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English Language Proficiency Standards - these are important to include in the language objectives when lesson planning and for determining which language domains are begin addressed with the lesson.

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Proficiency Level Descriptors - these are important to refer to when monitoring the progress of the English learners. They also serve as reminders of what students can do at each level of proficiency within each domain of language.

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The History of Bilingual Education in Texas

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In the United States, bilingual education continues to provoke fierce debate. It seems that nearly everyone-from educators to policymakers to parents with school-age children to those without children-has a strong opinion on whether children with little fluency in English should be taught academic content in their home language as they learn English.

Many people, however, regardless of whether they support this approach, would be surprised to learn of our country's legacy when it comes to bilingual education.

Bilingual education has been a part of the American educational landscape since before the United States was forged from a collection of fractious colonies. According to one report, the first instance of bilingual education in the future United States occurred with 17th-century Polish settlers in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia. ¹ At the time, the colony was in severe need of the Poles' manufacturing skills for shipbuilding and glassworks. So the colonial government extended to Poles "the rights of Englishmen," permitting them to establish the first known bilingual schools on the American continent.

The American Bilingual Tradition by the German scholar Heinz Kloss, first published in English in 1977, further documents the little-known history of bilingual education and other types of support for those whose first language was not English. ² From its colonial beginnings, bilingual education in the United States has existed in one form or another to the present day, with a brief interruption during and right after World War I in the wake of virulent anti-German sentiment and a more general nativist opposition to the use of non-English languages.

There have been German bilingual schools in Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and other states; bilingual schools for Scandinavian languages in the Dakotas, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, among other states; Dutch bilingual schools in Michigan; Czech bilingual schools in Nebraska and Texas; Italian and Polish bilingual schools in Wisconsin; French bilingual schools in Louisiana, Ohio, and throughout the northeast; and Spanish bilingual schools in the southwest and, most recently, in Florida and the northeast. By 1900, contemporary estimates were that more than 1 million elementary grade students-more than 6 percent of the 16 million elementary grade students at the time-were receiving bilingual instruction in English and another language. ³ This is almost certainly a greater percentage than are enrolled in bilingual programs today, at most around 3 percent of the elementary grades population (prekindergarten through grade 8). ⁴ The schools educating these 1 million students in 1900 form part of the American bilingual tradition, which is essentially ignored in contemporary debates over bilingual education. ⁵

Political Support for and Challenges to Bilingual Education

The modern bilingual education era in the United States had its origins in the Cuban Revolution. ⁶ Cubans fleeing their native island after 1959 were overwhelmingly from the professional and business classes and were intent on succeeding in their new English-speaking home while maintaining their language and culture. The bilingual programs they established in Florida were and remain among the most successful in the country. These expatriates did nothing novel, much less radical. In keeping with the American bilingual tradition, they were becoming part of the fabric of American society while maintaining their own distinct linguistic and cultural strands, both in and out of school.

The most important impetus for widespread adoption of bilingual education, however, was the 1960s civil rights movement. At a time of national liberation struggles and demands that our society live up to the ideals of "equality under the law," Latino activists, educators, and academics made the education of Spanish-speaking children a top priority. Among their principal tenets, as a matter of civil rights, was that the education of Latino children build on their native cultures and include instruction in Spanish.

The culmination of this political movement on the educational front came with the passage and 1968 signing into law of the Bilingual Education Act (also known as Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA), which Kloss calls "the first major measure adopted at the federal level in order to promote bilingualism." ⁷ On the one hand, this was indeed precedent setting. But on the other, the act was an extension of a legacy reaching back to the 17th-century Polish settlers in Virginia mentioned earlier. It was "much more in keeping," Kloss observes, "with wide-spread though little known American traditions than some of those who fought for its adoption may have been aware of." ⁸ Contrary to its title, however, the Bilingual Education Act did not require bilingual education, even though in practice all of the early programs it funded used students' native languages in the curriculum to one degree or another. ⁹

For the next 30 years, through different presidential administrations, the status of bilingual approaches to educating language minority students rose and fell. Studies, evaluations, and research reviews appeared that presented differing views of bilingual education's effects on student achievement. Polemics proliferated. Caught up in the culture wars, bilingual education pitted "traditional" American values and visions of a unified America against presumed "radical" attempts to promote multiculturalism and linguistic pluralism, both of which were feared to result in a fractured and Balkanized America.

At times, bilingual education was favored, or at least not slated for elimination. At other times, most recently with the 2001 reauthorization of ESEA under the No Child Left Behind Act, bilingual education was left far behind, no longer part of the federal framework for the education of English learners as it had been since 1968. Tellingly, under the administration of President George W. Bush, the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs became the Office of English Language Acquisition.

Throughout its history, bilingual education has always had its share of doubters and detractors. ¹⁰ The present era is of course no exception. In addition to federal policies that were at best indifferent, if not outright hostile, to bilingual education, starting in 1997 voters in Arizona, California, and Massachusetts enacted the country's most restrictive language policies, severely limiting the use of the home language in the education of language minority students.

These political moves were understandable, given the widespread frustration with naggingly low achievement by many of the nation's 11 million students from non-English-speaking backgrounds. But have such moves worked? Results suggest not so much.

