M E M O R A N D U M
To: Asian Pacific American Community
From:
Date: December 6, 2006
Re: Arguments Favoring the Maintenance of Bilingual Education
_______________________________________
Background
Bilingual education in America commenced with the establishment of the country as a colony. During the 1800s, Ohio became the first state to enact a bilingual education statute to address the English earning needs of German speaking community. This effort was followed by legislation in the state of Louisiana providing for French-English education for the community of French descent. After a few years, a number of states such as New Mexico together with twelve other states followed suit and established bilingual education in their territories. However, these efforts were thwarted by the First World War with the emergence of American patriotism resulting to the re-establishment of the English-only classrooms. The English exclusive educational system persisted until the 1960s. The rise of the civil war movement together with the increasing immigration into the United States catalyzed the advocacy of the reversion of the education system to bilingual instruction. Through the passage of the Bilingual Education Act, supplemental funds were allocated for the establishment of programs addressing the special education needs of students with limited ability to communicate in English. Advocacy for reversion to bilingual education heightened in strength leading to the settlement by the Supreme Court of the issue of bilingual education. (, , & ) In , the Court held that schools should take positive measures to surmount language barriers that hampered learning for English as second language students. This was further reinforced by the legislative move enacting the Equal Educational Opportunity Act 1974, which provided that failure by an educational institution to implement measures to address language barriers constituted denial of equal opportunity to education. The decision in the case was also expanded in and .
A sector affected by bilingual education is the Asian Pacific American communities in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Monitoring Board, 66 percent of Asian Pacific Americans are concentrated in the states of California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York and Texas. However, there are also a significant number of Asian Pacific Americans living in metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Houston, New York City, San Francisco and San Jose. At present, Asian American comprise 5 percent of the entire American population but the community has been considered as the fastest growing group with projections of 412.5 percent increase between 1992 and 2050. Despite the diversity in terms of educational attainment and income level within the Asian Pacific American community, their integration of the population as long-term contributing members to the US economy means that they also become amalgamated into the educational system.
At present, policy makers continue to be divided over the effectiveness of existing bilingual programs. There are groups supporting the English-only advocacy while others recognize the need to change the current bilingual educational system but remain in doubt as to the viability of reverting back to English-only instruction. The issue has seen differing views in different states. On one hand, in California, English-only instruction was reiterated through the passage of Proposition 227 seeking the rapid teaching of English by providing children with as much exposure as possible in the classroom environment. The proposition promotes assimilation, which was also embodied in a similar proposition passed in Arizona and Massachusetts. On the other hand, a proposition of a similar nature was considered but was rejected in Colorado.
Issue
Based on the persisting educational policy debates, the relevant issue is whether bilingual education should be maintained or denied in the United States.
Conclusion
Bilingual education should be maintained in the United States based on a linguistic, cultural, education policy and legal arguments. However, the need to evaluate and reform the current bilingual education system also deserves merit, as proposed in , to optimize learning among communities having English as second language.
Discussion
Advocacy for the maintenance of bilingual education in the United States is comprised of four major arguments.
First argument covers linguistic grounds for retaining bilingual system of instruction. Bilingual education is based on the principle that students considered as language minority need to initially develop high degrees of language proficiency in the primary language in order to support the acquisition of English as a secondary language ( ). This means that language minority students find it easier to learn another language after achieving high proficiency in their native language in terms of cognition expressed in both social communication and academic learning. It is cognition in the native language that provides the foundational structure for learning another language.
In the educational environment, cognitive academic language proficiency has been linked to cognitive development and literacy. This type of proficiency instills in students the basic skills needed in learning a second language such as cognition, or the ability and process of reasoning, understanding and remembering. The development of children of high degrees of cognitive academic language learning has been linked to several positive contributions to second language learning. One contribution to the acquisition of second language learning of cognitive academic language proficiency is that having high levels of cognitive proficiency becomes the basis of a similar level of proficiency in the second language. The level of cognitive proficiency in the native language also results to academic progress in second language acquisition. Moreover, high cognitive proficiency in the native language increases the probability of second language acquisition by enhancing the absorption of comprehensible input. In addition, cognitive proficiency not only assists in the positive adjustment in the native language and culture but also to the English language and the American culture. (; )
These linguistic principles then support the advocacy for the maintenance of bilingual education system by propounding that cognitive proficiency in the native language enhances effective second language acquisition. Without reasoning and understanding skills in the native language, language minority students would not have the basic skills to achieve similar levels of cognitive proficiency in the second language. Learning skills in the native language is similar to the foundational structure required in acquiring a second language. In bilingual education, cognitive proficiency in the native language is optimized in order to support a similar level of language proficiency in the second language.
Based on these principles, bilingual education system should provide sufficient access to comprehensible second language inputs and motivations to learn the new language in order to support the acquisition of the second language for purposes of interpersonal skills as well as academic learning. Teaching strategies and the learning environment also require adjustments adapted to the cognitive proficiency development needs of language minority students.
