short article about bilingual education

The Magic of Bilingual Education

Seven educators and one former student on how learning another language can change lives, 1923: the right to let children learn a foreign language, một kỷ niệm yêu quý khi là giáo viên song ngữ, my favorite memory as a bilingual teacher.

Bilingual education for me has been a validation of my language, culture and identity that I did not receive as a child of public education. I grew up in a time when English was the sole focus of language acquisition. For my students, our school system’s Vietnamese dual-language program opens the door of access for their present and future. Most of the students have been with the program since kindergarten; those now in high school have reached notable achievements that are recognized at the state level and can be put on résumés for work or higher education. A more personal triumph for me is seeing how dual-language education affects students’ present lives. The most impactful memory I carry is the deep gratitude a grandmother once shared at an end-of-year celebration. She thanked me for giving her 7-year-old grandson the ability to communicate with her. It was, she said, the first time that she was able to get to know her grandson.

Tu Dinh is a language learning specialist at the district office of Highline Public Schools in Washington state. He spent five years at White Center Heights Elementary School as the first-grade Vietnamese dual-language teacher and two years as a Vietnamese instructional coach and dual-language facilitator.

Les programmes d’immersion linguistique enseignent bien plus qu’une autre langue

Language immersion programs teach much more than another language.

During my senior year at Spelman College, I applied to become a Peace Corps volunteer. Soon after graduation, I boarded a plane with 35 others for training in Senegal. Most of us only spoke English and had not previously traveled outside the United States. Our training focused on intercultural education, adjusting to different living conditions — and intensive language immersion.

After six weeks, I began my assignment as a high school English teacher in a village in Guinea. Although Guineans speak many languages, French is the national language. My French had to be strong enough to work and survive — sink or swim.

Over my two years in Guinea, I swam and survived. I learned that the ability to communicate in French and other languages enabled me to make genuine connections with my students, colleagues and neighbors. I witnessed my students’ English acquisition make a similar impact. I became a firm believer in the importance of language immersion as a way to better understand others.

After a decade-long career in international development and education policy, I began working for the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School, a 25-year-old language immersion elementary school in Washington (which was founded by my mother and named after my grandmother). It was the first charter school in D.C. to offer Spanish and French immersion. This year I celebrate 20 years of working at the school and 10 years as the head of school. I have seen hundreds of children enter prekindergarten and graduate from the fifth grade with the ability to speak, learn, read, write and communicate in two or more languages.

Pre-pandemic, as a culminating event for their language immersion studies, our graduating students would travel to Panama or Martinique for a week-long international study tour. During their travels, not only would they explore a new country and connect with local students, they also participated in radio interviews in French and presidential palace tours in Spanish. The experience of traveling abroad and communicating in French or Spanish has changed the trajectory of many students’ lives. This school year, we look forward to completing our first international study tour since the pandemic.

Erika Bryant is executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School.

Apoyemos a todos los niños multilingües a mantener su lengua materna

Let’s support all multilingual children in keeping their home language.

My family immigrated to California from Mexico in 1992 when I was 3 years old. My parents immediately enrolled me in Head Start, where I was lucky to have access to bilingual education, which supported and used my home language (Spanish) to help me develop proficiency and literacy in English. I was enrolled in bilingual classes until second grade, and I credit this experience as the reason I am bilingual and biliterate today. My mom still likes to talk about how I read 500 books in kindergarten in both languages. Bilingual education was crucial to my development and enabled me to communicate with and stay connected to my family both in Mexico and California. In 1998, California eliminated bilingual education, which means that — until 2016 when it was reinstated — generations after me were denied the opportunity to maintain their home language.

Leslie Villegas is a senior policy analyst at New America, where she focuses on improving equity for English learners in pre-K-to-12 education.

Nuwôpanâmun

We are wampanoag.

In our community, the bilingual education that our Weetumuw School students receive is meaningful on a much larger scale. Wôpanâak, the language spoken by the Indigenous people of eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, was a sleeping language for generations, and it is only in the past couple of decades that it has begun to come back to us.

Weetumuw is an independent school founded in 2016 that serves roughly 25 students in Mashpee, Mass. Today, with dedication from teachers, students and their families, as well as linguists who contribute to the school’s language content, we are able to see Wôpanâak reemerge as a language of children. And it is children who give life to the language. It is Wampanoag children who will allow Wôpanâak to thrive as they learn and grow.

With their language learning comes cultural understanding, and with both of these things providing a firm foundation from a young age, we are creating a generation of Wampanoag children who have a steadfast and invaluable sense of pride in their identity.

Nitana Hicks Greendeer is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She is the head of the Weetumuw School as well as the mother of five current and former Weetumuw students.

El renacimiento también existe en español

The renaissance exists in spanish too.

My mom grew up in Mexico, my dad in the United States, and this meant I had access to both English and Spanish from childhood. My formal study of Spanish didn’t start until high school, when I learned for the first time to read and write in Spanish and acquired the vocabulary to better get to know some of my family. While I knew I loved Shakespeare early in life, I had no exposure to the Renaissance writers I teach today until I learned about them in college: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, María de Zayas. Teaching and learning Spanish connects me to the rich cultural and political histories of Spanish in the United States, Latin America and Spain, past and present. The most gratifying part of my job is affirming the home languages of my students and advocating for early access to multilingualism and language learning. This means teaching my undergraduates about the value of their language stories, and partnering with local K-12 schools to recognize these biliteracies and strengthen second-language learning for all students.

Margaret Boyle is director of Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx studies and associate professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College. She directs the Multilingual Mainers program for early elementary students and educators.

三者三様-日本語を学ぶ意義とは ～ 公立学校の三人の日本語教師が語る

One school system. three teachers. many reasons to study japanese..

Bilingual education is my passion and life work. In my school’s Japanese immersion program, 90 percent of students’ first language is English, which means they experience what it feels like to be a language minority at a young age. Through struggles and frustration in communicating in another language, they develop empathy for speakers of languages other than English, greater resiliency and a growth mindset. They are supportive of each other and also understanding when I stumble with English. Bilingual education fosters sensitivity to other people’s needs along with language proficiency and cultural competency, and I believe it has a significant impact on creating a caring society.

Noriko Otsuka is a Japanese immersion teacher at Fox Mill Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

I began taking Japanese in middle school. Learning the language required me to see beyond the Japanese pop culture I was familiar with and provided opportunities to meet new people and hear new perspectives. I decided that one of the most valuable skills we can learn is how to communicate with more people through languages. Now, as a teacher, I get to see my students learn to appreciate differences and similarities between cultures, and to reserve judgment about practices different from their own. Language learning has expanded my world, and the reason I teach is to pass that opportunity on to my students.

Cynthia Rinehart is a Japanese immersion teacher at Great Falls Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

My journey to becoming bilingual started with my daily English lessons in kindergarten in Japan. My father taught Chinese at Japanese colleges, and many international students and professors visited us at our home — giving me the opportunity to try my English. I was timid at first, but the excitement I felt when they understood me is still a precious memory. Learning English taught me important life skills. Communicating in another language is difficult. It requires patience, perseverance and creativity. If one way to express yourself is not effective enough, then you have to try again. As a Japanese immersion teacher, I wish my students a rewarding journey as they become lifelong language learners.

Lili Kennington is a Japanese immersion teacher at Great Falls Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

The Benefits of Bilingual Education and Its Impact on Student Learning and Growth

Approximately 5 million students in the United States are English language learners, and the number of English language learners (ELLs) in the US public school system continues to rise steadily, especially in more urbanized school districts.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), students who speak English as a second language are more likely to struggle with academics, and only about 67 percent will graduate from public high school in four years—whereas the average for all students is 84 percent. ELL students can better develop their English proficiency and close the gap in achievement by participating in language assistance programs or bilingual education programs, the NCES explains.

The benefits of bilingual education can begin with students in elementary school and follow them throughout their lives. Education’s impact can lead to a variety of outcomes depending on whether ELL students learn English in a monolingual or bilingual environment. Educators in diverse classrooms or working as school leaders should consider the benefits of bilingual education when creating curricula and establishing desired student learning outcomes.

What Is Bilingual Education?

While bilingual education can take many forms, it strives to incorporate multiple languages into the process of teaching. For example, since there is such a large Spanish-speaking population in the United States, many primary and secondary school students can benefit from educational environments where they are learning in both English and Spanish.

Bilingual education can often be the most effective when children are beginning preschool or elementary school. If children grow up speaking Spanish as their primary language, it can be difficult for them to be placed in English-speaking elementary schools and be expected to understand their teachers and classmates. In a bilingual classroom, however, young students can further establish their foundation of Spanish as well as English, better preparing them for the rest of their education.

Of course, this works for students who begin school speaking any language as their primary language. Children whose parents have come to the United States from another country may have limited English skills when they first begin elementary school. Teachers working in bilingual education classrooms will balance their use of two languages when teaching math, science, history, and other subjects to help these students develop a stronger foundation of their first language as well as English as their second language.

Academic Benefits

Students can benefit in many ways from participating in bilingual education programs or classrooms. Some of the benefits of bilingual education relate to intellect. For example, research has shown that students who can speak and write in multiple languages have cognitive advantages over their monolingual peers. Those who learn a second or third language from a young age are able to develop communication skills and a higher degree of literacy. Children who grow up in bilingual environments develop a keen awareness of how language works and have a stronger foundation for learning additional languages in the future.

Students can also benefit academically from bilingual education. Students who pursue higher education are typically required to take a foreign language at the collegiate level, so those who have been exposed to bilingual educational environments before college—and speak two or more languages—have an advantage over their peers. They can advance in their studies and feel comfortable with multiple communities of students on their campuses.

Students who are exposed to multiple languages throughout high school and college can also have long-term career benefits. Their proficiency in multiple languages is an advantage when they graduate and enter the workplace as professionals. Every industry has a need for effective communicators who can speak multiple languages to meet the needs of the growing number of English language learners in the United States. International operations also have a great need for professionals who can speak multiple languages and represent US-based organizations and companies.

Growth beyond Academics

While there are many benefits of bilingual education related to school and work, bilingual education programs also have a huge impact on students’ cultural and social growth. Children who grow up speaking English as a second language often come from culturally diverse backgrounds. Incorporating cultural education in the classroom can help create enriching academic experiences for all students.

Exploring multiple languages in the classroom provides a foundation for cultural education that allows students to learn and grow alongside classmates from a different cultural background. As a result, students learn to become more adaptable and more aware of the world around them.

To encourage the academic and cultural development of students in bilingual education settings, teachers should have a strong foundation in education and leadership. They should demonstrate a passion for teaching as well as an understanding of how language and culture work together in their students’ academic journeys. Educators should be aware of the role that policies play in the educational environments they cultivate and have an understanding of how to best represent their students’ cultural backgrounds.

Pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching or Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership

To implement the best teaching practices in bilingual education classrooms, teachers should be equipped with a foundation in transformational leadership and cultural awareness. To that end, teachers looking to have a meaningful impact on the lives of their students can further their own education and pursue an advanced degree in education policy and leadership. Through programs like American University’s Master of Arts in Teaching and Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership , educators can broaden their worldviews, engaging in topics such as education law and policy, quantitative research in education, and educational leadership and organizational change.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies: Importance, Benefits & Tips

EdD vs. PhD in Education: Requirements, Career Outlook, and Salary

Transformational Leadership in Education

Bilingual Kidspot, “5 Amazing Benefits of a Bilingual Education”

Learning English, “Number of English Learners in US Schools Keeps Rising”

National Center for Education Statistics, “Digest of Education Statistics”

National Center for Education Statistics, “English Language Learners in Public Schools”

Pew Research Center, “6 Facts About English Language Learners in U.S. Public Schools”

USA Today, “More US Schools Teach in English and Spanish, But Not Enough to Help Latino Kids”

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5 Million Voices

6 potential brain benefits of bilingual education.

