12 I EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

BILINGUAL EDUCATION: MYTHS AND RELATED ISSUES

Thomas G. Huebner

Bilingual education in the United States is, perhaps, as controversial and misunderstood as sex education. Three myths about bilingual education include assumptions that: (1) bilingual education means teaching solely or predominantly in the students' native language; (2) it is not necessary since the best way to learn a new language is by submersion in that new language, and (3) children who know enough English to be able to talk fluently with their friends know enough English to get by in school.

This article will examine each of these myths and discuss issues related to them. First, however, it is necessary to have a common referent for the term "bilingual education."

Types of Bilingual Education

Bilingual education has been defined as an organized curriculum that includes: (1) first language, LI, development; (2) second language, L2, development, and (3) subject matter development through Lt and L2.1

Like all educational programs, bilingual education programs can take a variety of forms, depending on the rationale for them. Educators often classify bilingual education programs into three types: maintenance, enrichment, and transitional.

Maintenance Programs

Maintenance programs are those designed to maintain and develop the proficiency in the first language (Ll) which the students bring to school with them. In maintenance bilingual education programs, the curriculum is taught in both the students' first language and in the target language (l2, in this case English) throughout the educational careers of the students in the program. Programs of this type can be found in communities in which there are strong feelings about the maintenance of the indigenous language and culture, as for example, in parts of Micronesia, where earlier experiments with an all-English curriculum designed after those in the United States have failed.

Enrichment Programs

Enrichment programs of bilingual education are motivated by the observation that minority students whose first language is English (though not necessarily the accepted variety of Standard English, SE) do not perform well in a monolingual SE classroom. In an enrichment program, the ancestral language is introduced into the curriculum in order to make it more relevant to the target students and to promote a sense of positive ethnic self image. This type of bilingual education program is common among educational programs for Native Americans. Locally, the current Hawaii State Constitution's mandate for Hawaiian Studies (including the

Hawaiian language) and the "Kupuna Program" represent a form of enrichment bilingual education.

Transitional Programs

The type of bilingual education program adopted for use in most parts of the United States, and the type funded by the Federal government under Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, is transitional bilingual education. The rationale for this type of program is educational equity­assured in the US Constitution as interpreted by the courts. Thus the rationale is deeply rooted in the cultural values of American society. The primary goal of transitional bilingual education is the transition of limited English proficient (LEP) students to an all-English curriculum. These programs usually include both subject matter­development through the use of two languages and second-language development through English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction. In these programs, the use of Ll is gradually phased out, as .the students display proficiency in L2. Because of this " remedial" orientation of these programs, the optimal duration of services and criteria for exit from the programs have become central issues for this type of bilingual education.

Since the vast majority of bilingual programs within the US are of a transitional nature, the bulk of the research on bilingual education has been on transitional programs.

This research gives lie to the myths mentioned in the opening paragraph regarding the choice of language used in the classroom, the nature of language development and the criteria for language proficiency needed to succeed in school.

Language Choice in the Bilingual Classroom

Approaches to language use in bilingual education programs have focused primarily on when to use each language in the teaching of content in the core subject areas. It has been argued that a concurrent translation approach, in which an explanation is made or a sentence is said first in one language and immediately translated into the other, helps maintain student engagement. On the other hand, proponents of an alternate day approach (one day LI, the next day L2) claim that this minimizes the mixing of languages and that it results in greater learning of L2 since the students are more attentive to the second language knowing that they cannot rely on an immediate translation. An argument against this approach is that content takes much longer to teach. A popular approach which combines some of the advantages of both of the above is the preview-review approach in which a lesson is previewed in one language, taught in the other language, and reviewed again in the language of the preview. All of these approaches imply that an equal amount of time and value is afforded to each language.

Research indicates that in the typical bilingual classroom in the US, however, this is not the case. Although Legarettez reports that I6 percent and 47 percent of LI-use in the five bilingual classrooms she observed and Schultzl estimates the use of LI at about 30 percent in the one classroom he describes, Tikunoff.~ observing 58 successful bilingual teachers, found that the

native language was used only 25 percent of the time. Strong5 found that even 25 percent use of LI was high among the 20 classrooms in his study. He concludes, "At the low Lz extreme, it is probable that the children's experiences in the bilingual classroom were barely different from those children in the submersion classrooms."•

This conclusion does not take into account the possible differences in the nature of the second language input and the differences in cultural responsiveness between the bilingual and submersion classrooms. It does illustrate, however, that the use of LI in transitional bilingual programs varies from classroom to classroom and is considerably less than is commonly assumed. It also suggests that LEP students are not receiving, in their bilingual classrooms, the kind of LI input needed to develop their first language. This, it will be argued later, will have implications for the development of proficiency in Lz.