Second argument involves cultural grounds for maintaining the bilingual education system. The bilingual education debate is founded upon the cultural clash between proponents of cultural assimilation and acculturation. Assimilation refers to the process of different minority groups being absorbed into the majority culture. In the case of the United States, assimilation means that cultural minority groups would learn English and the overall American lifestyle before eventually being incorporated into the majority culture. Acculturation pertains to the process of integrating and adapting another lifestyle and cultural values into one’s own cultural background. These two perspectives are similar in the sense that both recognize differences in cultural backgrounds of communities across America. The difference lies in the expectations of minority groups. While cultural assimilation based on the perspective of the majority group asserts the integration of minority groups into the mainstream culture often resulting to the abandonment of the native culture, acculturation based on the perspective of the minority groups propounds the adaptation of minority groups of mainstream culture into their native belief and practices system resulting to the determination of a point of harmony between the minority and majority culture. ()
Transposed into the issue of bilingual education, assimilation is the foundational support for the English-only system while acculturation provides support for bilingual education. In order to advocate the maintenance of bilingual education, the appropriateness of acculturation as a perspective in the educational system should be enhanced. Acculturation allows the determination of harmonious balance between the majority and minority cultures and prevents the cultural conflict that arises when people are forced to abandon their beliefs and practices in exchange for the majority culture. Moreover, acculturation captures the social reality in the United States that both majority and minority groups change in the process of interacting with each other instead of the majority group dominating and changing the minority culture. In the process of interaction, exchange of cultural input between majority and minority cultures changes both cultures ().
Acculturation comprises the cultural argument for bilingual education because of the respect accorded to cultural differences and multiculturalism. In the educational system, acculturation implies the interaction between the native and English language in the learning process in order to utilize native language skills to enhance understanding and application of the English language.
Third argument involves educational policy grounds. While both English-only and bilingual education hold the goal of enabling students to acquire English as a second language for use in both social and academic settings, English-only instruction does not recognize the innate differences in the learning process and pace of native English speaking students and English as second language students making it irrational to use a single curriculum for both groups of students. Bilingual education serves as the more effective English learning system for minority groups because it recognizes the inevitable existence of cultural and linguistic variations among students resulting to variations in the learning process. Based on this cultural context, bilingual instruction utilizes the native or primary language of students to develop the cognitive and literacy skills needed for the students to acquire English as second language. ()
Fourth argument covers the legal grounds. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that:
“Everyone has the right to education… Education shall be directed to the full development of human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”
This implies that in order to comply with the right to education, the educational system should target, among others, the development of the human personality through understanding and tolerance of cultural differences. I
In application to the issue of maintaining or denying bilingual education, the acculturation-based bilingual education provides a more rational compliance with the fundamental right to education because of its recognition of differences in cultural background resulting to varying learning conditions and needs for native English and English as second language students. Moreover, bilingual education promotes the development of human personality by allowing minority groups the freedom to choose the extent and pace of integration into the American culture by providing an educational system that encourages the harmonious interaction between different cultures to foster learning. Bilingual education enables minority to groups to acquire English necessary to become significant contributors in society without the trauma of cultural violence.
Title 20, Chapter 39, Subchapter 1, Part 1, section 1701 of the U.S. Code provides for the equal educational opportunity for all students in the public school system regardless of “race, color, sex, or national origin”. Equal educational opportunity is also enshrined in the Equal Educational Opportunity Act 1974. Although this concept initially applied to the desegregation of the public school system due to the civil rights movement changing the previous learning environment separating white and black students, in the current context, equal educational opportunity means the recognition of cultural differences and the development of learning instruction that addresses the differences in learning needs. Bilingual education does not segregate students by reason of cultural background because the system still falls under the same public education system but it provides a context-based learning experience that supports the efficient learning process of language minority students in the same way that native speakers are provided with a learning experience that supports their educational development.
Summary
The debate on maintaining or denying bilingual education comprises an important issue for minority cultural groups in the United States such as the Asian Pacific Americans in the United States. This is because the issue has implications over the future educational system for minority groups. The issue involves linguistic, cultural, educational policy, and legal aspects that also comprise the grounds supporting the advocacy for the maintenance of bilingual education. Linguistic grounds provide that cognitive skills learned in the native language constitutes the foundation for learning a second language. Cultural grounds propound that acculturation-based bilingual education fits the current social reality, relative to the assimilation-based English-only instruction, of the mutual influence between majority and minority cultures through interaction. Educational policy grounds contend that learning is affected by the cultural background of students, which means that the ability of bilingual education to recognize differences in cultural background allows the development of teaching and learning methods that maximizes native language skills in learning a second language. Legal grounds cover the fundamental right to education focused on human development and cultural understanding and equal educational opportunity applied in the current multicultural context of the United States.
Recommendation
Although bilingual education is being advocated, it is recognized that there are areas of weaknesses in bilingual education encompassed by the non-inclusion of bilingual teachers in policy development and decision-making. Budget allocation, bilingual curriculum efficiency, student performance standardization, and teacher competence constituting the problem in the current bilingual education system emanate from the non-inclusion of teachers in the formulation of the policies involving bilingual instruction and decision-making in the school administration. This is so despite the fact that bilingual teachers hold the best position to recommend policies and actively participate in decision-making regarding the implementation of the bilingual system. Thus, with the inclusion and active participation of bilingual teachers in policy formulation and decision-making, the weaknesses of the system should be sufficiently addressed adding weight to the maintenance of the system subject to this change.
Bibliography
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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