Anya Kamenetz

Part of our ongoing series exploring how the U.S. can educate the nearly 5 million students who are learning English.

Brains, brains, brains. One thing we've learned at NPR Ed is that people are fascinated by brain research. And yet it can be hard to point to places where our education system is really making use of the latest neuroscience findings.

But there is one happy nexus where research is meeting practice: bilingual education. "In the last 20 years or so, there's been a virtual explosion of research on bilingualism," says Judith Kroll, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Again and again, researchers have found, "bilingualism is an experience that shapes our brain for a lifetime," in the words of Gigi Luk, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

At the same time, one of the hottest trends in public schooling is what's often called dual-language or two-way immersion programs.

How We Teach English Learners: 3 Basic Approaches

Traditional programs for English-language learners, or ELLs, focus on assimilating students into English as quickly as possible. Dual-language classrooms, by contrast, provide instruction across subjects to both English natives and English learners, in both English and in a target language.

The goal is functional bilingualism and biliteracy for all students by middle school.

New York City, North Carolina, Delaware, Utah, Oregon and Washington state are among the places expanding dual-language classrooms.

The trend flies in the face of some of the culture wars of two decades ago, when advocates insisted on "English first" education. Most famously, California passed Proposition 227 in 1998. It was intended to sharply reduce the amount of time that English-language learners spent in bilingual settings.

Proposition 58 , passed by California voters on Nov. 8, largely reversed that decision, paving the way for a huge expansion of bilingual education in the state that has the largest population of English-language learners.

Bilingual Education Returns To California. Now What?

Some of the insistence on English-first was founded in research produced decades ago, in which bilingual students underperformed monolingual English speakers and had lower IQ scores.

Today's scholars, like Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, now say that research was "deeply flawed."

"Earlier research looked at socially disadvantaged groups," agrees Antonella Sorace at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. "This has been completely contradicted by recent research" that compares more similar groups to each other.

So what does recent research say about the potential benefits of bilingual education? NPR Ed called up seven researchers in three countries — Sorace, Bialystok, Luk, Kroll, Jennifer Steele, and the team of Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier — to find out.

It turns out that, in many ways, the real trick to speaking two languages consists in managing not to speak one of those languages at a given moment — which is fundamentally a feat of paying attention.

Saying "Goodbye" to mom and then " Guten tag " to your teacher, or managing to ask for a crayola roja instead of a red crayon, requires skills called "inhibition" and "task switching." These skills are subsets of an ability called executive function.

People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function. "[Bilinguals] can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in the ability to switch from one task to another," says Sorace.

Do these same advantages accrue to a child who begins learning a second language in kindergarten instead of as a baby? We don't yet know. Patterns of language learning and language use are complex. But Gigi Luk at Harvard cites at least one brain-imaging study on adolescents that shows similar changes in brain structure when compared with those who are bilingual from birth, even when they didn't begin practicing a second language in earnest before late childhood.

Young children being raised bilingual have to follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting. As a result, says Sorace, bilingual children as young as age 3 have demonstrated a head start on tests of perspective-taking and theory of mind — both of which are fundamental social and emotional skills.

Reading (English)

About 10 percent of students in the Portland, Ore., public schools are assigned by lottery to dual-language classrooms that offer instruction in Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin, alongside English.

Jennifer Steele at American University conducted a four-year, randomized trial and found that these dual-language students outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full school year's worth of learning by the end of middle school.

Such a large effect in a study this size is unusual, and Steele is currently conducting a flurry of follow-up studies to tease out the causality: Is this about a special program that attracted families who were more engaged? Or about the dual-language instruction itself?

"If it's just about moving the kids around," Steele says, "that's not as exciting as if it's a way of teaching that makes you smarter."

'Invisible' Children: Raised In The U.S., Now Struggling In Mexico

Steele suspects the latter. Because the effects are found in reading, not in math or science where there were few differences, she suggests that learning two languages makes students more aware of how language works in general, aka "metalinguistic awareness."

The research of Gigi Luk at Harvard offers a slightly different explanation. She has recently done a small study looking at a group of 100 fourth-graders in Massachusetts who had similar reading scores on a standard test, but very different language experiences.

Some were foreign-language dominant and others were English natives. Here's what's interesting. The students who were dominant in a foreign language weren't yet comfortably bilingual; they were just starting to learn English. Therefore, by definition, they had much weaker English vocabularies than the native speakers.

Yet they were just as good at decoding a text.

"This is very surprising," Luk says. "You would expect the reading comprehension performance to mirror vocabulary — it's a cornerstone of comprehension."

How did the foreign-language dominant speakers manage this feat? Well, Luk found, they also scored higher on tests of executive functioning. So, even though they didn't have huge mental dictionaries to draw on, they may have been great puzzle-solvers, taking into account higher-level concepts such as whether a single sentence made sense within an overall story line.

They got to the same results as the monolinguals, by a different path.

School performance and engagement.

Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier, a husband and wife team of professors emeritus at George Mason University in Virginia, have spent the past 30 years collecting evidence on the benefits of bilingual education.

"Wayne came to our research with skepticism, thinking students ought to get instruction all day in English," says Virginia Collier. "Eight million student records later, we're convinced," Wayne Thomas chimes in.

In studies covering six states and 37 districts, they have found that, compared with students in English-only classrooms or in one-way immersion, dual-language students have somewhat higher test scores and also seem to be happier in school. Attendance is better, behavioral problems fewer, parent involvement higher.

Diversity and integration.

American public school classrooms as a whole are becoming more segregated by race and class. Dual-language programs can be an exception. Because they are composed of native English speakers deliberately placed together with recent immigrants, they tend to be more ethnically and socioeconomically balanced. And there is some evidence that this helps kids of all backgrounds gain comfort with diversity and different cultures.

Several of the researchers I talked with also pointed out that, in bilingual education, non-English-dominant students and their families tend to feel that their home language is heard and valued, compared with a classroom where the home language is left at the door in favor of English.

This can improve students' sense of belonging and increase parent involvement in their children's education, including behaviors like reading to children.

"Many parents fear their language is an obstacle, a problem, and if they abandon it their child will integrate better," says Antonella Sorace of the University of Edinburgh. "We tell them they're not doing their child a favor by giving up their language."

Protection against cognitive decline and dementia.

File this away as a very, very long-range payoff. Researchers have found that actively using two languages seems to have a protective effect against age-related dementia — perhaps relating to the changes in brain structure we talked about earlier.

Specifically, among patients with Alzheimer's in a Canadian study, a group of bilingual adults performed on par with a group of monolingual adults in terms of cognitive tests and daily functioning. But when researchers looked at the two groups' brains, they found evidence of brain atrophy that was five to seven years more advanced in the bilingual group. In other words, the adults who spoke two languages were carrying on longer at a higher level despite greater degrees of damage.

The coda, and a caution

One theme that was striking in speaking to all these researchers was just how strongly they advocated for dual-language classrooms.

Thomas and Collier have advised many school systems on how to expand their dual-language programs, and Sorace runs " Bilingualism Matters ," an international network of researchers who promote bilingual education projects.

This type of advocacy among scientists is unusual; even more so because the "bilingual advantage hypothesis" is being challenged once again. A review of studies published last year found that cognitive advantages failed to appear in 83 percent of published studies, though in a separate meta-analysis, the sum of effects was still significantly positive.

One potential explanation offered by the researchers I spoke with is that advantages that are measurable in the very young and very old tend to fade when testing young adults at the peak of their cognitive powers.

And, they countered that no negative effects of bilingual education have been found. So, they argue that even if the advantages are small, they are still worth it.

Not to mention one obvious, outstanding fact underlined by many of these researchers: "Bilingual children can speak two languages! That's amazing," says Bialystok.

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Bilingual Education Is America’s Future

New report published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project makes the case for bilingual education as the standard of instruction

Synthesizing rigorous research illustrating the benefits of bilingual education and citing growing interest in and demand for bilingual and biliteracy education programs for all students, a new report published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles advocates for the establishment of bilingual education as the standard program of instruction for students classified as English learners (EL) and outlines federal, state and local policies needed to achieve that standard.  

At a time of growing interest and support for bilingual education opportunities, the paper,  “Bilingual Education and America’s Future: Evidence and Pathways,”  underscores the reality that the United States lags behind most other nations where bilingual education is the norm and that many English learner-classified students in the U.S. are underserved. These students are enrolled in schools that often do not provide full, equitable access to the standard curriculum, nor the opportunity to develop the language they already know, two problems that bilingual programs address. The report offers strong evidence of the benefits of bilingual education and a growing commitment to education policymaking that addresses barriers to opportunity experienced by EL students. The report's authors contend that now is an opportune moment to expand bilingual education and establish bilingual and biliteracy education as the standard for instruction for all students, but especially for those who arrive at school with a language other than English.

• Patricia Gándara

“Careful and sophisticated studies produced over the last decades consistently find that bilingual education yields numerous advantages for the students who are fortunate enough to receive it,” says Patricia Gándara, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles.  “Given increasing interest and support, from both families and policymakers, this is the  moment to expand bilingual education and build a stronger foundation for these programs.”  

The report's call for more expansive access to bilingual education is grounded in evidence of the benefits of bilingualism and biliteracy for students and the larger society. The researchers detail the academic benefits of bilingual education, including superior achievement outcomes. These include English language development benefits, such as a greater likelihood of reclassification or exit from English Learner services. The report also highlights the benefits of home language literacy and proficiency and cites a growing body of research that bilingual education supports more positive social-emotional and sociocultural outcomes for EL-classified students. Importantly, the study shows evidence of greater family engagement in school, success in secondary schools and readiness for higher education. 

The research also highlights the growing grassroots momentum and political support for bilingual education, including increased demand for programs that can serve all students who want it. 

At the same time, the paper also identifies key challenges to expansion, including a shortage of bilingual educators and the need for sustained funding to build capacity. The authors recommend specific policy supports at the federal, state, and local levels to establish bilingual education as the standard program of instruction for English learner-classified students.

“Bilingual education is the best way to support EL-classified students and it's up to educators and policymakers to ensure all students receive this support, "  said Manuel Vazquez Cano, a principal researcher at Education Northwest and a co-author of the report. 

“Expanding access to bilingual education, to the point where bilingual education becomes the standard service for English learners rather than an exception, is grounded in research on what works for the nation's multilingual learners and aligned with national priorities of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy,” adds Lorna Porter ,  a research associate at WestEd and co-author. “While the change will not happen overnight, coordinated local, state, and federal actions can begin to move towards an education system that values, celebrates, and fosters bilingualism and biliteracy for all students.“

“ Bilingual Education and America’s Future: Evidence and Pathways,”  is published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, as part of a new series of research papers,  A Civil Rights Agenda for the Next Quarter Century . The report’s authors include  Lorna Porter,  a Research Associate at WestEd,  Manuel Vazquez Cano , a principal researcher at Education Northwest and graduate student at the University of Oregon, and  Ilana Umansky,  an   associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Oregon.  The full report and executive summary  can be found on the website of the Civil Rights Project at https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/language-minority-students/bilingual-education-and-americas-future-evidence-and-pathways.

• Bi-literacy
• Bilingual Education
• Bilingualism
• Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles
• Knowledge that Matters

Bilingualism as a Life Experience

• Posted October 1, 2015
• By Bari Walsh

What do we know about bilingualism? Much of what we once thought we knew — that speaking two languages is confusing for children, that it poses cognitive challenges best avoided — is now known to be inaccurate. Today, bilingualism is often seen as a brain-sharpening benefit, a condition that can protect and preserve cognitive function well into old age. 

