Chapter 6: Bilingual Education

The Role of First and Second Language Interdependence in Explaining the Outcomes of Bilingual Programs

When you learn to speak as a child, you are using some sort of innate cognitive abilities to understand language, which Noam Chomsky called the General Theory of Language in his revolutionary book from 1957, Syntactic Structures. He proposed that individual grammars of individual languages were based on a cognitive structure used by all languages. For example, all languages (except sign language, of course) use a variety of phonemes, which can be described by universal features, all express various concepts in some sort of semantic structure, words, prefixes, etc., and all have a certain syntactic structure (subjects, objects, verbs, etc.) This is why it is possible for us to learn a strange language by picking up objects to ask for their names and put the names into some sort of comprehensible structure. We still have to learn the specific rules for each language, but the main framework is already in place.

[Linguists] must be concerned with the problem of determining the fundamental underlying properties of successful grammars [of specific languages.] The ultimate outcome of these investigations should be a theory of linguistic structure in which the descriptive devices utilized in particular grammars are presented and studied abstractly, with no specific reference to particular languages.
(Chomsky, p. 11)

Chomsky's book arrived the same year that a symposium on Universals in Linguistic Theory was held at the University of Texas. These books were the "bibles" when I studied linguistics back in the 1960's. I was pleased to see that Chomsky's book has been republished, and that the topic is still of interest. Nowadays, of course, there are bio-neurological theories of language that weren't possible when I studied linguistics, such as the works of Steven Pinker, which I will have to study some day.

So learning a language is learning those specifics about the particular language; learning math is learning math concepts, which are language independent.) We can appreciate a picture drawn by someone no matter what language she was thinking in when she painted the picture; people who speak different languages can plan sports, even on the same team.

Just as a football player has no difficulty learning the rules of basketball or soccer, because they have some general "sports rules" and a pianist can learn to play a violin or flute because he already understands the musical concepts behind playing instruments, then every language that a student learns builds on her cognitive understanding about what the general language rules are that govern all languages. In each case, the person compares and contrasts the sport, or instrument or language with what s/he already knows, to figure out which new parts still have to be learned.

For example, a Spanish speaker discovers very quickly that English has a lot of recognizable vocabulary, and figures out rules so that he can automatically "invent" correct words in English using those rules. He learns by trial and error when these invented words work and when they are incomprehensible, buiilding his cognitive understanding of both languages.

According to Cummins, there are still people who believe in a "Separate underlying proficiency (SUP) model of bilingual proficiency", which apparently believe that you start from scratch when you learn a new language. Cummins is supported by the early theorists in the theory of Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) model, which assumes that a good part of learning is common, no matter what language you speak, as he shows in this figure:

Figure 6.4 The "Dual Iceberg" Representation of Bilingual Proficiency
(Cummins, p 174)

Cummins reports on numerous studies representing many language combinations that prove this point, that by learning one new language, a student builds a cognitive representation of language learning that aids him in learning new languages. This is why some people can speak enormous numbers of languages - since a large part of each language is common cognitive representation.

The Ramirez Report (1991), the Thomas/Collier Study (1997) and various International Evaluations

Cummins goes into more detail on a four convincing studies, where large numbers of students taught in different types of bilingual programs were studied, both in the U.S. and internationally. All of the studies he describes provide good support to the thesis that the longer students have good training in their L1 as well as the L2, they will become proficient in both, and in some cases more proficient than their monolingual peers, supporting the additive enrichment principle.

Chapter 6: Bilingual Education

Theory Proposed by Bilingual Education Advocates

Additive Bilingualism Enrichment Principle

Figure 6.1: Effects of Bilingualism
(Cummins, p. 171)

Bilingualism and Metalinguistic Abilities. Researchers have found that bilingual students gain cognitive skills from their bilingualism, including learning a third language faster. Because they are constantly comparing and contrasting their two (or more) languages, they become cognitively aware of the structure of the languages, and how they are similar or how much they differ. They consistently score higher on "measures reflecting creative thinking (the Torrance Fluency and Imagination measures), metalinguistic awareness (Word Order Correction), and verbal and non-verbal awareness."(Cummins, p. 165)

Cummins tells about conclusive studies in Italy and in India, where

studies show a clear positive relationship between bilingualism and cognitive performance, instuding measures of metalinguistic ability. [The researcher] suggests that bilinguals' awareness of language and their cognitive stragegies are enhanced as a result of the challenging communicative environment in which their bilingual abilities have developed.
(Cumins, p. 166)

My bilingual children are decidedly more creative than I am. Although my artist grandmother was sure I would be an artist, my creations were very down-to-earth and concrete, while my children produced much more fanciful drawings and writings. My son is now a very creative developer. I expect that my own social creativity has also advanced because of my late bilingualism. After inital protestations about how strange things were done in Denmark, I learned to accept cultural and food differences them, which I have carried over to my new life in the "new" culture of California, 30 years later.

