadou, a senior.

In my Saturday class, Arabic is the lingua franca, although a few students only speak Tigrinya, a language spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Students begin at varying levels and then come and go depending on the week. We never know how many might show up. To keep them returning, we offer rides and try online sign-ups and text message reminders.

But we've also had to consider what newcomers might want from an English language class, which could be as something as simple as talking to them about things they know and care about, say educators like Darren Chase, an ELL teacher with New Design High School in New York City.

As the main ELL teacher for around two dozen students, Chase says he tries to get his students talking about anything he can-breakfast, the weather, sports-so they keep practicing their language skills.

It's so easy for an English learner to hide in the margins and get home and realize they spoke no English that day at school.

"It comes naturally to a teacher to want to talk and explain, but it's important to turn around that dynamic for ELLs," says Kessler. "It's so easy for an English learner to hide in the margins and get home and realize they spoke no English that day at school."

So in a recent Saturday class, my colleagues and I put aside the flashcards and coursebooks, and instead give the students sample dialogues to help them write their own conversation scripts on a topic of choice.

One boy writes about shopping for soccer gear with his favorite professional player, who suggests buying goalie gloves as well as cleats. I ask questions about the details, while helping fill in words when he struggles to finish a sentence. In between, we talk about an Egyptian fish restaurant around the corner. He and his friends tell me it's good, but not like food from Syria.

The oldest boy in the class chimes in, explaining that the Egyptians in Jersey City must have had to leave their country because they "did bad things," he says, as he searches for the precise words to explain power, discrimination, flight, and exile.

It strikes me then that one day this student could become a politician, a lawyer, or anything he wants-once he learns his new language, he'll have the words to describe his own history, and a better chance to plot the course of his own future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching English Language Learners: A Complex Endeavor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A teacher seeks out the best approaches to teaching English to non-native speakers, the fastest growing student population in the U.S.

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: This article explains how not only do esl/bilingual emergent students need help learning English, they also need assistance with their own native language (depending on the age) due to the fact that when these students arrive in these classrooms, their native language is "forgotten". This is something that needs to be seriously understood. Considers the inadequacies of instruction and support.

APA Citation: Levitan, J. (2015). Bilingual Students Need Support in Their Native Language. Education Week: Center For Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/05/13/bilingual-students-need-support-in-their-native.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Commentary
"La idea de no tener una lengua materna me preocupa. ¿Es como sentirte un nómada dentro de tu propia cabeza? No me puedo imaginar no tener palabras en las que refugiarme. Ser huérfana de lengua."
"The idea of having no native language worries me. Would you feel like a nomad inside your own head? I cannot imagine having no words that are home. A language orphan."

-Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone

A majority of the young people in schools where I have worked speak a different language at home than they do at school. In my work in Boston, New York City, and Baltimore, I have seen school policies respond to the bilingual abilities of young people as a strength, as a deficiency, or as something to be ignored.

When I was working at a middle school in Boston, I had a student named Samuel who had recently moved to the neighborhood from El Salvador. His status as an English-language learner required that he be pulled from class on a regular basis to learn English. A very confident and engaged learner and reader in Spanish, Sammy struggled to find his way in this new school. In the classes in which English was the medium of instruction, he had difficulty understanding content and instruction and started seeing himself as a "dumb" kid, instead of the bright student that he is. The school staff and the teachers were supportive, but all of their instruction, as dictated by state policy, was geared toward teaching him to be "proficient" in English, so that he could enter the English-only classroom.

This state policy is in alignment with the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act's language policy, "to prepare limited-English-proficient children ... to enter all-English instruction settings."

Samuel's linguistic abilities in Spanish were not valued under this policy. (Massachusetts does have a waiver law to place students in a bilingual classroom, but the process is difficult, and schools and parents are often ill-equipped to secure the waiver.) So, Samuel's fluency in Spanish was treated as a deficiency for his learning in English. Soon, he came to see his language abilities as a deficiency, too.

Later in my career, I worked at a dual-language middle school in New York's Bronx borough. This school taught many bilingual students, along with foreign-language Spanish-learners. In classes, we alternated the language of instruction weekly between English and Spanish. One of my students, James, was really proud of his bilingual abilities. He once told me that he felt smart because he was able to learn English and Spanish, and his mother was also teaching him Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico. His first language was Spanish, and, like Samuel, he had moved to the United States near the end of elementary school.