Indeed, the very notion of bilingualism is changing; language mastery is no longer seen as an either/or proposition, even though most schools still measure English proficiency as a binary “pass or fail” marker.

A growing body of evidence suggests that lifelong bilingualism is associated with the delayed diagnosis of dementia. But the impact of language experience on brain activity has not been well understood.

It turns out that there are many ways to be bilingual, according to HGSE Associate Professor Gigi Luk , who studies the lasting cognitive consequences of speaking multiple languages. “Bilingualism is a complex and multifaceted life experience,” she says; it’s an “interactional experience” that happens within — and in response to — a broader social context.

Usable Knowledge spoke with Luk about her research and its applications.

Bilingualism and executive function

As bilingual children toggle between two languages, they use cognitive resources beyond those required for simple language acquisition, Luk writes in a forthcoming edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development . Recent research has shown that bilingual children outperform monolingual children on tasks that tap into executive function — skills having to do with attention control, reasoning, and flexible problem solving.

Their strength in those tasks likely results from coping with and overcoming the demand of managing two languages. In a bilingual environment, children learn to recognize meaningful speech sounds that belong to two different languages but share similar concepts.

In a paper published earlier this year , she and her colleagues looked at how bilingualism affects verbal fluency — efficiency at retrieving words — in various stages of childhood and adulthood. In one measure of verbal acumen called letter fluency — the ability to list words that begin with the letter F, for instance — bilinguals enjoyed an advantage over monolinguals that began at age 10 and grew robust in adulthood.  

Bilingualism and the aging brain

Luk and her researchers are looking at the neuroscience of bilingualism — at how bilingualism may affect the physical structure of the brain in its different regions.    

What they’ve found so far shows that older adults who are lifelong bilinguals have more white matter in their frontal lobes (important to executive function) than monolinguals, and that their temporal lobes (important to language function) are better preserved. The results support other evidence that persistent bilingual experience shapes brain functions and structures.

A growing body of evidence suggests that lifelong bilingualism is associated with the delayed diagnosis of dementia. But the impact of language experience on brain activity is not well understood, Luk says.

In a 2015 paper, she and her colleagues began to look at functional brain networks in monolingual and bilingual older adults. Their findings support the idea that a language experience begun in childhood and continued throughout adulthood influences brain networks in ways that may provide benefits far later in life.

Who is bilingual?

Monolingualism and bilingualism are not static categories, Luk says, so the question of what it means to be bilingual, and who is bilingual, is nuanced. There are several pathways to bilingualism. A child can become bilingual when parents and caregivers speak both languages frequently, either switching between the two. A child can be bilingual when the language spoken at home differs from a community’s dominant language, which the child is exposed to in schools. Or a child can become bilingual when he or she speaks the community’s dominant language at home but attends an immersion program at school.  

Bilingualism is an experience that accumulates and changes over time, in response to a child’s learning environments, says Luk.

Language diversity in schools

In one of her projects, Luk works with a group of ELL directors to help them understand the diverse needs of their language learners and to find better ways to engage their parents. She’s looking at effective ways to measure bilingualism in schools; at connections between the science of bilingualism and language and literacy outcomes; and at the long-term relationship between academic outcomes and the quality and quantity of bilingual experience in young children.

Part of her goal is to help schools move beyond binary categorizations like “ELL” and “English proficient” and to recognize that language diversity brings challenges but also long-term benefits.

“If we only look at ELL or English proficient, that’s not a representation of the whole spectrum of bilingualism,” she says. “To embrace bilingualism, rather than simply recognizing this phenomenon, we need to consider both the challenges and strengths of children with diverse language backgrounds. We cannot do this by only looking at English proficiency. Other information, such as home language background, will enrich our understanding of bilingual development and learning.”  

Additional Resources

• A Boston community organization that runs a bilingual preschool spoke with Luk about her work and its applications to practice. Read the interview.

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Cultivating Bilingualism: The Benefits of Multilingual Classrooms

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What slows cognitive decline in old age, increases earning potential throughout adulthood, and is best started in early childhood? Learning a second (or third!) language.

For decades, educators, researchers, and policy makers across the United States engaged in heated debates about how to ensure English proficiency. Some thought that learning two languages was somehow confusing to children and detrimental to their education. Far too often, debaters showed little regard for how a child’s home language tied him to his family, community, and culture.

Thanks to new research on the cognitive, social, and economic benefits of bilingualism, that debate has largely ended. Now we can focus our energy on supporting children whose first language is not English by building on their linguistic strengths—and on harnessing those strengths to help their peers who only speak English learn a second language too.

This issue of  Young Children  takes you inside several multilingual classrooms for in-depth, practical examples of how to enhance social, emotional, scientific, language, and literacy development with children who are learning more than one language.

Because a strong social and emotional foundation supports all other learning, we begin with “ Paired Learning: Strategies for Enhancing Social Competence in Dual Language Classrooms ,” by Iliana Alanís and María G. Arreguín-Anderson. The authors observed teachers in preschool through first grade Spanish-English dual language classrooms; based on their observations, they share detailed accounts of highly effective ways to help children learn to cooperate and collaborate. They emphasize learning in pairs as a way to create many low-pressure opportunities for dual language learners to engage in conversations.

Next, we step inside a dual language Head Start classroom where the teachers alternate the language of instruction (Spanish or English) weekly and offer multilingual supports throughout each day. Wanting to teach more science but not having enough time, the teachers join a professional development collaborative to learn how to incorporate science into their language and literacy activities. The impressive results are captured by Leanne M. Evans in “ The Power of Science: Using Inquiry Thinking to Enhance Learning in a Dual Language Preschool Classroom .” As the teachers’ new lesson plans demonstrate, “science education offers [children] discovery-oriented play, vocabulary-rich content, and abundant opportunities to explore oral and written language.”

Although dual language models are a wonderful way to cultivate bilingualism—along with biliteracy, biculturalism, and a whole new lens on the world—they are not always feasible. Many classrooms are multilingual, so teachers are seeking ways to foster first-, second-, and even third-language development (along with progress in all other domains), even when they don’t speak all of the children’s first languages.

In “ Five Tips for Engaging Multilingual Children in Conversation ,” E. Brook Chapman de Sousa offers research-based and teacher-refined strategies to take on this challenge. With examples from a preschool in which over 30 languages are spoken, Chapman de Sousa demonstrates how children benefit when their teachers “use children’s home languages as a resource; pair conversations with joint activities; coparticipate in activities; use small groups; and respond to children’s contributions.” Active listening and gesturing are key ways teachers can be responsive and communicate caring when they do not speak a child’s first language.

Cristina Gillanders and Lucinda Soltero-González help teachers craft a strengths-based instructional approach in “ Discovering How Writing Works in Different Languages: Lessons from Dual Language Learners .” This article carefully examines children’s emergent writing, with examples from prekindergarten through first grade, asking teachers to consider how a child’s knowledge of and ideas about her first language impact her writing in her second language. Teachers can then build on what the children already know and support children’s progress in both languages.

We close the cluster with “ Can We Talk? Creating Opportunities for Meaningful Academic Discussions with Multilingual Children ,” by Mary E. Bolt, Carmen M. Rodriguez, Christopher J. Wagner, and C. Patrick Proctor. Teachers and researchers together develop a structured approach for building multilingual children’s academic vocabulary, knowledge, oral language skills, and writing as they extend an existing unit on ocean animals to create far more opportunities for meaningful conversations. The authors describe how they helped the children develop the social skills, like turn taking, that are necessary for authentic discussions.

While this cluster focuses on children whose first language is not English, all children benefit from the rich, intentional, language-building instruction described in these articles.

Is your classroom full of children’s artwork? 

To feature it in  Young Children , see the link at the bottom of the page or email  [email protected]  for details.

These masterpieces, inspired by van Gogh’s  Starry Night  and  Sunflowers , were created by first and second graders in Ms. Bridget’s class at Plato Academy in Des Plaines, Illinois.

We’d love to hear from you!

Send your thoughts on this issue, as well as topics you’d like to read about in future issues of  Young Children , to  [email protected] .

Lisa Hansel, EdD, is the editor in chief of NAEYC's peer-reviewed journal, Young Children .

Vol. 74, No. 2

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Bilingual Education

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20 Bilingual Education

Colin Baker is pro vice chancellor at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is the author of 15 books and over 50 articles on bilingualism and bilingual education, with specific interests in language planning and bilingual education. His book Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters, 1993, 1996, 2001, 2006) has sold over 50,000 copies and has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Latvian, Greek, Vietnamese, and Mandarin. His Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education (with S. P. Jones, Multilingual Matters) won the British Association for Applied Linguistics Book Prize Award in 1999. He edits three Multilingual Matters Book Series and is editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. In addition to his academic activities, Colin Baker has held three U.K. government appointments. He can be reached at http://[email protected].

• Published: 18 September 2012
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Bilingual education is not just about education and bilingualism. There are dimensions to bilingual education that require a multidisciplinary understanding. It is not just about the use of two languages in the classroom. There are dimensions to bilingual education that involve economics, philosophy, history, sociolinguistics, and, not least, politics as well as language planning. For example, bilingual education is a means of language planning that sometimes seeks to assimilate indigenous and immigrant minorities, or to integrate newcomers or minority groups. At other times, bilingual education is a major plank in language revitalization and preservation. There is the viewpoint of language planners is one essential means of language maintenance, revitalization, and reversing language shift. The benefits of bilingual education are not self-apparent or intrinsically obvious. Therefore, the notion of bilingual education has to be marketed so that both the public and politicians are persuaded and convinced.

Introduction

Bilingual education is not just about education and bilingualism. There are dimensions to bilingual education that require a multidisciplinary understanding. It is not just about the use of two languages in the classroom. There are dimensions to bilingual education that involve economics, philosophy, history, sociolinguistics, and, not least, politics as well as language planning. For example, bilingual education is a means of language planning that sometimes seeks to assimilate indigenous and immigrant minorities, or to integrate newcomers or minority groups. At other times, bilingual education is a major plank in language revitalization and preservation.

This means that politics is rarely absent from debates about bilingual education. Indeed, there is no understanding of international bilingual education without contextualizing it within the history and politics of a country (e.g., United States) or a region (e.g., Wales in the United Kingdom) or a state (e.g., New York, Arizona, California). Bilingual education can be fully understood only in relation to political ideology and political opportunism. Also, the increasing politicization of bilingual education has led to such key economic questions as whether the bilingual education option is expensive, cost efficient or cost effective.

Pedagogic, language planning, political, and economic perspectives are not the only perspectives on bilingual education. There are public (opinion), sociolinguistic, psychological, historical, and individual national perspectives (Baker, 2006 ; McCarty, 2004 ; Cummins and Hornberger, 2008 ). Also, any individual perspective is capable of extension into components (e.g., pedagogy into teaching methodology, learning strategies, curriculum resourcing, teacher training, and school organization) and overlap and interact (e.g., language planning and economics interact with politics).

Four major perspectives on bilingual education are presented.

1. Bilingual Education as Language Planning

First, there is the viewpoint of language planners (e.g., in Wales, Ireland, Catalonia, and the Basque country) who believe that bilingual education is one essential means of language maintenance, language revitalization, and reversing language shift. In this perspective, bilingual education is part of a framework for language revitalization.