In a 2006 study of the effects of Proposition 227, California's "English for the Children" ballot initiative, researchers found that even after 10 years in California schools, an English language learner has less than a 40 percent chance of being considered proficient in English. ¹¹ A similar examination of Boston's public schools, conducted in 2009, showed increases in out-of-school suspensions, grade retention, and dropout rates for most of the five largest non-English-speaking language groups after Massachusetts restricted bilingual education. ¹² In Arizona, the achievement gap in reading between English language learners and non-English language learners has increased by about one and a half grade levels for fourth- and eighth-graders, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In California, the gap has increased almost as dramatically as Arizona's in eighth grade and has increased slightly in fourth. In Massachusetts, the achievement gap has increased somewhat in both grade levels. In contrast, in the country as a whole, where generally bilingual instruction remains an option, the reading achievement gap has decreased by nearly a grade level in fourth grade and has decreased slightly in eighth grade. ¹³

To be fair, it's difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions based on state data, since policies vary in many ways and other trends might suggest different conclusions. For example, the rate at which Arizona's English learners are considered "English proficient" has increased since 2005. But even so, the test scores of the 70 percent of English learners who do not become proficient in English each year have plummeted. In California, the rate of English learners considered English proficient has also increased, although very little-from 7 to 12 percent.

One thing is clear, though: restrictive language policies are no silver bullet. As the data reported above suggest, they might even be counterproductive.

In order to assess the advantages and disadvantages of bilingual education, it's more useful to look at research than at messy state data, where we know little about what types of bilingual education students are receiving, how many are receiving it, and how the redesignation rates-the rates at which students who are initially classified as "limited English proficient" gain sufficient English proficiency to be designated fluent English speakers-have changed. And, unlike earlier periods in American history, we now have a credible research base to determine whether the American bilingual tradition benefits individuals and society at large.

A Closer Look at the Research

It may seem counterintuitive, but in fact instruction in a student's home language can improve achievement in English (or whatever the national language may be). At least six meta-analyses (quantitative research syntheses), involving dozens of studies, support this conclusion.* A recently published long-term study by two Stanford University researchers found that students enrolled in bilingual programs since elementary school were, by high school, more likely to be deemed proficient in English compared with similar students who had been in all-English programs. ¹⁴

A likely theory to explain these results is that students develop their academic skills most readily in their home language while acquiring English proficiency, and then, as they learn English, transfer what they have learned in the home language to their new language. ¹⁵ (If this sounds implausible, just think of those skeptics who believed Columbus was out of his mind when he suggested one could reach east by sailing west, or those who condemned Copernicus and Galileo for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the other way around.)

Other studies have found that, at worst, instruction in the home language produces English results that are no different from results for English learners in all-English instruction, with the added bonus of allowing them to maintain and further develop their home language. In fact, these were the findings of researchers from Johns Hopkins University in the most experimentally rigorous study of bilingual education conducted to date. ¹⁶ The researchers, who studied data from Spanish-speaking students in Texas's Rio Grande Valley, found that bilingual education can help promote bilingualism without significantly sacrificing English proficiency. Comparable findings have been reported with Mandarin and English speakers in Northern California. ¹⁷ In these studies, students in Mandarin immersion-whether they were English or heritage Mandarin speakers-developed Mandarin proficiency while outperforming their nonimmersion peers on standardized reading and math tests in English in the upper elementary grades.

Why, then, the opposition to bilingual education? Despite the evidence that bilingual education can actually boost achievement in English, or at a minimum not detract from it, many continue to subscribe to the "commonsense" logic that English-only instruction will lead to faster acquisition of English proficiency. Moreover, opposition toward bilingual education is inflated by critics who falsely frame it as a choice between proficiency in English or in the student's home language. ¹⁸

Resistance to bilingual education is sometimes rooted in xenophobia and ethnic prejudice, although clearly not all bilingual education skeptics are prejudiced xenophobes. But the anti-foreign-language and anti-immigrant rhetoric that peaks during periods of increased immigration is clear evidence that nativist sentiments can lead to fears that the use of languages other than English in school will somehow fracture the national identity. ¹⁹

For many Americans, this national identity is tightly bound to speaking English. Liberal historian and John F. Kennedy confidant Arthur Schlesinger worried that encouraging multiple languages and cultures would lead to a " disuniting" of the United States. ²⁰ But Heinz Kloss's monumental study that we mentioned earlier demonstrates just the opposite: "non-English ethnic groups in the United States were Anglicized not because of nationality laws which were unfavorable toward their languages but in spite of nationality laws relatively favorable to them." ²¹ This seems paradoxical, as does so much having to do with bilingual education.

The explanation Kloss offers should give pause to bilingual education's detractors. Language minority groups became assimilated, Kloss persuasively argues, not because of "legal provisions" restricting the use of their native languages but because of "the absorbing power ... of the manifold opportunities for personal advancement and individual achievements which this society offered." ²²

From Bilingual Education to Bilingualism

Whatever the reasons for opposition, it's time to move the discussion away from bilingual education-which in the United States is invariably about those kids-and focus instead on bilingualism and its benefits for our kids -all of our kids-and the adults they will become. Experience and research in the United States and other countries around the world, including Canada, Finland, and Sweden, have demonstrated that children can learn their own and a second or even a third language-for example, French, Spanish, and English; Swedish, Finnish, and English; or Mandarin, Cantonese, and English-and turn out academically and linguistically competent in both, all three, or more. Canada, despite language-based political tensions that seem to appear occasionally in Quebec, has a relatively seamless approach to bilingualism that spans from school instruction in both English and French to official government business to road signs and to labels on merchandise.