James thrived in this dual-language school. Although it took him some time to learn English, he was able to gain confidence by learning in Spanish while developing his skills in both that language and English. Eventually, he was able to speak, read, and write eloquently in both languages. In fact, from this public middle school in the South Bronx, James won a scholarship to a prestigious public high school. His favorite subjects are math and science.

Research demonstrates that the experiences of Samuel and James reflect important truths about learning and language. For educational researchers and psychologists, the development of a student's first language is critical to his or her development of high proficiency in a second language. Last year, the researchers Jim Cummins and Merril Swain republished their influential book Bilingualism in Education, which gives an overview-and what they consider the general consensus-of linguistic research on learning. Developing both languages of a young bilingual child, they find from their analysis, is ideal for learning not only reading, writing, and verbal communications, but also other cognitive tasks.

Supporting ELL students' first languages has other benefits. In a speech in February, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that foreign-language learning and the development of other skills not directly related to reading and math are "essentials, not luxuries" for public education. The contradiction here is stark: We have new Americans who already speak a "foreign language" that would provide the nation with greater international competitiveness in business and a useful edge in geopolitics, yet these students are hampered in developing those skills by state and national education policies. Without actively and continuously cultivating bilingual skills in bilingual students, we are limiting our nation's language resources.

Although there are reasons for disagreement on language issues in policy debates, there are two important points that teachers and schools should consider when thinking about English-language learners:

* Multiple language abilities are a resource for all students. Instead of viewing students who do not speak English as a first language as deficient, we should help students develop both first-language skills and English skills.

* Learning is improved when students are able to build upon what they already know. Students who are learning English will learn that language better, along with other subjects, if they also learn in their first languages simultaneously.

As we, as a nation, discuss the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and as state legislatures work to improve the education of our youths, we should pay attention to the policies being proposed for English-language learners.

For Samuel, I know that his experience and learning outcomes in school would have been much better if state policy had allowed for continuous education in Spanish, instead of trying to push him into an English-only classroom. The school had the personnel resources needed, but was limited in what it could do because of policy. Policies that provide schools with the opportunities to do what is best for their students, including providing bilingual developmental instruction, are policies that allow teachers to make professional decisions based on research.

The way in which we feel and think is mediated by language. I know that no matter how fluent I am in Spanish, my deepest thinking happens in English (my first language). If I were not able to work from my strength in English and bring those skills to learning Spanish, I would not have been able to learn Spanish well, or quickly.

For Samuel, the pressure to get him into an English-only classroom took his innate intelligence and curiosity and made him a learning orphan. In the future, smarter language policies would make Samuel, and countless others like him, feel at home in either language.

Published in Print: May 13, 2015, as Language-Learning Orphans Embracing Students' Bilingual Abilities

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Back to Top

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bilingual Students Need Support in Their Native Language

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Commentary "La idea de no tener una lengua materna me preocupa. ¿Es como sentirte un nómada dentro de tu propia cabeza? No me puedo imaginar no tener palabras en las que refugiarme. Ser huérfana de lengua." "The idea of having no native language worries me. Would you feel like a nomad inside your own head?

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: This is the second citation relating to resource 1.
He talks about the problems and struggles for students, teachers, and families when it comes to learning English as a second language.

APA Citation: Cardenas, J. Ed.D. (1993) Current Problems in Bilingual Education: Part II. IDRA. Retrieved from https://www.idra.org/resource-center/current-problems-in-bilingual-education-part-ii/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lack of Bilingual Teacher Training

In the late 1960s it was common practice to assign teachers to bilingual education programs with little preparation in the use of bilingual materials and methodologies. It was not unusual for the bilingual teachers to be the only staff in the school that could communicate with students and parents in the native language.

The evaluation of bilingual education conducted by the American Institute of Research (AIR), indicated that almost one-half of the teachers studied had received less than 3 days of bilingual education training over a five-year span.

Although there has been such improvement in the pre-service and in-service training of bilingual education personnel, needs assessment in bilingual education still points to teacher training as a critical need.

Lack of Administrative Support

As a new superintendent in
the Edgewood school district in San Antonio in 1969, I implemented one of the earliest bilingual education programs in Texas, recruiting two teachers to initiate a bilingual program in one of the elementary schools. After the first day of school, both teachers were back in my office.
"The principal said that if the superintendent wanted to implement a bilingual education program in the district, he would go along with you and do it. But he also said, 'If I catch either of you teachers speaking to class in a language other than English, I will see to it that both of you are fired!'"