For a language to survive and revive, it has to be lived and loved. Daily language use and a consistently favorable attitude to a language are all important. Imagine a minority language with rights to use enshrined in law, with radio and television, web pages, and computer programs in that minority language and bilingual signage, and yet everyone using the majority language at home, when experiencing the mass media, in leisure and in religious activities, in employment, and in all daily social interaction. It is theoretically possible to have many support systems for a language but for the language to be dying because it is not used in families and communities. Therefore, at the heart of language planning is planning for reproduction and usage. This suggests that language rights, mass media, signposts, and many other strategies and actions are not of first-order importance in themselves. Although each contributes to the status and institutionalization of a language, they are ultimately important to the extent to which they contribute to four priorities:

1. Language acquisition in the family 2. Language learning from preschool education through formal schooling to adult education 3. Using the minority language for economic purposes 4. Social, cultural, and leisure participation through the minority language

Minority languages decline when families fail to reproduce the language in their children. Where and when much higher proportions of older people speak a minority language than younger age groups, the language is imperiled. Where and when younger age groups are in larger proportions than older speakers of the language, a positive sign for the future of the language is present. Thus, family language planning is a top priority, quintessential but insufficient by itself. The family plants the seed and ensures early growth. The blossoming requires cultivation in bilingual education, the employment market, and social/cultural life.

For language planning to be successful, language learning in school is important to make up for a shortfall in language transmission at the family level and to increase the stock of minority language speakers. Language acquisition in preschool education, in elementary and high schools, at higher education levels, and in adult language learning classes becomes the lifeline to increase the supply of minority-language speakers. Language planning through bilingual education has succeeded in the Basque Country, Canada, Catalonia, and Wales, for example, and becomes a necessary but insufficient foundation, by itself, for language revitalization.

The case of Ireland signals a warning. The creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 made Irish the first official language of the country, and Irish was made compulsory in schools, compulsory to pass as a subject in order to matriculate from school, and compulsory for entrance to much public sector employment and to university. Despite constant state intervention and economic schemes to support the Irish language, the Irish language has declined in daily usage.

One reason for the decline in the Irish Language, despite language rights and central language planning, has been the lack of a strong economic dimension to Irish. Children leaving school found that the Irish was of little real value in most of the employment market. For many jobs, Irish was practically irrelevant. Instead, schoolchildren, their parents, and students in Ireland have become increasingly aware of the economic advantages of the European Union languages, particularly French, German, Spanish, and English. The economic value of a language is not the only determinant of its value and usefulness, but it is a crucial factor.

The more a minority language is tied in with employment, promotion in employment, and increasing affluence, the greater the perceived value and status of that language. The greater the number of jobs that require bilingualism (and often biliteracy), the more importance a minority language will have in the curriculum. Thus, an economic value to a minority language provides needed instrumental motivation for children to become proficient in that language in school.

The more a minority language is aligned with employment and the economy, the more parents may become motivated and encouraged to reproduce that language among their children. A strong economic value to a language gives added momentum for language reproduction in the family. It also gives momentum to preschool efforts for language acquisition—that is, learning the language when very young in an informal, subconscious, and enjoyable fashion.

The danger of promoting only the economic value of a minority language is that it may have short-term monetary associations. There is a possibility of doing the right thing for a temporary reason. Once economic motives are fulfilled, a minority language may not be used. For a language to be of increased value and to be used daily, it has to capture particular contexts (domains) in which people's noneconomic activity occurs. For a language to survive and multiply, it has to be used regularly in everyday interaction and relationships, in many positive aspects of cultural, leisure, and community life. The widest form of cultural participation needs to be encouraged, from festivities to discos, the rites and rituals of religion to the rhythms of rock music, from sports events to quiet group hobbies and pastimes.

When there is valued cultural and leisure use of a minority language, then language reproduction in the family becomes more encouraged and motivated. In the same way, language production through education becomes more meaningful when it is seen that a minority language has an enjoyable use in cultural and leisure activity.

Literacy in a minority language is also important for that language to live into the future. Any language lacking a literacy component in this century may be in grave danger of not surviving. Literacy in a minority language gives many more uses and functions to that language (e.g., in employment, leisure reading). A language lacking a literacy component is like a colonized language. When the British colonized areas of Africa and India, they frequently allowed literacy solely in the English language. The indigenous languages were relegated to lower status, noneconomic uses; English was the key to educational wisdom, employment, and wealth. Thus, a language lacking a literacy component has many fewer functions and much less status. Bilingual education has a crucial function in promoting biliteracy (except when there is a strong religious promotion of a literacy—e.g., in a mosque or synagogue).

The language planner's view of bilingual education necessarily focuses on the importance of producing more speakers of a minority language than are generated through the parents and the home. A language planner's view of bilingual education necessarily focuses on strengthening the minority language among first language speakers and on majority language children learning a minority language as a second language as early as possible and becoming fluent in that minority language so as to operate in the curriculum of the primary and secondary school. Also, a language planner's view of bilingual education is for a minority language culture to permeate throughout the formal and hidden curriculum. Thus a “minority language” cultural dimension added to every curriculum area becomes important to a language planner in giving a language rootedness, identity, and connectedness at a cognitive and affective level with the kaleidoscopic colors of a minority-language culture.

However, there are three particular overlapping limitations of the language planning perspective of bilingual education that need mentioning.

There is a danger in the language planner's perspective in regarding bilingual education as for the sake of the language and not necessarily for the sake of the child. Bilingual education can be seen as a salvation for the language, whereas an alternative (but not a contradictory) viewpoint is that a minority language education is for the sake of the child. A humanistic educationalist may argue that bilingual education needs to be defended for its value and contribution to the development of the child rather than the language.

The language planning perspective on bilingual education tends to have a limited view of the functions and purposes of education. Among both supporters and critics of bilingual education there are arguments that separate and artificially dissociate debates about language from debates about effective education. We shall be returning to this theme later in this chapter when the politics of bilingual education are considered.

There is sometimes overoptimism among language planners about what can be expected from, and delivered by, bilingual education in revitalizing a language. When a language fails to be reproduced in the family, and when there are insufficient support mechanisms (e.g., language rights, mass media) outside of schools, too high expectations of language reversal via bilingual education are not uncommon. Although bilingual education has an important role in language reproduction—and probably without it a minority language cannot survive except through intergenerational family language or intense religious usage—bilingual education cannot deliver language maintenance by itself.

2. Bilingual Education as Pedagogy

Although bilingual education consists of many different types (see Baker, 2006 ), it has recently been greeted as typically superior to monolingual education (e.g., in achievement across the curriculum, in raising the self-esteem of language minority children, in producing bilingualism, biliteracy, and interculturalism). Although the critics of bilingual education (e.g., the anti-Latino lobby in the United States and the assimilationists in the United Kingdom) must not be underestimated, the philosophy, principles, policies, and practices of bilingual education have grown remarkably vibrant in recent decades. Educationalists have increasingly considered the value of two or three majority languages in schools, not just taught as languages but used to transmit curriculum content. For example, China, Scandinavia, and many Far East countries are increasingly seeing the importance of languages in the global market, and in intercontinental communication and information exchange, while educators interested in minority languages argue for the benefits of bilingual education as standard raising, child-centered, and responsive to parents and pupils as clients.

Among educationalists, arguments for bilingual education vary according to local politics and the status and power of majority and minority languages, but tend to revolve around eight particular advantages of bilingual education (Baker, 2007 ):

Bilingual education allows both languages (sometimes three languages) to develop fully. Rather than engaging in token second language learning, two or more languages are well developed. This allows children to engage in wider communication, having more options in patterns of communication across generations, regions, and cultural groups, and provides linguistic capital.

Bilingual education develops a broader enculturation and a wider and more sympathetic view of different creeds and cultures. Rather than token multicultural lessons, bilingual education gives deep insights into the cultures associated with the languages, fosters a broader understanding of differences, bequeaths cultural capital, and, at its best, avoids the tight compartmentalization of racism—the stereotyping of different social groups—and fosters a more multiperspective and sensitive-to-difference viewpoint.

Bilingual education often generates biliteracy. Being able to read and write in two or more languages allows more possibilities in uses of literacy (e.g., in employment), widening the choice of literature for pleasure, giving more opportunities for different perspectives and viewpoints, and leading to a deeper understanding of history and heritage, of traditions and territory.

Research suggests that when children have two well-developed languages, they enjoy certain cognitive benefits (Bialystok, 2001 ). Schools are often important in developing a child's two languages to the point where they may be more creative in thinking owing to their bilingualism and be more sensitive in communication because they may be interpersonally aware, for example, when needing to codeswitch and be able to inspect their languages more (that is, they enjoy metalinguistic advantages).

In heritage language education (developmental maintenance bilingual education) children's self-esteem may be raised. When a child's home language is replaced by the majority language, the child, the parents, and the child's community may seem to be rejected. When the home language is used in school, then children may feel themselves, their home, and community to be accepted, thus maintaining or raising their self-esteem. Positive self-esteem—a confidence in one's own ability and potential—interacts in an important way with achievement and curriculum success (Baker, 2006 ).

Not only Canadian immersion studies and dual language schools in the United States but also studies of developmental maintenance bilingual education suggest that curriculum achievement is increased through such education (Baker, 2006 ). The precise causes of raising standards via bilingual education are neither simple nor straightforward. There is likely to be a complex equation among the support of the home, the enthusiasm and commitment of teachers in school, the quality of the school, children feeling accepted and secure, and the relationship between language and cognitive development. All of these, and many other variables, act and interact in the complex equation of success in bilingual education.

The role of bilingual education in establishing security of identity at a local, regional, and national level may be important. As a basic psychological need, security and status in self-identity may be important. For example, bilingual education has aided the establishment of a Welsh identity in Welsh children.

The economic advantages of bilingual education are increasingly being claimed, particularly in jobs that require a customer interface and communications with bilinguals or multilinguals. Being bilingual can be important to secure employment in many public services and sometimes in niche private companies as well. To secure a job as a teacher, to work in the mass media, to work in local government, and increasingly in the civil service in areas such as Canada, Wales, the Basque Country, bilingualism has become important. Thus, bilingual education is increasingly seen as delivering relatively more marketable employees than monolingual education.

Although bilingual education worldwide has an increasing number of supporters (albeit not without some virulent critics, especially in the United States; see Cummins, 2000b ), there are limitations in the pedagogical view of bilingual education. For example, bilingual education is no guarantee of effective schooling. Occasionally, there is a naiveté among those who support bilingual education in assuming that employing two or more languages in the school curriculum automatically leads to a raising of standards, to more effective outcomes, and to a more child-centered education. In reality, the languages of the school are but part of a wider matrix of variables that interact in complex ways to make schooling more or less effective. Among bilingual schools in every country, there appears to be a mixture of the outstanding and the ordinary, those in an upward spiral of enhancing their quality and those that depend on past glories rather than current successes. Bilingual education is only one ingredient among many.

Another limitation of the pedagogical perspective on bilingual education is the type and use of language learned at school. Canadian research suggests that the language register of formal education does not necessarily prepare children for language use outside the school (Cummins, 2000a ). The language of the curriculum is often complex and specialized. The vernacular of the street may be different. Canadian children from English-speaking homes who have been to immersion schools and learned through the medium of French and English sometimes report difficulty in communicating appropriately with French speakers in local communities. Local French speakers may find their French too formal, inappropriate, or even off-putting.

A further concern about bilingual education is that language learning may stop at the school gates. The minority language may be effectively transmitted and competently learned in the classroom. However, once outside the school gates, children may switch into the majority language. Thus, the danger of bilingual education in a minority language is that the language becomes a language of school but not of play, a language of the content delivery of the curriculum but not of peer culture. Even when children are taught through the medium of a minority language at school, the common denominator language of the peer group in the street is often a majority language. When one child turns to English, often so does everyone else. The language of the screen, shop, or street may be different from the language of the school. Extending a minority language learned at school to use in the community is something that is difficult to engineer and difficult to plan but nevertheless vital if the language is to live outside the school gates.