Although the degree of use of L1 in a bilingual classroom may be a significant variable in the attainment of the goals of bilingual education, it is not the only one. Paulson7 has pointed out that good bilingual instruction is no different from good instruction in general-except that in a bilingual classroom two languages are used. She holds that "teacher expectations, motivations for learning, the children's possibility of success in undertaking a task, classroom atmosphere and, above all, the crucial necessity that the children always understand what they are expected to do"8 are aspects of all educational programs which are crucial to student success- both bilingual and monolingual. Tikunoff9

lists all three needs of all students, regardless of the mode of instruction, and three corresponding

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES I 13

teacher obligations. All students need to decode and understand what is being said; they need to participate actively in instructional activities, and they need to obtain feedback on their performance. Correspondingly, teachers must communicate clearly; they must obtain and maintain the engagement of their students, and they must monitor the progress of their students. Bilingual teachers do this through "the use of language and culture to mediate instruction."

The need to decode and understand and the obligation to communicate clearly form the rationale for bilingual education. Tikunoffto found that language switching occurred most frequently in order to clarify instruction. Strong, too, found that "the most common reason for switching languages was to explain a point which the teacher appeared to think would give the limited-English speakers trouble."11 Thus, the native language in these studies is being used to facilitate understanding when comprehension in L2 breaks down. This doesn't even begin to approach 50 percent native language use in most cases. Comprehension can break down over a single word. Access to a common code allows more flexibility to decode and understand clearly.

In the bilingual classroom, the LI can also be used for providing feedback on student performance. Equally important for feedback is the awareness of culture-specific verbal and nonverbal requests for feedback from LEP students. Pabto12 found that the nonverbal mode of behavior was frequently employed by Filipino children in seeking feedback on their performance, as opposed to the verbal feedback requests of native English-speaking students. She identifies that as a Filipino help­seeking behavior. Pablo observed that monolinguallmonocultural English-speaking teachers were less responsive to these nonverbal cues

14 I EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

than bilingual teachers and attributes this to a lack of awareness of Filipino help-seeking behaviors on the part of monolingual teachers. She also speculates that this is due to the monolingual teacher's presumption that the LEP student's needs did not appear as great as those of students who could verbalize them.

The LEP students' need to participate actively in instructional activities also requires, on the part of the teacher, some degree of understanding of the culture from which the LEP students are coming. PhilipstJ has shown that Native Americans on the Warm Sptings Indian Reservation in Oregon respond differently to different participant structures in the classroom and that these responses differ from their monolingual, English-speaking peers. When Indian students control and direct small­group interaction sessions, they are most fully involved in the task at hand. They showed some initial reluctance to initiate contact with teachers during independent work sessions. They showed the most reluctance to speak out in teacher­directed, large-group or small-group activities. Boggsu found that Native Hawaiian students were reluctant to answer questions directed solely at them, while they showed no reluctance to answer questions directed to the group. Both researchers attribute these behaviors to social interaction patterns learned at home in the preschool years. Formants found that Filipino children engaged in "hanging around" behavior. Their monolingual teachers interpreted this behavior as "lack of involvement" on the part of the students. Parents, on the other hand, found such behavior commendable in that children were observing and learning through imitation. The cultural patterns of participant structure, discourse structure and

learning styles, as well as the linguistics competence of the LEP students, need to be recognized and responded to if students are to participate actively in learning activities.

At the theoretical level, there is disagreement as to the best approach to the use of two languages in teaching content in a bilingual setting . In practice, the use of the students' LI in transitional programs of bilingual education may be much less than commonly supposed. However, in successful bilingual classrooms, access to the first language to the LEP students and to the culture-specific, nonverbal patterns of behavior of these students expand the range of teacher behaviors available to facilitate the learning of content.

Second Language Development

Proficiency in the second language is the other side of the transitional bilingual education coin. It has been proposed that language proficiency, at least proficiency at the basic interpersonal communication level, is enhanced through acquisition, or the unconscious internalization of language patterns, rather than through the conscious learning of rules.to Krashent1 lists three criteria necessary for the acquisition of a language to occur: (1) the need to communicate a language, (2) a low anxiety environment, and (3) comprehensible input.