This lack of administrative support continues today and can be measured by the resources allocated in support of bilingual programs. For years, the Texas system of school finance provided additional funding in the Foundation School Program in support of bilingual education. School districts received an additional 10% of the basic program allotment for each student in a bilingual or English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program. However, state law did not require that these funds be expended in support of bilingual or ESL programs. When advocates of bilingual education succeeded in getting the Texas Legislature to amend the law and require that these "bilingual funds" be expended in support of bilingual programs, there was an outcry from school administrators. Superintendents stood in line to testify in Austin as to the hardship imposed by requiring that bilingual education funds be spent on educational programs for limited-English-proficient and language minority students.

Failure to Use the Vernacular

The rationale for bilingual education is based on the use of native language for continuous growth while English is being acquired as a second language. Initial efforts were constrained, and are still constrained, by the lack of a large pool of trained teachers competent in the student?s native language and a virtual void of instructional materials in languages other than English. In Texas, instead of addressing the massive pool of native language speakers and facilitating their entry into the teaching profession, the educational leadership opted for two approaches that proved counterproductive. One was to develop other language facility among English speaking teachers and the other involved the massive importation of Spanish speaking teachers from other countries.

The state education agency was assured by a professor of Romance languages, that native-like proficiency could be developed in English speaking teachers in one hundred hours of Spanish language instruction. Unfortunately, supporters of this plan grossly underestimated the amount of time necessary for the acquisition of native-like proficiency. The teachers enrolled, subsequently labeled "One Hundred Hour Wonders," did not develop the extensive proficiency necessary to be able to present academic work in Spanish.

It is interesting that teachers who expect students to acquire in a few weeks sufficient proficiency in the English language in order to handle academic work in that language, failed to acquire similar proficiency in one hundred hours of instruction - nor even in two hundred hours of instruction when signed up for a second round in the program.

This approach was eventually dropped, but the state education agency continued to impede the preparation of bilingual teachers by the use of a culturally-biased test used as the sole criterion for entry into teacher preparation programs. As a result of poor performance on the test, large numbers of Hispanics were precluded from enrolling in teacher training programs. The agency defended this barrier in the courts until the test was replaced by another measure. It is ironic that following years of such exclusionary tactics, the state education agency subsequently identified a lack of minority teachers as one of the schools' foremost problems.

The second approach, still in use, is to import teachers from the various parts of the Spanish-speaking world and place them as teachers in bilingual education programs. This approach presents many problems. First, many imported teachers do not have the necessary English language skills to present the English acquisition portion of the bilingual curriculum. Second, the teachers' pronunciation and vocabulary vary from the children's vernacular, so the students find themselves in trilingual situations, where the English language is taught, instruction is in a version of their native language that they can't understand, and the student?' vernacular is ignored.

This trilingual fiasco still manifests itself, not only with the continued recruitment of teachers from other parts of the world, but with the use of local teachers who insist on "purity of language" and believe that Castillian Spanish is the only correct language for use in the classroom. Since the rationale for bilingual education is continuity of cognitive growth while English is being acquired, the use of a dialect unfamiliar to the students defeats the purpose of native language use. With all due respect to the Royal Academy of Spain, the "correct" form of a language is the form that best facilitates communication.

The maintenance and improvement of the native language is a desirable, but separate, aspect of bilingual education. Such instruction can be readily justified in that the acquisition of second or "foreign" languages has been an educational objective in America since colonial days. It seems odd that we would seek to eradicate student native-like proficiency in a language, only to introduce it as a foreign language after the student has lost such proficiency.

Xenophobia

Language incompatibilities have not been readily perceived as a problem by the schools which tend to present instruction in the English language with little regard for the consequences for non-English speaking children. After all, it took nine justices of the United States Supreme Court in the unanimous decision in Lau v. Nichols to inform the education authorities of the San Francisco Unified School District that if 1,800 children spoke Chinese and no English, and the teachers spoke English and no Chinese, the schools had an educational problem. Typically, the San Francisco district readily responded that the problem was not theirs, the problem was with the children who did not speak English. If the students wanted to benefit from school, it was their responsibility to learn the English language. It was necessary for the Supreme Court to point out that a desire to learn the English language was one basic reason for the children being sent to school.