3. Bilingual Education as Politics

Wherever bilingual education exists, politics is close by. To assume that bilingual education is educationally justified and therefore, ipso facto , must be strongly supported is naive. Bilingual education is not simply an educational issue. Behind bilingual education there are always expressions of political ideology, tides of political change, and political initiative. To argue for bilingual education solely as a strong plank of language planning and language revitalization is simplistic. Language planning itself is predicated on language politics. Behind what might be posed as conservation of the threatened languages of the world lie other, more basic political assumptions and ideologies. Surrounding bilingual education are usually political debates about national identity, dominance and control by elites in power, power relationships among politicians and civil servants, questions about social order and social cohesion, and the perceived potential subversiveness of language minorities.

Cummins 1999 ) argued that research on bilingual education has become so unfocused, has sent out so many mixed messages, and in particular is so ignorant of underlying theory that politicians can selectively use research to fit and support their ideology. He contends that research reviews and meta-analyses (see Baker, 2006 ) all assume that research reviews can directly inform policy making. Cummins sees this as naive, owing to the “myriad human, administrative, and political influences that impact the implementation of programs over time” (Cummins, 1999 : 26). There are hundreds of variables that affect program outcomes so that research cannot, by itself, directly inform policy, provision, and practice. Rather, Cummins 1999 ) argues that it is tested theory that should drive policy making. That is, research should commence from theoretical propositions, testing, refining, and sometimes refuting those propositions.

In complex educational and other human organizational contexts, data or “facts” become relevant for policy purposes only in the context of a coherent theory. It is the theory rather than the individual research findings that permits the generation of predictions about program outcomes under different conditions (Cummins, 1999 : 26).

However comprehensive and elaborate are the theoretical foundations of bilingual education, however strong are the educational arguments for bilingual education, and however strong are the arguments for the preservation of dying languages in the world, it is the politics of power, status, assimilation, and social order that can deny bilingual education so readily.

4. The Economic Perspective on Bilingual Education

A highly original and essential economic perspective comes from Dutcher 2004 ), who analyzes developmental maintenance bilingual education through cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency. In a World Bank paper on the use of first and second languages in elementary education, Dutcher 2004 ) examines international evidence from Haiti, Nigeria, the Philippines, Guatemala, Canada, New Zealand, the United States (Navajo), Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa. She concludes that development of the mother tongue is critical for cognitive development and as a foundation for learning the second language. That is, submersion and transitional models of bilingual education are internationally less effective in developing a child's thinking abilities. When such development is slowed considerably by learning in a second language (e.g., submersion), then the second language will itself be learned more slowly.

Dutcher 2004 ) concludes that the recurrent costs for bilingual education are approximately the same as for traditional programs. Bilingual education is not an expensive option, having similar costs to mainstream programs. However, the most important conclusion is that developmental maintenance bilingual education creates cost savings for the education system and for society. For example, such bilingual education provides higher levels of achievement in fewer years of study. Student progress is faster, and higher achievement benefits society through less unemployment and a more skilled workforce.

In submersion and transitional models of bilingual education, there may be costs to a national economy due to slower rates of progress at school, lower levels of final achievement, and sometimes the need for special or compensatory education. Higher dropout rates mean lower potential for the employment market, and the economy suffers with a lower level of skills among the workforce and higher unemployment rates. In economic terms, students need to gain productive characteristics through education, and Dutcher 2004 ) indicates that this is achieved through early use of the native language.

Such cost-efficiency of developmental maintenance bilingual education is exemplified in a World Bank cost-effectiveness study on Guatemala, where Dutcher 2004 ) found that bilingual education was a prudent policy. Repetition and dropout rates were decreased through a bilingual education intervention program, and standards of achievement rose (including in Spanish). It was estimated that education cost savings due to bilingual education were US$5.6 million per year, whereas cost benefits were in the order of US$33.8 million per year. Also, individual earnings rose by approximately 50%. In Guatemala, developmental maintenance bilingual education made economic sense because it produced a more skilled, highly trained, and employable workforce. Submersion and transitional forms of bilingual education in comparison tend to have higher dropout rates and lower levels of achievement and thus have less chance of serving and stimulating the economy through a skilled workforce.

5. Conclusion

This chapter has suggested that bilingual education derives its raison d'tre not only from a concern for language maintenance and revitalization but also from a variety of educational, economic, social, cultural, and political factors. An idealistic conclusion would be to suggest the possibility of integrating the five perspectives. When there can be a wholeness in the four perspectives between language planners, bilingual educationalists, and the politicians who influence the growth of bilingual education, then a mature, logical, rational, and smooth evolution in bilingual education is possible. However, it is apparent in this chapter that, more often than not, there is a separation between the perspectives. Each is a partial view, a view that could be enlightened and expanded by understanding the perspective of another. All four perspectives are present in international bilingual education.

In particular, educationalists who support bilingual education need to understand the politics behind, and sometimes against, bilingual education for there to be movement forward. The defense and expansion of bilingual education cannot come suddenly from language planning perspectives (language planning acquisition) or through purely stating the many and real advantages of bilingual education. Bilingual education may flourish or otherwise through the locus of political power, through the movement of political ideology, and through political influence. This is where language planners and educationalists in support of bilingual education can join forces. The future fortunes of bilingual education are open to political influence. The benefits of bilingual education are not self-apparent or intrinsically obvious. Therefore, the notion of bilingual education has to be marketed so that both the public and politicians are persuaded and convinced.

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Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash

Nearly one in four U.S. public-school children speak a language other than English at home. What’s the best way to accommodate ELL students in the classroom?

With more than 20 languages spoken in one eighth-grade classroom, Harlem Village Academy West in New York City rivals the vibrant cultural and ethnic mix of the United Nations headquarters, a short trip down the FDR Drive. Spanish, Mandingo, Fulani, French, Arabic, and other languages come together to form a tapestry of nationalities. Yet unlike the U.N., the premier institution representing the peoples of the world, public schools have not always encouraged children to embrace their heritages. Indeed, as non-native English speakers, some of the Harlem Village’s middle-schoolers relate feelings of isolation as younger children solely based on their attainment of the English language.

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Chelsea, a 13-year-old Spanish-speaker who learned English in the third grade, recalls her earliest years in school as especially difficult amid her struggles to communicate with peers. “I used to get mad and aggravated because I couldn’t speak English,” she says. “People were looking at me as if I were another type of human being.” Her classmates share similar frustrations. “I felt dumb and left out when we did advanced math because my teacher wouldn’t let me do it even though I knew I could,” says Yaye, a bright 14-year-old who speaks Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal, at home. Yaye says he languished in his K-2 English-as-a-second-language classes, “not progressing or learning.” Melyanet, also 14, remembers feeling alienated and lonely when she was in prekindergarten—an age when children often sharpen their social skills through play. “I would try my best to learn English but it was hard,” the teen recalls. “No one spoke [Spanish] so I wouldn’t make friends. I would sit in the back.”

The adolescents at Harlem Village are part of a rapidly growing population of students in America’s public schools with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Of the 50 million students currently enrolled in public K-12 schools, almost one in four (12 million) schoolchildren ages 5 to 17 speak a language other than English at home, according to an analysis of census figures. Their numbers have inched up over the last decade, along with the percentage of students participating in English-language-learners programs. Department of Education data shows this segment of the public-school population is steadily climbing. Some 4.4 million students—ranging from those who don’t speak English to those transitioning into full proficiency—were classified as English language learners in the 2012-13 school year, an increase of more than 250,000 students over the previous decade.

Even as states struggle to reach a common definition of what it means to be an English language learner, the proportion of these students continues to rise—and with it, the temperature of debate surrounding the purpose and goals of bilingual education. It remains an unsettled issue that continues to challenge America’s self-image as welcoming and inclusive: The value of linguistic assimilation is pitted against the values of a culturally diverse nation of immigrants, leaving education systems and its students caught in political crosshairs. The divide is exacerbated by financially strapped schools with skyrocketing numbers of English learners— meeting all of the mandates for their education can be expensive —and the national discourse on immigration, which saw the 2016 presidential contender Donald Trump advise his competitor Jeb Bush to “ really set the example by speaking English while in the United States .” Many trace today’s fraught bilingual-education politics back to the Bilingual Education Act, which was adopted in 1968 to aid local school districts in educating children with limited English. At the bill signing , President Lyndon B. Johnson voiced his enthusiasm for a law that would bring an unprecedented federal role and funds to the education of children whose first language wasn’t English:

Thousands of children of Latin descent, young [Native Americans], and others will get a better start—a better chance—in school … What this law means is that we are now giving every child in America a better chance to touch his outermost limits—to reach the farthest edge of his talents and his dreams. We have begun a campaign to unlock the full potential of every boy and girl—regardless of his race or his region or his father's income.

Yet bilingual education’s cultural, social, and historical dimensions date back well over a century before Johnson signed his landmark education law. In recounting the history of bilingual education , Rethinking Schools chronicles the earliest efforts to teach immigrant students. The first bilingual-education law, enacted in Ohio in 1839, created a German-English language program and was followed by similar laws in Louisiana and the New Mexico area geared around French-English and Spanish-English instruction, respectively. As the trend accelerated, more states and localities began dual instruction in an array of languages, including Polish, Italian, Norwegian, and Cherokee. The onset of World War I—and its accompanying era of xenophobia, discrimination against language minorities, and English-only laws—quickly brought this trajectory to an end. This pattern continued through the 1920s as the tension between forced assimilation and educationally sound practices continued—and as the academic performance of students with limited English skills began to suffer. The passage of the Bilingual Education Act, part of a wave of civil-rights legislation pushed through Congress by the Johnson administration, ushered in a major shift once again and a return to bilingual instruction in many of the nation’s schools. But as the Act was reauthorized in the 1980s and ‘90s and then subsumed under No Child Left Behind in 2002 , national policy seesawed between prioritizing multilingual skills and an English-only focus.

Today, schools are still twisting in the wind of politics, with 31 states passing laws naming English the official language over the last two centuries and voters in California , Arizona , and Massachusetts approving ballot measures in recent decades that replace bilingual education with English-only policies. Meanwhile, a growing contingent of educators are promoting the cultivation of bilingualism to support the social and emotional needs of English language learners. Olga Kagan, a languages and cultures professor at UCLA and director of the university’s National Heritage Language Resource Center, has studied the implications of denying students the ability to communicate in their parents’ native language. “Many of these students have no literacy in the language they speak,” she wrote in a December 2014 Los Angeles Times op-ed . “And that is a problem.” Rather than ignoring English in the classroom, Kagan calls for capitalizing on the language skills students already have and taking their background knowledge into account. “I think the main roadblock is societal attitude to bilingualism ... We lose much of the nation’s capacity in languages by letting go of this resource,” she told me recently. And the various benefits for students are evident. Kagan’s survey of California college students found many “heritage speakers” wished to study their home language at school to connect with their culture, build their literacy, and strengthen their bonds with relatives.