Recognizing the first prerequisite for language acquisition to take place, language teachers have, in the past decade or so, begun to abandon the structural, audio-lingual approach, involving the mechanical practice of sentence patterns, in favor of a more functional one involving more communicative exercises. However, the LEP students' perceptions of their need to communicate in the target language may vary not only by age and interests but also by the linguistic

setting in which they find themselves. In Hawaii, for example, the language of a large portion of the community is a nonstandard variety, Hawaiian Creole English (HCE), while the language of the school is Standard English (SE). Local children in Hawaii distinguish early between these two varieties of English and express a preference for Standard English as the language of the school almost as early, while they continue to use Hawaiian Creole English for interpersonal communication outside the classroom setting.ta LEP students in this setting may perceive the only relevant place for Standard English is the classroom. They pick up Hawaiian Creole English for communication with their peers relatively quickly. In situations such as this, there is a need to incorporate into the second· language curriculum the content of the regular classroom, so that these students have the vocabulary and structures to participate in the monolingual Standard English classroom-a form of English for Special Purposes.

A second prerequisite for the acquisition of a language to take place is a low anxiety environment. Stevick notes that the level of threat or anxiety which a student acquiring a second language experiences "limits the depth from which the student will be able to act in response to the teacher's initiative .... "19

Schumann20 has shown that socio­psychological factors such as attitude toward the target language and motivation to learn it, ego­permeability, degree of acculturation, and social distance affect the language acquisition process. Access to the Ll may or may not reduce the anxiety level of students learning a second language, although one currently popular approach to teaching second languages, counseling learning/community

language learning, is based on the assumption that it does.21 Within this approach, teachers must speak the first language of their students, at least in the early stages. Certainly, misunderstanding of cultural cues can lead to unclear student expectations, resulting in turn in an increase in anxiety. It follows that teachers responsible for the second­language development of LEP students must understand and respond to those cultural cues.

The third prerequisite for acquisition of language to take place is the availability of comprehensible input. Recent studies have revealed that native speakers of a language modify their language when talking to nonnative speakers and that these modifications of l2 may aid in the acquisition process. These modifications include both syntactic adjustments and modifications of interactional structure. Syntactic adjustments include the use of shorter utterances, a slower pace with fewer false starts, and the use of vocabulary familiar to the hearer.22 Modifications of interactional structure include repetition, confirmation checks and comprehension checks.2J When speaking to a second-language learner, native speakers repeat their own utterances more frequently than when speaking to other native speakers. This is believed to increase the processing time of the nonnative speaker. In addition, they repeat the speech of the nonnative speaker and question the speech of nonnative speakers more than that of other native speakers-to confirm that what they understood is in fact what the nonnative speaker intended to communicate. All of these adjustments are thought to facilitate the acquisition of the second language by making it more comprehensible.

Unfortunately, there is research to suggest that this type of comprehensible input is not as prevalent in the ESL classroom as one might want. Long reports on a study of six ESL classes and concludes that those classrooms offered "very little opportunity to the learner to communicate in the target language or to hear it used for communkative purposes by others."24 Similar studies are needed of other ESL classrooms and of the L2 used in bilingual classrooms to determine what type of input is being provided to LEP students and where they are getting that input. It may well turn out that the kind of comprehensible input needed for second-language acquisition to occur is provided not so much in the ESL classroom or in the regular submersion classroom, but in the bilingual classroom. The studies cited above on language use in the bilingual classroom are consistent with this speculation.

Criteria for Mainstreaming, the Goals of Bilingual Education and the linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis

Even the presence of the three above mentioned criteria for second­language acquisition to take place may not be enough to meet the goals of transitional bilingual education programs, however. That goal is a reasonable chance for academic success in a monolingual English classroom and is predicated upon an understanding of what is meant by language proficiency.

Investigators in the field of language and education have often pointed out that the language of the classroom and the language outside the classroom differ. Donaldson notes that outside the classroom, "the child has been used to directing thought onto the real, distracting world of concrete experience. In the classroom, .. . the child has to learn

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES I 15

to turn language and thought in on himself. The child has to learn not only to talk but to choose what to talk about; not just to interpret but to weigh possible interpretations. The child's conceptual system must expand in the direction of increasing ability to represent itself.21

Calfee and Freedman distinguish between two modes of language­formal and informal.u Informal language is highly implicit, interactive, personal and context­bound. Formal language is explicit, rational, context-free and logical. Informal language is the language of the home and the community. Formal language is, among other things, the language of education.