Far from being a problem, bilingualism is an asset both to individuals and to society. Bilingual education (a means) can help us take advantage of this asset by promoting bilingualism (a goal) both for English speakers and for students who come from non-English backgrounds.

Apart from the obvious intellectual and cultural advantages of speaking two or more languages, bilingualism has been linked to a number of other positive outcomes. In a comprehensive review of 63 studies, researchers from Washington State University found that bilingualism is associated with cognitive benefits such as increased control over attention, improved working memory, greater awareness of the structure and form of language, and better abstract and symbolic representation skills. ²³ Other research, widely publicized when it first appeared, has even shown that bilingualism delays the onset of Alzheimer's disease. ²⁴

Beyond the cognitive benefits, recent studies suggest that bilingualism may also have economic benefits for young adults related to employment, promotion, and earnings. One study has found that fluent bilingualism is associated with a decreased likelihood of dropping out of high school and an increased probability of obtaining a higher status job and higher annual earnings. ²⁵

Conversely, monolingualism may have costs: one study has found that for young adults in the United States, a lack of proficiency in one's home language is associated with annual income losses of between $2,100 and $3,300 (after controlling for cognitive ability, educational attainment, and parental socioeconomic status). ²⁶ A University of Phoenix Research Institute survey, reported in the Wall Street Journal, found increasing demand among prospective employers for workers who speak foreign languages, particularly Chinese and Spanish. Referring to bilingual candidates, a New York City executive coach noted, "It's easier to find them jobs and they often get paid more." ²⁷

The economic benefits of bilingualism can vary significantly depending on factors such as age, location, industry, and languages spoken. For instance, in towns along the U.S. border with Mexico, fluent bilingualism may help individuals obtain certain occupations, while at the same time making employment in other positions less likely. ²⁸ Specifically, research has shown that fluent bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals in obtaining occupations above low-skill services and manual labor but not necessarily in higher status occupations. For instance, fluent bilinguals are more likely than English-speaking monolinguals to gain employment in middle-tier public service roles such as police officers, medical assistants, and receptionists. On the other hand, fluent bilinguals are less likely than their English-speaking monolingual peers to have occupations such as physicians, lawyers, and public safety managers, even at similar levels of education. These findings suggest that bilingualism can confer important economic advantages, but that the advantages might be constrained by other factors, such as the social status of bilinguals' first language or discrimination against immigrants.

To the extent that these other factors constrain the advantages bilingualism confers, it appears that bilingual education can also play a role in reducing their effects. In a review of the research on bilingual education in Canada and the United States, researchers found that bilingual education can have positive effects on intergroup relationships, identity, and self-esteem. ²⁹ Likewise, others have found that white, English-speaking children who participated in Spanish bilingual instruction were more likely to choose Latino children as potential friends compared with their white, English-speaking peers who, though in multiethnic classrooms, did not take part in bilingual education. ³⁰

The United States has great linguistic resources we are not only failing to use-our schools are actually quashing them, if only through neglect. More than 11 million of the country's 50 million public school students speak at least one of 400 different languages other than English at home. Yet only a negligible fraction of these students are in programs that simultaneously nurture their home language while using it to help them acquire English and also to help English-speaking students acquire a second language.

* * *

Last year, 17 years after California (followed by Arizona and Massachusetts) began its assault on bilingual education, California state Senator Ricardo Lara introduced a bill in the California legislature, recently approved, to put a proposition on the 2016 California ballot that would give students more access to bilingual and even multilingual instruction. Passage of the proposition by California's electorate would be an important step forward in increasing the state's and the country's linguistic resources.

Lara's bill was timely, as demand for bilingual education has been rising in many states. In Oregon, an explosion of interest in dual-language programs led the state to award nearly $900,000 in grants for additional programs in 2013, adding to the programs that already existed in 70 schools throughout the state. ³¹ Parents and students in Washington, D.C., have also demonstrated their desire for bilingual programs. At one of the city's eight dual-language immersion schools, nearly 1,100 applicants applied for 20 spots in 2013. ³² The Seattle area now boasts 30 bilingual preschool options, and the parents driving this demand are not necessarily bilingual themselves. In fact, at one of Bellevue's Spanish-English immersion public preschools, 96 percent of the children have monolingual English-speaking parents. ³³ Interest in bilingual programs crosses lines of language background, neighborhood, and income as parents across the United States realize the social and economic value of bilingualism. ³⁴