Driving much of the decision-making in English-language instruction are myths that need debunking , says Rusul Alrubail, an education consultant whose work focuses on English-language learners and pedagogical practices in the classroom. “Banning [a child’s] first language often creates a negative impact ... a sense of divide for students between their first language, often used at home, and English. We see students who refuse to be associated with their first language, or refuse to speak it or acknowledge that they know it, due to them feeling ashamed ... This impacts their cultural identity.” Among the consequences, says Alrubail, are when students internalize the notion that their first language is inferior—with English becoming the language of assimilation—and when some immigrant families specifically ask their kids not to speak in their first language at home in an effort to ensure their children conform to Western culture. Interestingly, research finds mixing languages has no impact on children’s vocabulary development. But the pressure from teachers and schools, enshrined in policy and practices, can be immense. “Many teachers believe that in order to learn English one must assimilate to American culture and abandon one's own cultural practices,” Alrubail said. “This is always a result of fear and anxiety; when students do not meet their expectation of what it means to be ‘American,’ it becomes imperative to speak English.” The upshot of this mindset is seen in Amadou, a 13-year-old at Harlem Village who speaks Fulani, a Niger-Congo language spoken by 13 million people in many parts of in West, Central, and North Africa. “Nobody spoke my language except in my home [so] I would only try to speak English so they wouldn’t look at me differently. I wanted to fit in with everyone else and be the same,” he says. Will his native language, rich in tradition and heritage, soon slip away as the middle-schooler slowly simmers in America’s melting pot?

Rethinking Schools

Non-Restricted Content

Bilingual Education: Stories from the Heart

By The Editors of Rethinking Schools

Illustrator: Favianna Rodriguez

As always, Rethinking Schools has several new books in process. This issue we feature three articles destined for one of these: Rethinking Bilingual Education , edited by Grace Cornell Gonzales, Elizabeth Barbian, and Pilar Mejia.

Nothing reveals our attitudes about our students more clearly than the stance we take toward their home languages. Do we advocate for students’ right to education in their home language? Do we welcome their multilingual “stories from the heart,” and use them to anchor our curriculum, or do we demand English-only conformity? In “English-Only to the Core,” Jeff Bale shows how struggles over bilingual education have always been about the kind of society we want to live in: “It was the actions of Chicana/o, Puerto Rican, Native American, and Asian American activists in the 1960s and ’70s that brought about bilingual education in the first place. As these activists focused on schools, they combated segregation and a lack of resources, and demanded bilingual and bicultural programming.”

Schools were—and are—one front in an anti-racist battle for democracy. And, Bale argues, it is within this broader social context that we should view the attacks on bilingual education. Efforts to roll back bilingual education “were part of a larger wave of anti-immigrant racism that had grown significantly in the 1990s. . . . Bilingual education has long been low-hanging political fruit for anti-immigrant racists.” In his article, Bale takes this one step further, arguing that, in their implementation, the Common Core State Standards—although superficially more alert to multicultural themes—are fundamentally hostile to linguistic diversity.

In their poignant “Cuentos del corazón (Stories from the Heart): An After-School Writing Project for Bilingual Students and their Families,” Jessica Singer Early and Tracey Flores describe how they built a bilingual, bi-generational writing community in the face of Arizona’s English-only curriculum and anti-immigrant raids. Rethinking Schools has long advocated grounding the curriculum in our students’ lives, and Early and Flores offer moving testimony about what this can look like when families’ lives, languages, and stories are celebrated.

Sandra L. Osorio begins “Qué es deportar?: Teaching from Students’ Lives” with her own experiences as a bilingual elementary student: “At school, I don’t remember ever reading a story with a main character who was bilingual or bicultural.” She commits herself to a different kind of teaching, one that builds from Latino/a students’ real experiences, including painful stories of deportation. This means challenging the school’s ostensibly bilingual curriculum—based on a Spanish translation of the English basal. In this reader, the stories’ words were in Spanish, but the themes were a world away from her students’ lived experiences.

These articles are evidence that the movement for bilingual and bicultural education has not been destroyed by the right-wing English-only proponents. Injured, yes; destroyed, no.

Education in one’s native language is a human right. Rethinking Bilingual Education , including the articles we feature in this issue of Rethinking Schools , will be a contribution in solidarity with those struggling for an education that supports the multilingual, multicultural, democratic society we hope to live in.

As efforts to discredit, undermine, and privatize public schools become shriller and more audacious, sometimes we feel pushed into a purely defensive stance. Yes, we need to do everything we can to defend public education. But we also need to rethink and revitalize it. Other articles in this issue of the magazine show some of the ways educators are reimagining our classrooms and schools.

In “Baby Mamas in Literature and Life,” English teacher Abby Kindelsperger describes a unit she developed based on teen pregnancy and motherhood. Inspired by her alternative high school students’ responses to her own pregnancy, Kindelsperger’s curriculum rejects the common deficit-based narrative of teen parenting. Instead, her class explores literature, popular culture, and even billboards as they “re-frame the issue as part of an investigation of the complexity of life and the web of power, gender, race, and class.”

“Who Made the New Deal” begins Rethinking Schools editor Adam Sanchez’s two-part series on teaching a people’s history of the Great Depression. So often, the New Deal is presented as if significant change originated at the top: Franklin Roosevelt, the “people’s president,” proposing an alphabet soup of programs to help ordinary workers and the poor. Through simulation and role play, Sanchez engages his students in taking a closer look. Part one, in this issue, describes how he teaches the origins of the Depression through the playful Widget Boom Game.

Lauren Porosoff’s “A Midsummer Night’s Gender Diversity” is previewed from Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality , which we are publishing this fall. Porosoff was teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream when one of her middle schoolers asked her, “Ms. Porosoff, are we going to do anything with this book? You know, besides read it out loud and have you translate it for us?” This uncomfortable challenge led Porosoff to center their study of the comedy on how Shakespeare plays with gender expression and expectations.

High school assemblies offer a window into which students’ lives matter at school, and whose leadership and participation is valued. In “The Hidden Agenda of High School Assemblies,” Oregon teacher Jessica Richter-Furman shares her journey of discovery about why assemblies are so white in a school that is much more diverse, and offers her thoughts on how to initiate change.

Finally, we want to highlight a few of the conferences in the fall where educators will come together to explore ways to resist public school privatization and build schools that reflect values of equality and justice. For years, we’ve been going to the excellent Teachers 4 Social Justice conference, held every year at Mission High School in San FranciscoÑthis year on Saturday, Oct. 10. The T4SJ conference inspired teachers in the Northwest, who will hold their 8th annual Northwest Teaching for Social Justice gathering the following weekend, Saturday, Oct. 17—this year at Chief Sealth International High School in Seattle. The annual Teachers for Social Justice Curriculum Fair will be in Chicago on Saturday, Nov. 21. Rethinking Schools editors will be presenting workshops and staffing tables with books, magazines, and conversation at all of these. We hope to see you at one of them.

And one more thing. Many Rethinking Schools editors have been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ memoir, Between the World and Me , written as a letter to his 15-year-old son. It’s a searing chronicle about the violence of racism. Toni Morrison calls it “required reading.” We agree.

Bill Bigelow and Jody Sokolower for the editors of Rethinking Schools

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Effects of Bilingualism on Students’ Linguistic Education: Specifics of Teaching Phonetics and Lexicology

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• Zoya Snezhko 1 ,
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In the study of English in a bylingual environment, issues related to the need to develop students' phonetic and lexical competencies, which include communication, phonetic and auditory skills and lexical sufficiency, are of particular relevance. The motive of this study is the need to improve the methodology of teaching English in the context of student immersion in a foreign language educational environment, by implementing additional thematic courses in the general educational program aimed at improving the phonetic and lexical competencies necessary for successful learning in a bilingual environment. The purpose of the article is to study the feasibility and effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology by students-translators who study in a bilingual educational environment. An educational experiment was conducted with the participation of 75 students-translators, in the educational process of which the disciplines of phonetics and lexicology were integrated for two academic hours per week for one year. The effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology within the framework of bilingual education has been proved and the skills and achievements of students that they have acquired in the process of bilingual education with an emphasis on phonetics and lexicology have been analyzed. Control tests yielded the following results: among the 46 Russian-speaking participants the percentage of English speakers at the C2 level was 7% (3 people), C1—79% (36 people), B2—14% (7 people). To achieve the most effective learning in a bilingual environment, especially when it takes place in a minority language, it is worth emphasizing students' learning of phonetics and vocabulary. Using this approach, students were able to form and develop a number of phonetic and lexical skills and improve academic performance.

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European bilingual models beyond lingua franca: key findings from CLIL French programs

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Acknowledgements

Elena Dolzhich and Svetlana Dmitrichenkova have been supported by the RUDN University Strategic Academic Leadership Program.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Zoya Snezhko & Valentina Spichak

Language Center, Almaty Managment University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Gaukhar Yersultanova

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Elena Dolzhich & Svetlana Dmitrichenkova

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Grammar: Choose One Correct Answer

Reading: Read an Article About Penguins and for Questions 11 to 17, Choose the correct Answers

Learning from penguin poop.

The unique features of penguin poop have allowed scientists to make a remarkable discovery. The faeces of Adelie penguins, which live along the Antarctic coast and its islands, have a unique colour. They are bright pink due to the penguins’ diet, which consists largely of pink creatures called krill. They eat so much of it that their plentiful poop stains the ground on which they live, as well as their own bodies. Moreover, they produce so much poop that the pink stains can be seen from space.

This attribute has been useful for scientists studying these birds, as it has allowed them to locate colonies of penguins using satellite images. It isn’t possible to see individual penguins in satellite photos, but the pink stains are easy to identify. Scientists can even estimate the size of the colony from the size of the pink area.

Researchers using this method were, until recently, reasonably certain that they knew the whereabouts of all the Adelie penguin colonies on the continent. However, a colleague at NASA then developed an algorithm which automatically detected these stains, rather than finding them by human eye. The computer programme identified many more pink patches that the researchers had previously overlooked, particularly in the Danger Islands.

Researcher Heather Lynch admitted that the researchers had probably missed these colonies because they never expected to find them there. As the name suggests, the Danger Islands are difficult to get to and are almost always covered in sea ice. They are so small that they don’t even appear on many maps of Antarctica. However, once the researchers were aware of the colonies, they completed a full survey. They discovered 1.5 million penguins in this small area, more than in the rest of Antarctica.

Although this seems a large number, research findings suggest that it is lower than previous years. By studying satellite images from the past, which date back to 1982, the team were able to deduce that penguin numbers peaked in the late 1990s, and have since declined by 10–20%. Krill fishing is one of the main causes for the population decline of penguins in Antarctica, but because the Danger Islands are normally surrounded by sea ice, there is less human activity here than in other parts of the continent. This leads researchers to believe that the recent decline is due to other factors, such as climate change.

The scientists are now conducting research in the area to better understand the species and the long-term health of the colonies. One team, for example, is analysing the colour and content of the poop to investigate changes in the birds’ diet. This can show the extent to which penguins are affected by commercial fishing. Another is digging holes to learn more about the penguins’ past. By radiocarbon dating the bones and eggshells found in these holes, the team have discovered that the penguins have been inhabiting these islands since 2,800 years ago. By learning more about the penguin population of Antarctica, the team hopes to understand more about the impact of human activity on the natural world.

Listening. Watch a Video About the Future of Airport Security. Decide if the Following Statements are True or False.

18. In Vancouver airport, they are concerned about the security in the airport premises.

19. They have implemented security measures similar to those used in Istanbul.

20. Don Ehrenholz gives us an idea of what the new security measures are.

21. The objective is to obstruct, as much as possible, the action of any potential terrorists.

22. Other countries have also taken extraordinary security measures, but many of them only after being attacked by terrorists.

23. In Moscow the terrorists had to go through a security check to get into the airport buildings.

24. In Glasgow airport the terrorist attack caused no casualties.

Writing: Check the ‘Explanation’ Tab Above Before Doing These Exercises. Read the Following for and Against Essay Sample. For Each Gap, Choose the Correct Option from the Expressions in the Box Below

Having an only child is easier for parents and better for kids.

Several centuries ago, it was unbelievable that having only one child could have any advantages. The higher number of children, the bigger opportunities your family had to survive. 23 _ nowadays families with just one child are most common. And as a parent, you will ask yourself what are the advantages and disadvantages of being or having an only child.