Progress in the implementation of bilingual programs suffered an abrupt reversal due to the political and public manifestation of the xenophobic characteristic of a large number of Americans, whose distrust and fear of foreigners led to a strong, organized counter-offensive against the use of any language but English in American schools. The original attack was organized by Senator Hayakawa from California and flourished as a new form of McCarthyism with tendrils reaching all the way to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Secretary of Education.

In spite of the successes of bilingual education and the extensive assimilation of students previously in bilingual programs, xenophobic attacks continue with extensive dissemination of negative propaganda based on distortions, misconceptions and misinformation. These attacks, waged in the name of "cohesiveness of culture" and "protection of the American way of life," are unfounded and, in essence, denigrate the important contributions immigrant groups have made to this country.

Low Expectations

One of the most serious failures of American schools has been their inability to distinguish between the unique characteristics of atypical populations and a lack of mental capability. Much of the poor performance by minority, disadvantaged, migrant and immigrant school populations comes about by their placement in remediation programs which are low-level, slow-paced, repetitious, boring and self-fulfilling.

Lack of English language competency is commonly seen as lack of mental competency, especially so when the determinants of mental capability are developed, normed, administered, scored and interpreted solely in the English language. Though civil rights legislation requires the determination of lack of English language skills prior to placement in bilingual programs, there is a marked danger that the bilingual program is seen by the school as just another remedial or special education program for low mental capability students. Unfortunately, teachers, parents and the students themselves internalize these low levels of expectancy and convert them into continuous low levels of performance.

Rules and Regulations

The implementation of bilingual education programs has been accompanied by a host of rules and regulations governing the programs which have served to impede greater success.

Such rules and regulations become a handicap for the successful implementation of the program. Such restrictions may affect teacher characteristics, language to be used, the relationship between sources of funding and the role of the teacher and paraprofessional staff, limitations on the use of the native language, and many others.

If schools are to succeed, we must address these problems in the implementation of bilingual programs and expand the educational opportunities for a large segment of the school population, our limited-English-proficient and language minority students.

A nationally-recognized education expert, Dr. José A. Cárdenas is founder and Director Emeritus of IDRA. Dr. Cárdenas is currently working on a multi-volume compilation of his forty years of writings about public education in the United States. Comments and questions may be directed to him via e-mail at feedback@idra.org.

Editor's Note: This is the final installment of Dr. Cárdenas' article which began in the September 1993 IDRA Newsletter. In the introduction in Part I, Dr. Cárdenas asserted that "the success of bilingual programs in this country would soar if attention were paid to problems in implementation." Part II continues his discussion of ten current challenges to the implementation of quality bilingual education programs in public schools.

[©1993, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the September 1993 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Current Problems in Bilingual Education: Part II - IDRA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the late 1960s it was common practice to assign teachers to bilingual education programs with little preparation in the use of bilingual materials and methodologies. It was not unusual for the bilingual teachers to be the only staff in the school that could communicate with students and parents in the native language.

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: one of the biggest inadequacies of teaching bilingual emergent/esl students in the united states is the shortage of bilingual teachers. it supports other articles where students native languages turn out to be "forgotten" because they aren't taught their own native language either.

APA Citation: Language Magazine (2019). The Bilingual Teacher Shortage: A Vicious Shortage. Retrieved from https://www.languagemagazine.com/2019/06/14/the-bilingual-teacher-shortage-a-vicious-cycle/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Allison Briceño, Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, and Claudia Rodríguez-Mojica present reasons and suggest solutions for the chronic shortage of Spanish/English educators in California
It is an exciting time for bilingual education in California due to changing political tides and recent research. Proposition 58, which passed in November 2016 with 73% voter approval, repealed the limitations placed on bilingual education by Proposition 227 in 1998. The English Learner Roadmap, adopted by the California Board of Education in July 2017, recognizes both the importance of multilingual education and the assets that multilingual students and their families bring to schools. It requires schools to provide all students access to appropriate, challenging curriculum, including languages other than English.

Additionally, dual language (DL) programs are extremely popular and have emerged as the most effective programs for multilingual students' academic success (Lindholm-Leary and Hernández, 2011; Steele et al., 2017; Valentino and Reardon, 2014). As a result, recruiting and preparing bilingual teachers has become a matter of social justice.