A variety of explanations have been suggested to account for the observed superiority of bilingual children on certain types of cognitive and linguistic measures: for example, the fact that bilinguals have two words for the same idea or object and two ways of expressing the same through may lead them to "objectivfy" or become more aware of their linguistic operations...
(Cummins, p. 167)

This would indicate that we not only should encourage those of our students who are fortunate to become bilingual to keep their two languages equally strong (as in the illustration), but encourage monolingual students of the advantages of becoming bilingual. Possibly the some of the members of the organization U.S. English realize the advantages of bilingualism, and fear that bilinguals will become to strong in our culture. Interesting enough, since this is a country of immigrants, maybe the creativity of those immigrants can be attributed to their bilingual backgrounds. Are monolinguals too complacent without the challenge and contrast of bilingualism? Interesting enough, the origins of U.S. English are among the foreign born who has "made it" here in this country. According to the website

Mauro E. Mujica ... Chairman of the Board and CEO of U.S.ENGLISH since January of 1993 ... [who] immigrated to the United States from his native Chile, has a firsthand understanding of the obstacles facing non-English speakers upon their arrival in this country. His insight into the linguistic isolation of non-English speakers and his determination to help tear down these barriers made him a perfect successor to the late Senator S.I. Hayakawa, who founded the organization in 1983.
(U.S. English, About)

The organization is apparently working to pass legislation in states (and being somewhat successful) to make English the Official Language of this country, but they claim that this does not mean "English Only."

As evidenced in our legislation, official English would not affect the diversity of languages spoken in the home, foreign languages learned in classrooms, mottoes, Native American languages and the like. Making English the official language of the United States refers solely to the language of the government, not of the people, private business, classrooms, etc. Passage of official English legislation would not make the United States “English-Only,” just as Nigeria is not “English-Only” and Mexico is not “Spanish-Only."
(U.S.English, Official English)

This message doesn't sound as terrible as Cummins suggests. As with all organizations, the initial concepts of the founders may have been lead astray by xenophobic followers, who are trying to limit the amount of bilingual education in schools, so that the students do not get the support they need to become truly fluent in both languages, also in Academic language.

Enhancement of Third Language Learning. Studies comparing how well bilingual students learn a third language compared with monolingual students (for example, Basque students in Spain who are bilingual in Spanish, who are learning English in classes with monolingual Spanish speakers) have consistently shown the advantage of bilingual students, who can draw on their enhanced metalinguistic abilities. However, Cummins reports that just bilingualism isn't enough. The students apparently must reach a certain threshold (in Academic Language) for this to be effective.

Specifically, there may be threshold levels of proficiency in both languages that students must attain in order to participate effectively in instruction and avoid falling behind academincally and in a second, higher, threshold necessary to reap the lingistic and intellectual benefits of bilingualism and biliteracy.
...
[The] research strongly suggests that, rather than "shutting doors" as Schlenger (1991) claimed, literacy in two languages enhances the intellectual and academic resources of bilingual students. At an instructional level, we should be ... [building] on this potential advantage...by focusing students' attention on language and helping them become more adept at manipulating language in abstract academic situations.
(Cummins, p. 170)

I have known examples of students who evidently did not manage to cross the threshold in both languages giving them decided linguistic problems in school. The one student was the youngest child of (divorced) Canadian immigrants to Denmark. The parents both spoke inadequate Danish, as far as I could see, also with their children. I think that the older children had no difficulties, so they possibly had an English-speaking environment at home before the divorce. The youngest, however, had no good role models of either English or Danish at home. Luckily he was very musical and sang in various groups, so he was learning correct language through songs. However, he had not advantage from these two languages when I was trying to teach him German.

In the next post, I will take up the final topic in this chapter, the role of the first and second language interdependence.

Chapter 6: Bilingual Education

What does the Research Say?

Politicians are not usually in agreement about what to do with English Learners in their school systems; and according to Cummins, they figure they have enough experiential evidence to make their decisions. Where there have been many studies about education bilinguals, from all over the world, and a few theories about what is best for the students, politicians have rarely used the results of research that has tested the theoretical hypotheses against all the different studies. Chapter 6 relates the theories with types of bilingual education programs and the studies made about these programs, to find the methods that most researchers (and fewer policy makers) have discovered work best.