24 _ for parents who have just one child is that they need to spend less money and time and can survive with just a small two-bedroom house. 25 _, an only child doesn’t have to share anything, and they get all their parents’ attention and affection. 26 _ of only children is that having just one child prevents traditional problems related to the partition of the parents’ last will. 27 _, there are also well-known disadvantages. 28 _, only children tend to become more selfish and have a more difficult personality. 29 _, if you have a brother or sister, you will always have someone to play with or talk to if you need help or advice. And 30 _ you are the centre of the universe as a child, when your parents grow old, you will be the only one to look after them.

31 _ , either having or being an only child has numerous advantages and disadvantages, and if you are thinking of becoming a parent, you will have to think carefully what you believe is the best for you as a parent, but also for your child.

Reading: Read an Article About Personality and Health, and the Correct Answer

Personality and health.

There is increasing evidence that health is linked to personality. However, until now, the relationship has not affected the way health care is delivered. There are several reasons for this. Some health workers doubt whether there is a direct link between health and personality or whether it’s just a coincidence. Some feel it is their professional duty to treat all patients in the same way. Others argue that delivering health services according to patients’ personalities will have minimal impact and therefore isn’t worth the effort. However, some psychologists believe that applying different procedures to people with different personalities could have a significant, positive effect on health.

Research into personality has, in recent years, focused on the Big Five model of personality types. This model measures how neurotic, extrovert, open to experience, agreeable and conscientious a person is. Some of these personality types have been studied in relation to health. For example, conscientious people tend to be less likely to smoke, drink too much alcohol or be inactive. However, in other cases, the relationship is less clear. Neurotic behaviour, for instance, has been found in some studies to increase the risk of death, in others to protect people from illness and in others to have no link to health at all.

Even so, if health workers applied an understanding of personality to the services they provide, they could influence the extent to which patients act on advice and follow their treatment. For example, high sensation-seeking individuals, who are extroverts and unconscientious in the Big Five model and tend to take part in risky activities, respond to drama, energy and emotion. Thus, to encourage those people to follow health advice, health promotions can be designed to incorporate those factors. An example of this was the campaign SENTAR which aimed to reduce cannabis use among high sensation-seeking teenagers. By creating a suitable television advert, they successfully engaged these youths and reduced their recreational drug use. Of course, this approach isn’t always possible. It is often impractical and expensive to create several versions of a campaign to reach different personality types. However, recent developments in computer technology, cookies and targeted advertising may allow this approach to be used more in future.

Personality could also be considered when sending messages, information and guidance to specific patients. Already, health information is usually available in various forms—printed, digital, audio, and so on—to be suitable and accessible for different users, such as the blind, the elderly, and people with reading difficulties. Research has also shown that, by identifying different patients’ motivations for treatment and then corresponding with them in a way that reflects their motivations, patients will become more involved in their treatment, compared to when the same messages are sent to everyone. Correspondence could, therefore, be adapted to reflect patients’ personality type, too. For example, less conscientious people could be sent phone reminders to attend appointments. So far, there has been very little research into the effectiveness of tailoring health guidance according to personality, so this area deserves further study.

Until now, the focus of personality-health research has been to explore the link between personality and health and has had very little practical application. Thus, health workers have not engaged deeply with it. However, by suggesting, trialling and implementing practices to engage patients with different personalities, the relationship between psychology researchers and health workers could improve, along with the health of the general public.

21. Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City.

22. As a child, she didn't like to play with her sisters, and preferred to be alone.

23. As a child, she loved drawing, but didn't want to be an artist.

24. She began to paint in a hospital bed after a terrible illness.

25. Diego Rivera saw her paintings and approached her to say she could become a professional artist.

26. Diego Rivera wanted to live in the US, but they returned because Frida missed Mexico.

27. Loneliness made Frida feel a lot of pain, which she reflected in her self-portraits.

28. Frida used her art to cope with her difficult life.

Writing: Check the ‘Explanation’ Tab Above Before Doing These Exercises. Read the Following for and Against Essay Sample. For each Gap, Choose the Correct Option From the Expressions in the Box Below

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in 29 _ to the home exchange service that you offer on your website. We are a family of four who have been considering the possibility of exchanging our main home for some time and we would be 30 _ if you could answer a few questions. 31 _, I would like to 32 _ if some kind of insurance is included in the fee that you charge for your services. We have our own home insurer, but we are not sure if we should talk to them before doing an exchange. I would 33 _ some information on this point.

I would 34 _ like to know if pets can be included in the exchange. We have a cat and we do not have anybody to look after him while we are away. Could you tell me if exchanging pets or leaving a pet in the care of the people who are coming to your home is a common practice?

35 _, I would be interested to receive 36 _ information about the confirmation process. Would you 37 _ telling me if there is an exchange contract that needs to be signed before your exchange?

We would appreciate it if you could answer these questions. I look 38 _ to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Clark.

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Snezhko, Z., Yersultanova, G., Spichak, V. et al. Effects of Bilingualism on Students’ Linguistic Education: Specifics of Teaching Phonetics and Lexicology. J Psycholinguist Res 52 , 2693–2720 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-10016-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-10016-x

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Bilingual Language Development in Infancy: What Can We Do to Support Bilingual Families?

1 Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Jessica E. Kosie

2 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

Ruth Kircher

3 Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning Fryske Akademy, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands

Casey Lew-Williams

Krista byers-heinlein.

Many infants and children around the world grow up exposed to two or more languages. Their success in learning each of their languages is a direct consequence of the quantity and quality of their everyday language experience, including at home, in daycare and preschools, and in the broader community context. Here, we discuss how research on early language learning can inform policies that promote successful bilingual development across the varied contexts in which infants and children live and learn. Throughout our discussions, we highlight that each individual child's experience is unique. In fact, it seems that there are as many ways to grow up bilingual as there are bilingual children. To promote successful bilingual development, we need policies that acknowledge this variability and support frequent exposure to high-quality experience in each of a child's languages.

Bilingual infants benefit from high-quality, high-quantity experience in their languages. Policies tailored to each community, like paid parental leave and bilingual community/library programs, can support families in transmitting their languages. [link_to_paper]

• Many infants and young children around the world grow up bilingual.
• There is substantial variability in the experience of bilingual children, including who speaks different languages around them and how the languages are used.
• Growing up bilingual does not cause deficits in language learning. However, bilingual children with language deficits might need support in each of their languages.
• Language learning is linked to the quantity and quality of language infants and children hear, so policies that promote bilingualism should enable infants and children to receive sufficient high-quality experience in each of their languages.
• Policies must be adapted to each child's context to be able to support diverse family structures across the globe.

Many infants around the world grow up bilingual, meaning they receive regular exposure to two or more languages ( Wei, 2000 ). Early language development predicts later language skills, cognitive abilities, and school achievement (e.g., Hurtado et al., 2014 ; Scarborough et al., 2009 ; Schwab & Lew-Williams, 2016 ), and early bilingualism is linked to benefits across many different domains (e.g., Bialystok, 2018 ). Many bilingual infants—particularly those with high levels of support in each language—grow up to be highly proficient speakers of their languages. However, in some cases, bilingual children have lower proficiency in one of their languages ( Fillmore, 1991 ). Supporting families and communities is essential for ensuring positive language outcomes in bilingual children—defined as families see fit—so that bilingual children can benefit maximally from their unique language environments.

Here, we bring together scientific findings from bilingual language acquisition to highlight the role of caregivers as well as the sociocultural environment in fostering bilingual infants’ journeys toward reaching their full potential. In doing so, we acknowledge that each bilingual experience is unique—there are nearly as many ways to grow up bilingual as there are bilingual children. Contexts for bilingualism may be quite different across families, daycares and preschools, communities, and cultures ( Rowe & Weisleder, 2020 ), and research to date does not yet reflect the full range of bilingual experience. Taking this diversity into account is key to understanding early bilingual development. We conclude by articulating policy implications for better supporting infants and their families, based on established findings from research on early bilingual—as well as monolingual—language learning.

Who Is Bilingual?

In the past, the term “bilingual” has been used to refer to individuals who speak two languages just as proficiently as monolinguals who speak one language (e.g., Peal & Lambert, 1962 ). However, given that this represents only a tiny minority of those who use two or more languages, researchers currently employ the term much more inclusively, extending it those all who use two or more languages in everyday life ( Byers-Heinlein & Lew-Williams, 2013 ). In this paper, we define bilingual infants as those who have regular exposure to more than one language from early in development.

Bilingualism is common and increasing in many parts of the world ( Wei, 2000 ). It is prevalent in regions of many continents, including Australia, Africa (e.g., Senegal and South Africa), North America (e.g., Canada), Asia (e.g., India and the Philippines), and Europe (e.g., Switzerland and Belgium). An estimated 15% of children in Australia ( Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006 ), 18–25% of children in Canada ( Schott et al., 2021 ), 29% of children in parts of Spain ( Statistical Institute of Catalonia, 2007 ), 90% of children in Singapore ( Wu et al., 2020 ), and 23–43% of children in parts of the United States ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2019 ) grow up bilingual (with some variation across regions and children's ages). In many contexts, bilingual populations are systematically different from monolingual populations beyond the number of languages spoken; for example bilingualism is often associated with migrants and/or minoritized groups ( Extra & Verhoeven, 1999 ).

Each bilingual infant's language learning experience is unique: children differ in terms of the specific languages they are learning, when they start learning each, and how they encounter them. Consequently, each bilingual child will have their own developmental path ( De Bruin, 2019 ). For example, some bilingual infants hearing similar languages may be able to transfer syntactic and lexical knowledge from one language to the other ( Floccia et al., 2018 ), while those learning dissimilar languages will have to learn different rules for each. Bilingual children also differ in terms of the age at which they begin learning each language: some hear their languages from birth from their primary caregivers, while others hear certain language(s) only at home and are exposed to an additional language somewhat later in development when they enter childcare. Further, circumstances can change across an infant's life, impacting how much and from whom they hear each of their languages (e.g., Prevoo et al., 2011 ).

A common factor across bilingual language development is the crucial role of the quantity and quality of exposure infants receive in their different languages ( Marchman et al., 2010 ; Ramírez-Esparza, et al., 2017 ). For example, we would not expect a child to learn a language they only hear for 5 min per day (low quantity) or to learn a language from 5 h a day of isolated vocabulary words recited from an audiotape (low quality). It is difficult to know exactly what combination of quantity and quality is required, but some studies estimate that children need a minimum of 10–25% of overall exposure in a language to achieve fluency in it, which will only occur if their language experience is rich and varied (e.g., Place & Hoff, 2011 ). If children do not receive sufficient high-quality bilingual exposure, they are unlikely to become proficient in all their languages.

Myths About Early Bilingualism

A commonly-held concern is that early exposure to multiple languages is confusing. To the contrary, young infants can perceive the difference between different languages within the first few days or months of life ( Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 2001 ; Byers-Heinlein et al., 2010 ). The early years (approximately birth to age 3) represent a sensitive period for language acquisition, when the brain is particularly receptive to the properties of language ( Werker & Tees, 2005 ), and where children can accumulate large amounts of experience with their languages. For this reason, bilingual children exposed to their languages earlier in development become better at them, and will speak and process them in a more native-like manner ( Bialystok, 2001 ). Exposure to a second language should thus not be unnecessarily delayed, and should begin as soon as feasible. Nonetheless, many individuals who begin learning a new language after the sensitive period become highly proficient speakers, particularly when they are motivated to learn ( Dörnyei, 2009 ).