School districts, seeing the benefits bilingual education offers to their students, are also actively fighting for these programs. Despite legislation in California that has come close to eliminating bilingual education, 30 percent of students in the San Francisco Unified School District are enrolled in bilingual programs. ³⁵ This is in large part due to the district's efforts to reach out to parents and notify them of the option to authorize their children's placement in one of these programs. New York City has partnered with foreign governments that provide funding for bilingual programs in their languages and is developing or expanding 40 dual-language programs for the 2015-2016 school year. ³⁶ To ensure the success of their investments, districts like Arlington Public Schools in Virginia are undergoing extensive evaluations of their bilingual programs. ³⁷

Support for bilingual education is evident at the state level as well. Nine states have approved the "Seal of Biliteracy," which will appear on the high school graduation diplomas of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two languages. ³⁸ Hawaii's Department of Education established the Hawaiian Language Immersion Program in 1987, ³⁹ and Montana's governor recently signed into law a bill that will fund Native American language immersion programs in public schools. ⁴⁰

For its part, in reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress is missing an opportunity to capitalize on this groundswell of support by including provisions and even providing funds to encourage and help states and localities develop and implement bilingual instruction, not just for language minority students but for all students to have the opportunity to become bilingual.

Such provisions were part of the ESEA legislation of the 1960s but were eliminated under No Child Left Behind-a dysfunctional aspect of the law that should be corrected. Federal legislation cannot and should not attempt to impose bilingual education, of course. But it can help strengthen an important American tradition that we risk losing, to everyone's detriment.

Claude Goldenberg is the Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education at Stanford University. Previously, at California State University, Long Beach, he was a professor of teacher education, an associate dean of the College of Education, and the executive director of the Center for Language Minority Education and Research. Early in his career, he taught junior high school in Texas and first grade in a bilingual elementary school in California. Kirstin Wagner holds an undergraduate degree in international relations from Stanford. For the last four years, she has worked with elementary and middle school students in Palo Alto, California. Portions of this article were published online in Goldenberg, "Congress: Bilingualism Is Not a Handicap" (Education Week, July 14, 2015).

*For more on effective instruction for English learners, see " Unlocking the Research on English Learners" in the Summer 2013 issue of American Educator. ( back to the article)

Endnotes

1. Stanley S. Seidner, In Quest of a Cultural Identity: An Inquiry for the Polish Community (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1976).

2. Heinz Kloss, The American Bilingual Tradition (Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1977; repr., Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998). Originally based on Heinz Kloss, Das Nationalitätenrecht der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Vienna: Braumüller, 1963). Citations refer to the 1998 edition.

3. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition.

4. The basis for this 3 percent figure is as follows: The most recent federal study of Title III, which provides federal funds for English learner (EL) support, reported that native language instruction was the least common type of instructional service for EL students: Only 20 percent of districts provided native language instruction to a majority or all of their ELs. There are approximately 3,700 Title III districts. See U.S. Department of Education, National Evaluation of Title III Implementation: Report on State and Local Implementation (Washington, DC: Department of Education, 2012), 45. Based on numbers reported in the Title III report, the average number of ELs in the nationally representative districts was about 1,200. Multiplying this number by 20 percent of 3,700 (740), we can estimate that, at most, about 900,000 ELs receive some amount of native language instruction in school; the number in elementary school is certainly lower. A second source of students in bilingual programs would be students from English-speaking backgrounds in immersion programs designed to help them acquire a second language. A current estimate places the number of these programs at around 1,000. See Korina Lopez, "Spanish-Language Immersion Schools Gain in Popularity," NBC News, November 9, 2014, www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/spanish-language-immersion-schools-gain-pop.... As with the data on ELs in bilingual programs, it's impossible to give a precise number of students enrolled, but we can estimate that each school might enroll, at most, 270 students (assuming one or two classrooms of 30 students each at each of six grade levels). 270 students at 1,000 different schools total 270,000 English-background students in immersion programs; but again, the number in elementary school will be lower. Taken together, these figures suggest that there are, at most, about 1 million elementary grade students in bilingual programs, no more than in 1900. When we consider there are nearly 40 million elementary grade students in the United States, this means that no more than 3 percent of U.S. students in the elementary grades are receiving some form of bilingual education. See "Enrollment in Educational Institutions, by Level and Control of Institution, Enrollment Level, and Attendance Status and Sex of Student: Selected Years, Fall 1980 through Fall 2021," in National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2012, table 2. Even if some of the assumptions made here are wrong, there would have to be more than 2 million elementary grade students in bilingual programs to approach the percentage in 1900. (Our thanks to Annette Zehler for her help in making current estimates.)

5. See chapter 4 of James Crawford, Educating English Learners: Language Diversity in the Classroom (Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services, 2004).

6. Crawford, Educating English Learners.

7. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, 369.

8. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, 369.

9. Crawford, Educating English Learners.

10. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition.

11. Thomas B. Parrish, Amy Merickel, María Pérez, et al., Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12: Findings from a Five-Year Evaluation (Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research, 2006), ix.

12. Miren Uriarte, Nicole Lavan, Nicole Agusti, et al., "English Learners in Boston Public Schools: Enrollment, Engagement and Academic Outcomes of Native Speakers of Cape Verdean Creole, Chinese Dialects, Haitian Creole, Spanish, and Vietnamese," Gastón Institute Publications, no. 130 (2009): 73.

13. The data reported here were generated using the NAEP Data Explorer, available at www.nces.ed.gov/nations reportcard/naepdata.