However, the political movement toward English-only education of the previous 20 years has resulted in bilingual teachers becoming "an endangered species" (Katz, 2004, p. 147). The current dearth of bilingual teachers could inhibit the opportunity for growth in bilingual education programs. There are many Spanish speakers in the U.S. who could become bilingual teachers; how do we bring them into the bilingual teacher pipeline (Katz, 2004)? To begin to answer this question, we recently researched how heritage Spanish-speaking (HSS) preservice teachers' beliefs about language influenced their choice to enter bilingual or English-only teacher preparation programs.
A Vicious Cycle
Guerrero and Guerrero (2008) labeled the bilingual teacher shortage a "vicious cycle." Without access to bilingual education, how can we develop bilingual teachers? The bilingual teacher shortage is a result of the way we "do school" in the U.S. The linguistic and cultural hegemony in schools limits access to home-language development, resulting in home-language loss and English dominance regardless of home language (Guerrero, 2003).

Furthermore, a perceived binary between academic and conversational language may be misleading (Alvarez, 2012; Aukerman, 2007; Valdés, Capitelli, and Alvarez, 2011), causing speakers to question whether their language is "academic" enough (Guerrero, 2003; Musanti, 2014).

Valdés (2001) argued that the "idealized, perfectly balanced bilingual is for the most part a mythical figure that rarely exists in real life" (p. 40). Instead, bilingualism (Valdés, 2001) and biliteracy (Hornberger and Link, 2012) exist on dynamic, shifting continua. Yet bilinguals speaking nonprestige or stigmatized language varieties are often associated with lower socioeconomic status (Valdés, 2001).
The Study
We interviewed eleven HSS college graduates enrolled in teacher credential programs at three universities in California. At the time of this study, two of the universities offered a bilingual authorization pathway (BAP) and one of the universities had not yet started offering the BAP option. We drew HSS participants from both the bilingual and English-only teaching credential pathways.

Five of the teacher candidates were in bilingual authorization programs and six were in English-only teaching credential programs; all were considering becoming bilingual teachers. Nine participants were born in the U.S. and two were born in Mexico. We interviewed each participant individually for 25 to 40 minutes and followed a constant comparative method (Charmaz, 2006) to analyze data. The audio files of each interview were coded by two researchers using software, recursively, in multiple phases.
Living-and Overcoming-the Vicious Cycle
Our study identified two obstacles to, and one primary reason for, HSS participants' entry into bilingual teaching. First, many participants were unaware that teaching in a bilingual setting was an option. Second, the HSS participants were concerned about

their academic Spanish after being told by schools, in various ways, to leave their Spanish at home.

The HSS participants who were planning to become bilingual teachers shared a focus on equity and wanted future generations of Latinx children to have better schooling experiences than they had (Irizarry and Donaldson, 2012).
"No Me Acuerdo Haber Escuchado de Programas Bilingües." (I Don't Remember Having Heard about Bilingual Programs.)
Having attended school under Proposition 227, which strictly limited bilingual education options in California, most preservice teachers had been immersed in monolingual English schooling systems and were unaware that their linguistic assets were needed and wanted in bilingual education. Eight of the eleven preservice teachers did not know they could become bilingual teachers and, consequently, initially entered monolingual teacher preparation programs. They often learned that they could acquire a bilingual authorization at the program orientation. For example, Maritza said, "It was just at orientation for the program that I knew it was an option." Similarly, Angelina stated, " El programa ofrecía una extensión bilingüe, yo no me acuerdo haber escuchado de programas bilingües." ("The program offered a bilingual authorization, I don't remember having heard about bilingual programs.") Echoing the first two participants, Clarisa mentioned, "Once I started at [university name], that's when I found out that I could get a credential and at the same time get that bilingual certification." Sara was prompted by a professor to consider becoming a bilingual teacher and said, "Honestly, had I not had [name] as a professor, I would have ended up as an English-only teacher." Clearly, more information about pathways to becoming bilingual educators is needed in K-12, community college, and university settings.
"I Didn't Get a Chance to Learn Academic Spanish."
As graduates of U.S. colleges, the participants felt confident in their academic English; however, most were concerned about their academic Spanish-language skills. Speaking colloquial registers of Spanish at home that have been perceived as marking lower socioeconomic backgrounds, many participants took advanced Spanish classes to learn "academic Spanish," but those classes invalidated their home language in favor of textbook language. For instance, Janet took Spanish classes in high school to learn what she understood as "appropriate Spanish or correct Spanish." She stated, "The Spanish that I thought was Spanish growing up was totally incorrect and improper... and that's where the self-esteem issues came. I started feeling like what I had learned was totally incorrect."Like Janet, many participants came from lower SES backgrounds and were therefore concerned that their Spanish was not good enough to qualify them as teachers.