Another distinction that has been made between types of language is between utterance and text.27 In oral communication the degree of formalization of language is not very great and the listener can clarify the speaker's intent through interaction, through the use of nonlinguistic cues and through context. The use of these conventions to decipher meaning is not available through the written mode. Needless to say, schools rely to a great extent on the written mode to convey content to be learned.

Finally, Cumminsu draws a distinction between what he calls basic interpersonal communication skills (SICS), which are characterized by context embedded and cognitively undemanding language, and cognitive and academic language proficiency CCALP), which is characterized by context reduced and cognitively demanding language. Context-embedded language is that language in which participants can negotiate meaning through the use of feedback and in which meaning is supported by nonlinguistic situational cues. Context-reduced language relies primarily on linguistic

16 /EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

cues to negotiate meaning and may involve "suspending knowledge of the 'real' world in order to interpret (or manipulate) the logic of communication."2• Cognitively undemanding versus cognitively demanding language involves the "amount of information that must be processed simultaneously or in close succession by the individual in order to carry out the activity."Jo

The relationship between face-to­face, everyday, interpersonal communication (out-of-class, informal. utterance BICS) and the language of success in school (in­school, formal, text, CALll) is not as yet entirely clear. Research suggests that while fluency in the first type of language proficiency may be a necessary condition for fluency in the second type,31 it may not be a sufficient condition, especially for LEP students. CumminsJ2 finds a correlation between well-developed LI CALP and successful development of L2 CALP. He calls this relationship between LI CALP and L2 CALP the linguistic interdependence hypothesis and proposes that if students are to be assured a reasonable chance for academic success in a monolingual L2 academic setting, the cognitive and academic language proficiency of their L2 must be developed, the implication being that even in transitional types of bilingual education, the first language literacy skills of LEP students must be developed. This is especially true of younger LEP students who enter the American school setting with poorly developed first-language literacy skills. He maintains that a period of from five to seven years of bilingual instruction would be needed to develop these skills. Furthermore, this suggests that criteria for exiting from transitional bilingual education programs should include not simply

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measures of oral L2 proficiency such as the Language Assessment Scales or the Basic Inventory of Natural Languages, two of the most commonly used proficiency measures, but also some measure of either LI literacy skills or L2 academic language proficiency such as the reading portions of standardized achievement tests.

In summary, the myths about bilingual education mentioned at the beginning of this article are simply false. The L2 is used much less in the typical bilingual classroom than is commonly assumed. It serves the purpose of clarifying instruction. Bilingual teachers provide the added benefit of access to culture-specific behaviors of LEP students, which in turn promotes the maintenance of student engagement and facilitates the providing of feedback of student performance. All of these are prerequisites of good instruction.

Furthermore, the teaching of content through a bilingual mode has the potential for promoting the development of second-language proficiency by addressing the LEP students' perceived need to

communicate in the target language and by lowering anxiety. It may also turn out that the bilingual classroom provides more of the comprehensible input necessary for the development of second-language proficiency than even the ESL classroom provides.

However, if transitional bilingual education is to attain its goal of successfully exiting students into the L2 mainstream, it may be necessary to extend those programs to include the development of LI literacy skills. Exit criteria must also measure the cognitive and academic aspects of language proficiency.

Unfortunately, despite research findings, resistance to bilingual education is likely to persist. This resistance is to some extent grounded in prejudice. Here in Hawaii, many policymakers in the field of education today were, themselves, the victims of a segregated school system that discriminated on the basis of language. It should not be surprising that some of these victims may have learned their lessons well.

Traditionally, the educational system in this country has been viewed as a vehicle for. upward social mobility and political influence, and the fear of losing hard-won gains is a natural one. At the same time, however, educational institutions must be responsible to the changes in the societies they serve. Today's world requires a high level of literacy. At the same time the individual with bilingual or multilingual capabilities and the skills needed to function in a variety of cultural settings will dearly have an advantage over the monolingual chauvinist. Bilingual education is one challenging but promising means for responding to these changes.

footnotes

•California State Department of Education. Schooling and Lmguagt Minority S/udtn/s· A Thtortlical Franuworl:. Los Angeles : California State University EDAC, 1981.

2Legaretta, Dorothy. "Language Choice in Bilingual Classrooms," in TESOL Quarltrly, 11, pp. 9-16, 1977.

JSchultz, J. "Language Use in Bilingual Classrooms," paper presented at annual TESOL Convention, Los Angeles, 1975.