14. Ilana M. Umansky and Sean F. Reardon, "Reclassification Patterns among Latino English Learner Students in Bilingual, Dual Immersion, and English Immersion Classrooms," American Educational Research Journal 51 (2014): 879-912.

15. For a discussion of transfer in the context of bilingual education, see Claude Goldenberg, "Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does-and Does Not-Say," American Educator 32, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 8-23, 42-44.

16. Robert E. Slavin, Nancy Madden, Margarita Calderón, Anne Chamberlain, and Megan Hennessy, "Reading and Language Outcomes of a Multiyear Randomized Evaluation of Transitional Bilingual Education," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 33 (2011): 47-58.

17. Amado M. Padilla, Lorraine Fan, Xiaoqiu Xu, and Duarte M. Silva, "A Mandarin/English Two-Way Immersion Program: Language Proficiency and Academic Achievement," Foreign Language Annals 46 (2013): 661-679; and Xiaoqiu Xu, Amado M. Padilla, and Duarte M. Silva, "Learner Performance in Mandarin Immersion and High School World Language Programs: A Comparison," Foreign Language Annals 48 (2015): 26-38.

18. Stephen Krashen, "Surveys of Opinions on Bilingual Education: Some Current Issues," Bilingual Research Journal 20 (1996): 411-431; and Leonie Huddy and David O. Sears, "Opposition to Bilingual Education: Prejudice or the Defense of Realistic Interests?," Social Psychology Quarterly 58 (1995): 133-143.

19. Shannon Krista Houvouras, "The Effects of Demographic Variables, Ethnic Prejudice, and Attitudes toward Immigration on Opposition to Bilingual Education," Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 23 (2001): 148-149. For an articulation of this fear, see Peter Duignan, Bilingual Education: A Critique (Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution, 1998).

20. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992).

21. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, 367.

22. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, 367.

23. Olusola O. Adesope, Tracy Lavin, Terri Thompson, and Charles Ungerleider, "A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Cognitive Correlates of Bilingualism," Review of Educational Research 80 (2010): 207-245.

24. Ellen Bialystok, "Reshaping the Mind: The Benefits of Bilingualism," Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale 65 (2011): 229-235.

25. Rubén G. Rumbaut, "English Plus: Exploring the Socioeconomic Benefits of Bilingualism in Southern California," in The Bilingual Advantage: Language, Literacy and the US Labor Market, ed. Rebecca M. Callahan and Patricia C. Gándara (Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2014), 182-208.

26. Orhan Agirdag, "The Long-Term Effects of Bilingualism on Children of Immigration: Student Bilingualism and Future Earnings," International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 17 (2014): 449-464.

27. Joe Light, "Languages Needed, but No Plans to Learn," Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2011.

28. Amado Alarcón, Antonio Di Paolo, Josiah Heyman, and María Cristina Morales, "The Occupational Location of Spanish-English Bilinguals in the New Information Economy: The Health and Criminal Justice Sector in the US Borderlands with Mexico," in Callahan and Gándara, Bilingual Advantage, 110-137.

29. Fred Genesee and Patricia Gándara, "Bilingual Education Programs: A Cross-National Perspective," Journal of Social Issues 55 (1999): 665-685.

30. Stephen C. Wright and Linda R. Tropp, "Language and Intergroup Contact: Investigating the Impact of Bilingual Instruction on Children's Intergroup Attitudes," Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 8 (2005): 309-328.

31. Rob Manning, "Oregon Educators Prioritize Bilingual Education," Oregon Public Broadcasting, July 11, 2014, www.opb.org/news/article/bilingual-education.

32. Kavitha Cardoza, "Demand For Dual-Language Programs In D.C. Public Schools Skyrockets," WAMU, December 12, 2014, www.wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/14/12/ 12/demand_for_dual_language_programs_in_dc_public_ schools_skyrockets.

33. Michele Silbey, "World-Wise Northwest Parents Drive Demand for Bilingual Preschools," Seattle Globalist, September 2, 2014, www.seattleglobalist.com/2014/09/02/bilingual-preschool-seattle-french-....

34. Sarah Carr, "The Reinvention of Bilingual Education in America's Schools," education_the_promise_of_dual_language_programs_for_spanish_speaking.html; and Elizabeth A. Harris, "New York City Education Department to Add or Expand 40 Dual-Language Programs," Schooled (blog), Slate, January 5, 2015, www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/01/05/bilingual_ New York Times, January 15, 2015.

35. Jill Tucker, "S.F. Seen as Model in Bilingual Education over English Only," San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 2014.

36. Harris, "New York City Education Department."

37. See Barbara D. Acosta, Lottie Marzucco, Christiane Connors, and Charlene Rivera, Evaluation of Arlington Public Schools Programs for English Language Learners (Washington, DC: George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence in Education, 2012). The San Francisco Unified School District also commissioned an evaluation. See Sean F. Reardon, Ilana Umansky, Rachel Valentino, Ritu Khanna, and Christina Wong, "Differences Among Instructional Models in English Learners' Academic and English Proficiency Trajectories" (presentation, Center for Education Policy Analysis, Stanford, CA, February 18, 2014), http://cepa.stanford.edu/news/differences-among-instructional-models-english-learners-academic-and-english-proficiency-trajectories.