The HSS participants also worried about whether the particular variety of Spanish they spoke was the "right" Spanish, and they expressed concern about using regional vocabulary that is not shared widely across Spanish-speaking countries.

Maritza commented: "I sometimes feel a little uncomfortable because I learned Spanish at home, and I didn't get a chance to learn academic Spanish, or because my family's Spanish is very regional.

There are many Spanishes spoken all over the world and within the U.S., yet Maritza expressed concern that her family's Spanish was not the " right"Spanish. Rather than recognizing it as language variation, she used a binary measure of "right" and "wrong" and assumed that since she learned Spanish from her family and not in an academic setting, it must be wrong. Ironically, participants were unable to define "standard Spanish," yet they were concerned that their Spanish was not standard and was insufficient. When pressed, Joel vaguely referred to Spain's Real Academia.Angelina simply said, " No sé que es el español estándar. " ("I don't know what standard Spanish is.")

With the exception of one participant who had attended a dual-language program, the HSS participants unanimously referred to the start of school in the U.S. as the beginning of their Spanish language loss, reflecting Guerrero and Guerrero's (2008) vicious cycle of linguistic hegemony. Many HSS participants had been classified as English language learners (ELLs) when they were in school.

One noted the irony, stating, " Yo fui uno de esos English language learners, o antes se decía ESL (English as a second language)... ahora soy un SL, Spanish learner. "("I was one of those English language learners (ELLs), or they used to say ESL (English as a second language), now I'm an SL, Spanish learner.") Rather than developing HSS participants' first language, the English-only emphasis of U.S. schools led to home-language loss and the perceived need for re-education in Spanish.

The HSS participants who were considering becoming bilingual teachers were concerned with educational equity and viewed bilingual education as a form of advocacy and agency (Dubetz and de Jong, 2011). Griselda commented, "Bilingual education is a push toward a more equitable education system, and I think being part of that is a constant reminder of wanting equity in education." Griselda understood how developing a greater appreciation of bilingualism and participating in a school system that values multiple languages would be supportive of Latinx students and families.

Similarly, when asked about his decision to become a bilingual teacher, José also considered equity for the Latinx community: "That [decision] was partly equity focused, because I know that a lot of students don't have English as a first language and a lot of those students are Spanish speaking... Bilingual classrooms help with that. And just having a teacher who understands their language would also help the student, and also the parents. The communication between the teacher and the parents is so important."

José identified the ability of both parents and teachers to better support students when the language barrier is removed.

The participants understand that bilingualism is an asset in very personal ways; they live bilingualism and recognize that it is a generally unacknowledged strength Latinx students bring to school. As Maritza said, "I would want to teach in a bilingual [setting] because I'd be so aware of tipping the balance in another way for minority languages, even though it's not a minority ( laughs)." Despite the large number of Spanish speakers in the U.S., and particularly in California, Spanish still suffers from minority language treatment-it is undervalued due to its speakers' lack of political power in the U.S. The participants in this study perceived bilingual education, and their future role as bilingual teachers, as one lever to improve the educational opportunities for Latinx students.
Moving Forward
In summary, a monolingual education system played a role in participants' questioning of their Spanish abilities, as their bilingualism was not viewed as an asset and was not developed in school. Instead, when many enrolled in advanced Spanish courses, their home language was, perhaps inadvertently, denigrated as "slang," "regional," or "totallyincorrect," resulting in feelings of inadequacy that may have negatively influenced their decision to teach in a bilingual setting. Yet the opportunity to ensure that future generations of Latinx students do not suffer what they did attracts them to the field of bilingual education.

Since schools serve linguistically and racially diverse students, it is imperative that they adopt policies and practices that validate HSS participants' home language and culture.