•Tikunoff, William. "Successful Instruction for Bilingual Schooling," unpublished paper, Far West Laboratory fo\" Educational Research and Development, 1982.

'Strong, Michael. "Teacher Language to Limited-English Speakers: Choice, Function and Quantity," paper presented at annual TESOL Convention, Toronto, 1983.

•Ibid. 'Paulston, Christina Bratt. "Viewpoint:

Research," in Bilingual Education: Currtn/ Pmpnlivts. Arlington, Virginia : Center for Applied Linguistics, vol. 2, 1977.

&Jbid. •Tikunoff, op. cil. • 01bid.

llStrong, op. til. 12Pablo, Josephine. ''Coping Behavior

Patterns of Students of Limited English Proficiency,n unpublished master's thesis, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1980.

llPhilips, Susan. "Participant Structures and Communicatives Competence: Warm Springs Children in Community and Classroom," in Courtney B. Cazden, Vera P. John and Dell Hymes, eds., Funtlions of Languagt in !ht Classroom, New York : Teachers College Press, pp. 370·394, 1972.

••Boggs, Stephen T. "The Meaning of Questions and Narratives to Hawaiian Children,'' in Courtney B. Cazden, Vera P. John and Dell Hymes, eds., Functions of l.anguagt in lht Classroom, New York : Teachers College Press, pp. 299· 330, 1972

u Forman, Sheila. "Cultural Differences in Responses to Filmed Child Sequences," unpublished master's thesis, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii at Manca, 1972.

"Krashen, Stephen. "Bilingual Education and Second Language Acquisitlon Theory," in Sthooling and Languagt Minorily Studtnls (see footnote 1).

l' /bid. 1•Day, Richard. "The Development of

Linguistic Attitudes and Preferences," in TESOL Quarltrly. 14, pp. 27-37, 1980.

19Stevick, Earl. Mrmory, Mmning and Mt/hod, Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House, 1976.

20Schumann, John. "Second Language Acquisition. The Pidginization Hypothesis," unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1975.

21Curran, Charles. Co1mstling Ltarning in Srcond Languagt Ltarnmg, Apple River, Illinois : Apple River Press, 1976.

22Arthur, Bradford and Richard Weiner, Michael Culver, Young Ja Lee and Dorina Thomas. "The Register of Impersonal Discourse to Foreigners: Verbal Adjustments to Foreign Accent," in Diane Larsen-Freeman, ed., Discoursr Analysis in Stcond Languagt Rtstarch, Rowley, Massachusetts : Newbury House, pp. 111-124, 1980. Also, Stephen Gaies, "Linguistic Input in First and Second Language Learning." in Fred Eckman and Ashley Hastings. eds., Studits in Firs/ and Steond l.anguagt Acquisilion, Rowley, Massachusetts : Newbury House, pp. 185· 193, 1979.

EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVES I 17

ULong, Michael. "Native Speaker/Non­Native Speaker Conversation in the Second Language Classroom,'' in Mark Clark and Jean Handscombe, eds., On TESOL '81.: Pacifi' Pmprclivts on Languagt Ltarning and Ttathing. Washington, D.C. : TESOL, pp. 207~225, 1983.

:</bid. UMcLaughlin, Barry. Ch1/drtn s Stlond

Languagt Ltarning, Arlington, Virginia : Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982.

2•Calfee, R. and S. Freedman. "Understanding and Comprehending." paper presented at the Center for the Study of Reading, Urbana, Illinois, 1980.

n Qlsen, D.R. "From Utterance to Text: The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing," in Harvard £,lucallonal Rrvirw, 47, pp. 257- 281, 1977.

ztCumins, James. "Linguistic Interdependence and the Educational Development of Bilingual Children," in Rroirw of £durational Rtsttmh. 49, pp. 222-251, 1979. Also, James Cumins, "The Role of Primary Language Development in Promoting Educational Success for Language Minority Students," in S<hool and Languagt Minority Sludtnls (see footnote 1).

29/bid. JD/bid. JISpeidel, Gisela. "Language and

Reading," in Edutalional Ptrsptclivrs. Journal of the College of Education, Unviersity of Hawaii at Manca, 20, pp. 23-30, 1981.

J2Cumins, op. er/.

Thomas G. Hutbntr is an Ams/an/ Profmor al /ht Univmily of Ptnnsylvania. Ht rutivtd his docloralt in Unguislics from lht Univrrsily of Hawaii al Manoa. Dr. Hutbntr has conducltd numtrous worl.:shops for /tachtrs in Hawaii.