38. Seal of Biliteracy home page, accessed July 7, 2015, www.sealofbiliteracy.org.

39. "History of the Hawaiian Language Immersion Program," Hawaii State Department of Education, accessed July 7, 2015, www.hawaiipublicschools.org/TeachingAnd Learning/StudentLearning/HawaiianEducation/Pages/History-of-the-Hawaiian-Education-program.aspx.

40. Corey Mitchell, "Montana Governor Signs Laws to Promote, Preserve Tribal Languages," Learning the Language (blog), Education Week, May 7, 2015, http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2015/05/montana_ap....

[illustrations by Paul Zwolak]

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In the United States, bilingual education continues to provoke fierce debate. It seems that nearly everyone-from educators to policymakers to parents with school-age children to those without children-has a strong opinion on whether children with little fluency in English should be taught academic content in their home language as they learn English.

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These resources give the history of the policies and legislation for bilingual education. This history allows for us to know the right of the students. Which also allows us to treat everyone equally based on the laws.

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This video is important because it shows the benefits of both push in and pull-out methods programs. It is important to pull students out when they need a little bit more help when it comes to EB/ELLs. But sometimes they could lose the content being learned in their original classroom, so this program allows for students to not only be pulled out for specified help but also allows for them to be plugged into their original classroom.

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This is important because it shows all of the different bilingual programs and the intersectionality between. This is beneficial when seeking to see what kind of program to place a student in.

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This is an important graphic because it shows us what it truly means to understand a language. This will be beneficial to me because it shows me what to look for when evaluating mastery of the language.

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This is important because it allows for us to compartmentalize the language. This allows for us to know what exactly a student is struggling with. This allows for us to give them specific help on whichever area they are struggling with.

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This is improtant because is goes over Chomskys language theory or the Innatist theory. This theory states that acquiring L1 required more than just mimicking and imating and that it requires rules in place.

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This is important because it states that EL/EBBs undertand a new language and fully acquire it when they are able to conversate and communicate in a natural and informal way of communicating.

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Comprehensible Input Demo for Language Rich Classrooms Training

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This is important because it highlights the main differences between dialect and slang. This is important to know because when giving constructive critisms it is important to know if it is a cultural thing such as dialect or if it is just slang.

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This is an important read because it reminds us that there is no "correct" accent or dialect of English. This is important because students who come from different states might speak English with an accent from another state which should not be judged.

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Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . Standard American
| PBS

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Ask a group of experts to define
Standard American
English,
and you’ll find, paradoxically, there’s no standard answer. Even the
editors of The American Heritage Dictionary are careful to
qualify their definition. They note:

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This is important because it ensures that all students in the classroom feel safe and have an environment that allows for them to grow and further develop their second language.

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This video is important because it shows a good example of how to aid students in their academic discourse. This teacher is welcoming and she switches their informal language to formal language which both are highly beneficial to the students.

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Bridging Social Conversations into Academic Discourse with English Language Learners

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This is a toolkit, and it is important because it has multiple resources that are beneficial to advocate for the students and get their parents involved in their education. Getting the parents involved allows for the students to take their education more serious.

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LPACs are an important part of engaging families in the student's life and education. This is used to analize the proficiency level of the students English development.

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This is important because it provides research behind just how important it is to advocate for students. This also shows the negatives of not advocating for the students so this resource serves as a reminder of the importance of advocating for students.

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New research indicates that where English-language learners attend school can determine how quickly they are reclassified as English-proficient.

A Michigan State University research team found that schools in Texas-second only to California in total number of K-12 English-learners-vary widely in how they determine if students should be reclassified as English proficient, affecting their chances of success in school and beyond.

Using state data, the researchers estimated reclassification rates for English-learners throughout Texas over seven years. They found that an English-learner in the El Paso metropolitan area, for example is almost twice as likely to be reclassified by the end of 7th grade, compared to a student performing at the same level in the Rio Grande Valley.

"It seems curious to me that we would have students in different parts of the state being reclassified at different rates if they have similar scores on English proficiency and academic achievement assessments," lead researcher Madeline Mavrogordato told Education Week.

Mavrogordato-an assistant professor of K-12 administration at Michigan State-argues that an ELL student's reclassification often determines their educational trajectory. When it occurs too early, English-learners could find themselves struggling without the support services they need. If too late, students may be restricted from taking higher-level courses that would prepare them for college.

The research is timely because the the Every Student Succeeds Act now requires all states to standardize how they identify and reclassify English-learners. That could prove to be a daunting task for many states that don't have the capacity or manpower that Texas does. Even in a place such as Texas, which has had policies in place since the 1990s that seek to standardize ELL reclassification, inconsistencies persist.

As part of their research, Mavrogordato and Rachel White, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State, also observed eight Texas elementary schools while educators conducted annual meetings required to determine the status of English-learners. They observed differences in what happens during the meetings, including how technology, data, and teacher assessments guide decision-making.

The researchers concluded that the likelihood of reclassification appears to be linked to how well educators understand state policies and what role they play in implementation.