Types of Bilingual Education Programs

In Bilingual Education, two (or more) languages of instruction during parts of the student's school career. This is not the same as teaching three years of high school Spanish to English speakers, where Spanish is the subject being taught, not (necessarily) the language of instruction.According to Cummins, this can be interpreted in two ways:

• The method is used as a means by which other educational goals are achieved. Students are often taught in bilingual classes only up to the point where they are deemed able to participate in regular classes with their peers. The bilinguaal education is used to provide a transition from L1 to L2. Real proficiency in L2 is expected to develop while the student uses it in regular classes along with L2-speaking peers.
• In some bilingual programs, however, bilingual proficiency is the goal, rather than the means. Students are expected to become academically proficient in both (or all three) languages. These programs are often found in two types:
  1. Second language immersion, such as French programs taught in Canada, where students may be taught entirely in French for the first few classes, gradually moving toward 50% English and 50% French as the language of instruction of all subjects.
  2. Dual language (two-way) bilingual programs, where students with two different L1s are taught in each other's languages, sometimes starting with about 90% in one language and sometimes 50/50, with perhaps the one language in the morning and the other in the afternoon.
  Thus the students gain academic language proficiency in both languages.

Typologies of bilingual education programs

Different researchers have classified programs according to "goals, status of the student group... , proportions of instructional time through each language, sociolinguistic and sociopolitical situation in the immediate community and wider society." (Cummins, pp 160-161) Cummins divides these into five types, based on the status of the L1 and L2:

• Type I use indigenous or Native languages as the medium of instruction, often aiming at reviving and revitalizing languages that have been endangered through earlier abusive educational programs . Besides in the US and Canada, these can be found with Maoris in New Zealand and other similar countries.
• Type II use a national minority language, like Welsh in Wales (which might also be motivated as a Type I program; French, German or Italian in Switzerland; Swedish in Finland, and Basque in Spain.
  
• Type III use international minority languages used by relatively recent immigrants to a country. These are common in places like the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as the U.S., and are mostly used to transition students into the dominant language. In some case, Type II and III merge, as with Spanish/English schools in the U.S.
  
• Type IV are bilingual/bicultural programs for the deaf or hard-of-hearing.
  
• Type V are for majority/dominant group students, who can see an advantage becoming bilingual. These include the French immersion programs for English speakers (the already bilingual English/Swedish daughter of friends in Montreal enjoyed participating in such a program) as well as some duo-language programs in the U.S.
  

Theories of bilingual education

There seem to be four major theories about bilingual education. The first two are favored by policy makers who oppose comprehensive bilingual education, while the last two are based on cognitive theory, and are favored by Cummins:

1. Linguistic Mismatch: where there is considered to be a mismatch between a student's L1 (and culture) and the language and culture of the school, the student is instructed in the L2 to minimize or erase the mismatch, assuming that students would encounter academic difficulties because of a mismatch. (Cummins, p. 158.) Cummins dismisses this assumption with short shrift later:

   While the claim that children cannot learn through a language they do not understand has been persuasive to many policy-makers and educatiors (and, in fact, underlies the quick-exit transitional focus of most U.S. bilingual education), it ...fails to account either for the success of English background children in ... dual language programs...
   (Cummins, p. 164.)

2. Maximum Exposure: students learn the L2 best by being completely immersed in it as soon as possible, providing maximum "time on task" for learning English, and leaving the L1 for home use alone. This is the method that has been taught in schools for Native Americans here, as well as similar schools in many other countries where a native population was dominated by another (as discussed in my blog post about Chapter I,) where children were kept in boarding schools in an attempt to "save them from their heathen culture." Cummins quotes several claims that purport to prove that time on task learning the predominant language (and this means, in particular, the spoken language) is the greatest predictor of learning this language, claiming that bilingual education spends too little time teaching English. (Cummins, p 163)
3. Additive Bilingualism Enrichment Principle: bilingual students gain cognitive skills from their bilingualism, including learning a third language faster.
   
4. Linguistic Interdependence (or Common Underlying Proficiency) Principle: cognitive skills are independent of the language being spoken (i.e. it doesn't matter what language you speak to learn to drive a car) so the cognitive skills of language learning are interdependent on each other. (Cummins, p. 159.)
   

These last two theories are discussed and supported in the rest of the chapter, so I will cover them in the next blog post.