Pre-K-12 language classes, college coursework, and teacher preparation (not only bilingual but all teacher preparation) should address critical sociolinguistic concepts that explore the relationships between language, race, and ethnicity in education. Similar concepts should also be embedded in administrators' preparation if they are to effectively lead bilingual schools and support bilingual teachers' implementation of theoretically

grounded practice.

Understanding that every speaker of a language speaks a variety of that language, and that language varieties are not inherently "bad" or "good," could help heritage speakers view their home language as legitimate and potentially reduce the number of bilingual youth who steer away from the bilingual teaching profession due to concerns regarding their variety of Spanish.

State and national policies that support and incentivize bilinguals to become teachers are needed (Hopkins, 2013; Musanti, 2014; Ocasio, 2014); our goal should be to develop a self-sustaining ecosystem of multilingual future educators who legitimize students' home language practices so that those students might consider becoming bilingual teachers in the future.

Allison Briceño, EdD, is assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at San José State University, CA, where she coordinates the reading specialist credential/MA program. Dr. Briceño's research centers on improving literacy instruction for English learners and bilingual students.

Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, PhD, is affiliated facultyat San José State University. His current research projects focus on critical pedagogy and the development critical language awareness in (bilingual) teachers. He has engaged with districts in the design and implementation of dual-immersion programs and the support of emergent bilinguals.

Claudia Rodríguez-Mojica, PhD, is assistant professor of education and bilingual teacher education coordinator at Santa Clara University, CA. She has been working to improve the academic outcomes of emergent bilinguals for more than ten years.

For more information about this study, please see: Briceño, A., Rodriguez-Mojica, C., and Muñoz-Muñoz, E. (2018). "From English Learner to Spanish Learner: Raciolinguistic beliefs that influence heritage Spanish speaking teacher candidates." Language and Education, 32(3), 212-226. DOI: 10.1080/09500782.2018.1429464

Reoriented from the Multilingual Educator, March 2019, with permission from the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Bilingual Teacher Shortage: A Vicious Cycle - Language Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Allison Briceño, Eduardo Muñoz-Muñoz, and Claudia Rodríguez-Mojica present reasons and suggest solutions for the chronic shortage of Spanish/English educators in California It is an exciting time for bilingual education in California due to changing political tides and recent research. Proposition 58, which passed in November 2016 with 73% voter approval, repealed the limitations placed on bilingual [...]

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: The pros and cons of bilingual education here in the united states and more of the fact that teachers should focus on quality rather than the language being instructed to esl/bilingual learners. (this is a more statistically inclined article).

APA Citation: Chin, A. (2015). Impact of Bilingual Education on Student Achievement. World of Labor IZA: University of Houston. Retrieved from https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/131/pdfs/impact-of-bilingual-education-on-student-achievement.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Notes: this article explains how the inadequate approaches mostly used in the united states for bilingual/esl students is teachers who are unprepared standardize the language for their students. This is a negative impact that needs to end. this also explains w2hat teachers can do in order to prevent the standardized methods and what is the best way for teaching these students.

APA Citation: Obeso, O. (2019). Stop Trying to Standardize Your Students' Language. Education Week: Center For Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from Stop Trying to Standardize Your Students' Language (Opinion) (edweek.org)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Opinion

Too often, teachers suppress valuable language diversity

A few weeks ago, at a central Los Angeles after-school homework club full of students who were bilingual in Spanish and English, I asked a young girl I was working with if she spoke Spanish. "¿Hablas español?" She responded casually, "No, pero mi mamá habla español." No, but my mom speaks Spanish. Amused by the response, I reflected on my instinct to classify her language in to separate categories in the first place. We as students and teachers internalize an instinct to classify language as either/or: as English or Spanish, as good or bad, as correct or poor form. These classifications end up reinforcing deficit views of students who aren't monolingual, middle-class English speakers.

It is impossible to avoid the insidious narratives about the language deficiencies of students who have been "minoritized"-or pushed to a subordinate position by social expectations. From catchy news articles, to research rooted firmly in monolingual, middle-class practices, these narratives are hard to escape. In fact, whenever I meet someone new, and they learn that I was a teacher, two talking points never fail to come up: the tragedies of the word gap and the failure of certain students to learn academic language.