"In schools where the teacher's recommendations trumped all other data, we saw lower rates of reclassification," Mavrogordato said. "The people who are involved in this process ... need to be well-versed in the consequences of these decisions."

Mavrogordato spent time as a bilingual teacher of 3rd- and 4th-graders in the Rio Grande Valley as a Teach For America corps member in the mid-2000s and also taught in northern California, where she worked with ELLs.

With the passage of Proposition 58 in California last fall, public schools across the state now have more running room to operate bilingual and dual-language programs. But during Mavrogordato's time as a teacher there, Proposition 227-a measure that led many districts to drop their bilingual programs entirely -was still on the books.

Her varied experience in California and Texas sparked her research interest.

"One of the things that became really apparent was just how differently English-learners were being served in these two different contexts," Mavrogordato said. "That just started making me ask a lot of different questions about the policies and the way that we serve these kids."

Here's a link to the study: //journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/yIBQ3w8efPhNwg8EPy7e/full

The final, definitive version is available through the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis at //eepa.aera.net
For Further Reading Photo Credit: Andrew Echeverria, left, gets help from Joel Miller, a veteran educator who teaches a course for long-term English-learners at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. The course was created to help students who have struggled to become proficient in English. --Emile Wamsteker for Education Week

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English-Language Learners: How Schools Can Drive or Derail Their Success

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Recent changes in federal law require all states to standardize how they identify and reclassify ELLs; a researcher says it may prove difficult.

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This resource serves as a tool-kit of all the different ways that teachers can advocate for English language learners. It contains the five steps of ELL advocacy as well as a lot of different websites.

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This is important because it shows how to introduce new vocabulary to students. The different tiers this resource highlights shows that it is important to select specific vocabulary words to teach.

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This article offers guidance for selecting vocabulary words when teaching ELLs and explains the difference between Tier 1, 2, and 3 words.

A student's maximum level of reading comprehension is determined by his or her knowledge of words. This word knowledge allows students to comprehend text. As the teacher, you can explicitly teach word meanings to improve comprehension. However, to know a word means knowing it in all of the following dimensions:

The ability to define a word

The ability to recognize when to use that word

Knowledge of its multiple meanings

The ability to decode and spell that word

Therefore, it is vitally important to teach key words that children will need to comprehend texts, learn the content in those texts, and pass tests. Words are taught through direct instruction of word meanings as well as through discussions about words (including prefixes, suffixes, and roots) - all combined with a lot of reading.

For English language learners (ELLs), vocabulary development is especially critical for their ability to read and comprehend texts. The selection of vocabulary words to teach ELLs can be grouped into three tiers.

Tier 1 words

Tier 1 words are words that ELLs typically know the concept of in their primary language, but not the label in English. For example, a Tier 1 word might be butterfly. This is a word that English language learners may not know, but it can be easily taught by pointing to a picture of a butterfly during text discussion.

Another Tier 1 word might be march (move like a soldier). A word like march can be easily instructed during text discussion by marching in place. But because this word has multiple meanings, it also merits further instruction. This can be accomplished through oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

Teaching Tier 1 words

We take it for granted that native English-speakers know most Tier 1 words, but this is not the case for ELLs. Many Tier 1 words may be unknown to ELLs and key to the comprehension of a passage. Different types of Tier 1 words require different teaching strategies:

Some Tier 1 words cannot be demonstrated and do not have multiple meanings, but students will need to know them. An example of this is the word uncle. A simple explanation of the word's meaning during the story reading will suffice. Or, if the teacher and students are bilingual, a quick translation is sufficient.

Idioms and everyday expressions (like "make up your mind," "let's hit the books," and "once upon a time") are also in the Tier 1 category. Teachers will need to explain the meanings of these phrases to students.

Some Tier 1 words are simple cognates (like family/familia or preparation/preparación). The cognates in this category consist of words that are high-frequency words in Spanish and English. They may not require substantial instruction because students may know the word meanings in Spanish. The teacher can merely state the English cognate and have students provide the Spanish cognate. Or, the teacher can provide the English cognate and students can say both the English word and Spanish cognate.

It is also important to point out false cognates and give the correct translation. Examples of false cognates are: rope/ropa (clothing) and embarrassed/embarazada (pregnant). There are also some false cognates that have multiple meanings in one language, and one or some of those meanings do not coincide with the meaning of the other language.

Here is a list of helpful Spanish-English cognates.

Tier 2 words

Tier 2 words are more complex than Tier 1 words. They may also be more abstract. These include:

1. Words that are important and useful to understanding the text, such as: character, setting, plot, even numbers, and country.

2. Words that have connections to other words and concepts, such as: between, among, by, combine, and estimate.

3. Words for which students understand the general concept, but need greater precision and specificity in describing a concept or a person, such as: sets, tables (for math or science, or for a table of contents), shy, ashamed, and stubborn.

Teaching Tier 2 words

Tier 2 words appear in grade-level texts. They can be worked with in a variety of ways so that ELLs build rich representations of them and connect them to other words and concepts. Different types of Tier 2 words require different teaching strategies:

Some Tier 2 words will not require elaborate discussion, because they can be demonstrated. These include words with multiple meanings, such as trunk, which can be taught by using gestures to show that it is part of an elephant, part of a tree, part of our body, and the back of a car.