But these tragedies are fabricated. The researchers of the 1995 study that introduced the "crisis" of the word gap claimed that children from low-income households were entering school with 30 million fewer words than their more economically advantaged peers. This conclusion has come under fire in recent years both from activists who criticize the study's impact on policymakers and from researchers who question its methodology and cultural biases. In fact, later studies failed to reproduce the so-called word gap.

Validity aside, this and similar studies also make implicit judgments about the value of certain ways of speaking and writing that are rooted in monolingual ideals. The "dilemma" of students learning academic language-the language used in textbooks or on standardized tests-then permeates instruction and evaluation. Such a narrow focus discounts the huge variety of language skills needed for communication and success, and limits students' learning opportunities.

These two manufactured dilemmas attempt to strictly demarcate language boundaries. The titles we give to languages (e.g. standard, academic, slang, formal, etc.) imply the worth of the language being labeled, but the hierarchies that result are not objective.

In fact, students who are bi- or multilingual effectively engage in complex language practices every day. But, because their practices don't fit into our monolingual models of language, we neglect to recognize it.

Even as appreciation for bilingualism grows in our schools, that appreciation is not equal. The bilingualism of students from monolingual backgrounds is celebrated, while the bilingualism of other students is treated as a problem to be "fixed."

See Also: " The Truth About Bilingualism: It's Only for Some Students"

Take the girl in homework club as an example. I watched her move deftly between making a plan with her mother in Spanish, completing her homework in English, and engaging with her peers in two languages. She demonstrated her linguistic knowledge and social dexterity throughout the afternoon, but will her teachers recognize the talent she has?

As educators, we're especially attuned to the labeling and categorization of language. With honest intentions, we take up what we're taught in our teacher preparation: that language can be standardized. Unfortunately, what results is the denial of deeper-learning opportunities for our students as we judge them to be not proficient in any language when, in reality, they are just not practicing the language we find valuable.

This is not new in education. My father and his nine siblings were prohibited from developing their Spanish-English bilingualism in school. After they were disciplined multiple times for speaking Spanish in school, my grandparents were forced to be complicit in the erasure of their language.

Their teachers didn't consider that they were cheating their students out of the opportunity to develop their unique language skills. Now, my father and his siblings have to pay for others to teach their children the valuable skill of bilingualism that they were denied and that other students are rewarded for cultivating.

This suppression of diverse language practices is not limited to students who speak languages other than English. There is also diversity and value within English-speaking communities that we should not attempt to eradicate. Fortunately, there are various ways that all of us as educators can help our students develop their language practices for all of the spaces they pass through. Here are a few:

* Encourage flexible language practices (translanguaging). Allow students to draw on all of the tools in their language toolbox to learn, communicate, and express themselves. For example, if we ask students to make an outline for a paper they are assigned, they could be allowed the freedom to use any format and language that help them organize their thinking.

* Raise language awareness (metalinguistic awareness). Guide students to see patterns in their own language and the language of others so that they're more conscious about the decisions they make.

* Promote context-rich language development (legitimate peripheral participation). Provide real examples of language use in different spaces-such as communicating needs at a doctor's visit, negotiating policies with school leaders, or applying to a job in the hospitality industry-and allow for real, guided communication in those spaces.

* Build student-centered classrooms. Get to know the students we teach and provide flexible lessons and projects that guide them in connecting new information to their prior knowledge.

Valuing diverse language practices is difficult in our current system of education. Many assessments prevent multilingual students from demonstrating their full language ability, yet these tests are core to the education system in the United States. Teachers are held accountable for a narrow definition of achievement. Communities' values and practices are often ignored in the schools that serve them.

I know from personal experience that it's not easy to adopt the practices I've detailed here. I know that language is not static and that rules governing its use are subjective. Too often, I bowed to the constant warnings from teacher educators, researchers, and principals of the failure that awaited my students who did not learn the correct kind of language in my classroom.

It's time to recognize that our insistence on labeling and classifying language is not a necessary evil. Let's allow our students to tell us what they can do with language instead of asking them to always make it fit into our own models.

Published in Print: June 19, 2019, as A Language-Skills Reality Check

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Back to Top

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stop Trying to Standardize Your Students' Language

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Opinion A few weeks ago, at a central Los Angeles after-school homework club full of students who were bilingual in Spanish and English, I asked a young girl I was working with if she spoke Spanish. "¿Hablas español?" She responded casually, "No, pero mi mamá habla español." No, but my mom speaks Spanish.