In addition, many Tier 2 words are cognates. In this tier, they are high frequency words in Spanish and low frequency words in English. This means that Spanish-speaking ELLs will have a head start with these words (such as coincidence/coincidencia, industrious/industrioso, and fortunate/afortunado) because they will know both the concept and an approximation of the label in English.

The Tier 2 words that should be targeted for pre-teaching include words that cannot be demonstrated and are not cognates.

ELLs should be expected to master Tier 2 words in order to do well on comprehension and on tests.

Tier 3 words

These are low-frequency words that are found mostly in content books in the upper grades. Examples include witticism, isotope, procrastinate, amoeba, or words that are not demonstrable or cognates. These words are rarely encountered in the early grades, but if they do appear, you can translate them or briefly explain them in either English or in the ELLs' first language.

Note: It is advisable at all grade levels to have bilingual dictionaries available in the classroom. If you do not know the translation for a vocabulary word into students' native language, it is an easy reference and clarification tool. Also, when reading texts on their own, students can look up unknown words and ensure their own comprehension.

References

Beck, I., McKeown, M. & Kucan, L (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: The Gilford Press.

Calderón, M., August, D., Durán, D., Madden, N., R. Slavin & M. Gil (2003 and in press). Spanish to English Transitional Reading: Teacher's Manual. Baltimore, MD: The Success for All Foundation.

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (2004). Expediting Comprehension to English Language Learners (ExC-ELL) Teachers Manual. Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (in press). Teaching Reading, Oral Language and Content to English Language Learners - How ELLs Keep Pace With Mainstream Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Reprints

For any reprint requests, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach English Language Learners

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This article offers guidance for selecting vocabulary words when teaching ELLs and explains the difference between Tier 1, 2, and 3 words. A student's maximum level of reading comprehension is determined by his or her knowledge of words. This word knowledge allows students to comprehend text.

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This video provides different strategies and techniques to help ESL and bilingual students develop their oral language.

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3 Activities to Promote Oral Language // How to Develop Oral Language and Vocabulary in K-2

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This is important because it is a different way of teaching that has been beneficial to a lot of students.

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ITTT International TEFL & TESOL Training

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Theories, Methods & Techniques of Teaching - The Silent Way

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This resource is improtant because it provides a lot of different strategies that are beneficial to teaching.

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The goal of this page is to provide us a better understanding of how the nature of Deaf/Hard of Hearing communication works. These videos have been used by a number of school districts across Texas to show the similarities and differences in three communication modes in storytelling.

ASL

Storyteller: Lisa Cochran

Video Length: 3:51

PSE

Storyteller: Jacques Guidry

Video Length: 4:19

SEE

Storyteller: Amy Poteet

Video Length: 4:58
Click here for Transcript

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Communication & Language / Comparisons of PSE, ASL, & SEE Storytelling Videos

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The goal of this page is to provide us a better understanding of how the nature of Deaf/Hard of Hearing communication works. These videos have been used by a number of school districts across Texas to show the similarities and differences in three communication modes in storytelling.

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This resource provides different samples of language and content objective. This is beneficial because it provides examples for all different subjects such as language arts, social studies, math, and science.

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This video resource shows how to write content objectives as well as language objectives. This resource also shows the intersectionality of the two.

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This resource shows the benefits of having sentence stems for EB/ELLs in math. This is beneficial to the students because it helps students express how they think about math and how they solve problems.

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This resource provides different accommodations for students who are EB/ELLs. This is important because it has accommodations for students in math for all grades. Along with this the resources have accommodations for students of all different language backgrounds.

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These glossaries are to provide permitted testing accommodations of ELL/MLL students. They should also be used for instruction during the school year. These glossaries may be downloaded, printed and disseminated to educators, parents and ELLs/MLLs.

Bilingual glossaries are an essential and expected test accommodation for ELLs/MLLs in the State of New York. The languages of these glossaries cover the top 10 languages at the state level, with new languages added based on changing language populations in the NY State student demographic data.

Schools should provide testing accommodations to ELLs/MLLs, as needed, on all NYS ELA and content-area assessments (i.e., Mathematics, Science and Social Studies). Districts/schools must make all necessary arrangements to make these accommodations available for ELLs/MLLs who need them. Please click here for the New York State Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages Webpage on "Assessment and Testing Accommodations".

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These glossaries are to provide permitted testing accommodations of ELL/MLL students. They should also be used for instruction during the school year.

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This resource is important because it provides aid on how to write content and language objectives specifically for science.

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This is important because it provides information on how to make science something that sticks with the students.

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This infographic is important because it provides information on the main differences between summative and formative assessments. This is important because it shows how to structure both assessments.

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This resource is highly important because it provides information on how to assess EB/ELLs students. This resource states the benefits and disadvantages of summative assessments and highlights how to create assessments that EB/ELLs are able to show their mastery with.

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This video provides information about the best ways to do formative assessments. This is important because it gives examples and these could be used in my future classroom.

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My Top 10 Formative Assessment Strategies

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This resource is important because it provides an example of a rubric that could be used for a formative assessment. This rubric is in depth and it also highlights the importance of using a rubric for formative assessments.