The notion that bilingualism causes language disorders and delays is also false: these occur in bilingual children at the same rates as in monolingual children (Paradis et al., 2011). In fact, many children with various developmental disabilities also grow up bilingual, including children with specific language impairment ( Paradis et al., 2011 ), children with Down Syndrome ( Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2005 ), and children with autism spectrum disorder ( Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2018 ). Bilingualism does not appear to be detrimental to children with developmental deficits in language or cognition, and in fact, bilingualism could be a boost in some cases. For example, for children with autism, bilingualism could expand their possibilities for social interactions ( Peristeri et al., 2021 ) and even mitigate difficulties related to shifting between tasks ( Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2019 ).

Bilingual Language Experience From Caregivers

Regardless of whether they are developing typically or atypically, children's caregivers play a key role in providing crucial language experience ( Casillas et al., 2020 ; De Houwer, 2007 ; Tsinivits & Unsworth, 2021 ). For example, the amount of infant-directed speech ( Ramírez-Esparza et al., 2014 ) and turn-taking that children experience ( Donnelly & Kidd, 2021 ) predicts their speech and language development. Different families approach bilingualism in different ways. In some, each caregiver speaks only one language to their infant (the “one-person-one-language approach”). In others, caregivers speak more than one language to the infant and even a third one between them ( Orena et al., 2020 ). In heritage language families (i.e. families who speak a language other than the one(s) of the wider community), caregivers may use only the heritage language in the home, and employ the community language(s) outside the home ( Ballinger et al., 2020 ). Extended family, whether or not they live with the infant, can also be a rich source of language exposure. The amount of time family members (immediate and extended) as well as others (including friends, neighbors, educators) spend with the child and the languages they speak further shape the unique experience of each bilingual child.

Children benefit from continuous, high-quality language exposure during the first years of life. High quality interactions involve a natural back-and-forth rhythm—even with infants who can only coo and smile in response. Sentences with varied words and structures, which are adapted to the infants’ level, are also characteristic of high-quality language environments. In many (although not all) cultures, high-pitched, slow, melodic, infant-directed speech is typical, and has been shown to support early language learning ( Golinkoff et al., 2015 ). Practices such as shared book reading, where an adult reads to a child, can benefit bilingual language acquisition as well (e.g., Tsybina & Eriks-Brophy, 2010 ). However, some research suggests that families may tend to emphasize one language over the other in their home literacy practices, leading to unbalanced exposure to each of the child's languages ( Gonzalez-Barrero et al., 2021 ), and parents often lack access to literacy materials in heritage languages and bilingual formats (Ahooja et al., 2021 ).

One unique type of interaction in bilingual families is code-switching: the use of two or more languages within the same sentence or conversation. The types of code-switching and the reasons to code-switch vary across communities, even across bilingual families. Code-switching is highly associated with parents’ abilities in each language as well as the sociolinguistic environment of the family ( Byers-Heinlein & Lew-Williams, 2013 ). Societal attitudes toward code-switching can sometimes be negative, particularly in monolingual, less diverse environments ( Dewaele & Wei, 2014 ). Parents may wonder whether exposure to code-switching is detrimental to bilingual language development, and indeed, there is some evidence from laboratory-based tasks that infants can sometimes be slightly slower to process code-switches, just as adults ( Byers-Heinlein et al., 2017 ).

At the same time, code-switching is a creative communicative resource ( García & Hesson, 2015 ) that can enhance children's understanding and development. For example, in real-life settings, parents seem to use code-switching in efforts to support successful bilingual language acquisition: their main reasons to code-switch are to bolster their infant's understanding and to teach vocabulary ( Kremin et al., 2020 ). Moreover, as children develop, they begin to produce speech that often includes code-switches, which can be a marker of linguistic competence ( Yow et al., 2018 ). Discouraging bilingual children from code-switching can lead to linguistic insecurity and contribute to negative educational outcomes ( García & Tupas, 2018 ).

The Role of the Sociocultural Environment

Infants’ exposure to each language is strongly influenced by the sociocultural environment in which they grow up. For example, children growing up in highly bilingual societies receive more consistent exposure across their different daily environments and become more proficient in their languages. By contrast, children growing up in highly monolingual societies often hear one of their languages mostly at home and a different one everywhere else. In those cases, during the early years, primary caregivers are the main source of language experience in one of the languages, but when children enter daycare, kindergarten, or school, peers and the academic environment increasingly impact children's language abilities in the prevalent community languages ( Nicoladis & Genesee, 1997 ).

Caregivers often face choices with respect to which language(s) they will speak to their infant, as many bilingual infants have caregivers who are also bilingual. In many societies, monolingualism in the national language is normative ( Hobsbawm, 1990 ), and bilingualism is portrayed as the exception. Consequently, many families who speak a heritage language feel pressure to assimilate, and thus may choose not to transmit their heritage language, in the hope that this will bring social and economic advantages for their children ( Kutlu & Kircher, 2021 ). However, if children grow up without developing competence in their family's heritage language, this can have detrimental long-term effects: they may feel embarrassed about not being able to communicate with all family members; they may feel less connected to their cultural identity; and they may be upset with their parents for not supporting their heritage language development ( De Houwer, 2021 ; Nakamura, 2020 ). By contrast, if children do develop competence in their heritage language, this positively impacts their healthy identity development as well as their well-being—and it has positive effects on family dynamics and interpersonal relationships among family members ( Müller et al., 2020 ) while also increasing children's cultural knowledge.

In some cases (e.g., Quebec and Catalonia), multiple community languages are spoken, giving children more opportunities to learn both languages. However, in most societies, there is one language that is widely spoken in the community and has a higher sociolinguistic status. The higher-status community language is usually the one that is learned in school and is more prevalent in the media. Language status contributes to language attitudes ( Giles & Watson, 2013 ), and historically, minority and heritage language speakers have tended to prioritize their children's acquisition of such higher-status community languages (e.g., Baker, 1992 ). Lower-status heritage languages are more difficult to maintain, as bilinguals learning them have fewer opportunities to hear and practice such languages, they tend to have fewer highly proficient speakers to interact with, and there is less societal support ( Gathercole & Thomas, 2009 ). However, if parents consider a particular language to hold important social meaning because it represents their social identity and evokes ingroup loyalty, they are significantly more likely to transmit this language to their children—seemingly irrespective of its status ( Kircher, 2019 ).

Assessing Bilingual Development

When all languages are considered, bilinguals reach language milestones on a similar timetable as monolinguals, such as producing their first words, beginning to combine words, and learning various syntactic forms (e.g., Nicoladis and Genesee, 1997 ). However, there are some differences between infants learning one and multiple languages, which means that their language development path can look different when these two groups are compared directly.

One example is vocabulary development. When measuring bilingual infants’ total vocabulary (i.e., counting words known in both languages), they know the same number of words as their monolingual peers (and sometimes even more). However, when measured separately, the number of words bilingual infants understand and produce in each of their languages is tightly coupled with their experiences with those languages, especially in word production ( Thordardottir, 2011 ). That is, an infant hearing a language 30% of the time would be expected to know fewer words in that language than an infant hearing that language 60% of the time, who in turn would know fewer words than an infant hearing it 100% of the time—keeping in mind that bilinguals will get complementary exposure and learn additional words in their other language(s) ( Côté, et al., 2021 ; De Houwer et al., 2014 ; Hoff, et al., 2012 ).

In some cases, differences in the trajectory of indicators such as vocabulary size have been the source of misdiagnoses—adding to the myths around bilingualism in infancy. For example, if a clinician screens children for language delay based on the English words they know, a child who hears English 30% of the time and Spanish 70% of the time could be flagged because their English word knowledge might be low compared to monolinguals, even though it is typical for an infant with that pattern of bilingual exposure (the child will likely know many additional words in Spanish, which was not measured). Fortunately, researchers are increasingly developing measures and strategies for more appropriately assessing bilingual children (e.g., Gampe et al., 2018 ; Peña et al., 2018 ). On the other hand, while bilingualism itself does not cause language disorders or delays ( Paradis et al., 2011 ), real language difficulties can sometimes be ignored when children are bilingual. For example, a clinician may notice that a bilingual child's development is behind that of monolingual peers, and could attribute that solely to bilingualism, thus missing a language disorder if one was present.

Implications for Policy

Having provided an overview of key research results regarding the development of young bilinguals, we now turn to their implications for policy (for a Figure summarizing the key points see supplemental materials Fibla, et al., 2021 ).

Caregivers and Communities Need Adequate Support to Raise Children Bilingually

Bilingual experience in the early years is critical for bilingual language development, and young children possess the capacity to acquire multiple languages simultaneously. Parents, caregivers, and communities should be empowered to raise children with multiple languages from infancy if they so desire. Awareness should be raised of the long-term, positive consequences of the intergenerational transmission especially of heritage languages—not only for the child but also for the family and culture as a whole. Public policy interventions have the power to help change language attitudes (e.g., Hawkey, 2018 ; Kircher, 2014 ). Moreover, since language and culture go hand in hand, positive attitudes toward heritage languages might also increase positive attitudes towards minoritized groups (e.g., Indigenous peoples, migrants). Public support for bilingualism will allow families to navigate child-rearing in dynamic ways that match their goals for their children, while integrating biculturalism in societies.

High-quality Interactions Between Caregivers and Children Should Be Promoted

High-quality, playful interactions between caregivers and infants should be promoted. In many bilingual families, these interactions often include code-switching, which should be understood as a normal part of bilingual communication and neither be discouraged nor encouraged. One mechanism to support high-quality bilingual interactions is to promote shared book-reading practices at home in the family's multiple languages. To do so, bilingual families need access to books in each of their languages, particularly in heritage languages, and bilingual books. Storybooks Canada ( Stranger-Johannessen et al., 2018 ) is an example of a free online resource for culturally diverse stories with text and/or audio in over 30 languages, including many Indigenous and immigrant heritage languages.

Paid Parental Leave Can Help Primary Caregivers Provide High-quality Language Experiences to Their Bilingual Infants

Because frequent, high-quality language experience is essential for early language learning, young bilinguals’ development will benefit from policies that allow key caregivers to spend more time with infants during the first years of life, if they desire. Studies with monolingual children highlight that paid family leave, particularly maternal leave after birth, can lead to better language outcomes during toddlerhood ( Kozak et al., 2021 ) and help decrease sociodemographic health disparities, thus resulting in healthier neurocognitive development in infancy ( Brito et al., 2021 ). Countries such as Canada and Sweden offer policies that allow families with two parents to share the total amount of leave, which can help ensure that their infants get high-quality exposure from multiple caregivers in multiple languages.

Some Bilingual Children Need Extra Support, Including Those Learning Heritage Languages

Children learning languages that are spoken less widely in the community, such as speakers of Indigenous and immigrant heritage languages, need extra support to foster high-quality experiences in their languages. Many infants and toddlers spend considerable time in nonfamilial childcare—for example with nannies or in daycare and kindergarten. The availability of childcare in different languages can help support families’ language choices and children's development. Tailored preschool programs can be developed that not only expose children to diverse languages, but promote positive attitudes and related cultural knowledge. For example, the “Sacred Little Ones” program ( Aziz-Parsons, 2017 ) develops early childhood education projects tailored to Native American communities in the United States, promoting both languages and cultures. Institutions such as libraries and cultural centers can provide useful supports, such as children's books in different languages and in bilingual formats, and multilingual storytime, whether in-person, recorded, or live-streamed (for examples see Association of Americans & Canadians in Israel, 2012 ; National Library Board, 2021 ; New York Public Library, 2021 ). Such community programs can also create and support social networks among families that share the same language(s).

Bilingualism Needs to Be Supported in Typically and Atypically Developing Children

Both typically and atypically developing children grow up bilingual, and all such children should receive support in relation to their needs. Therefore, early education policies should explicitly address bilingual language learning, including addressing bilingual children with special needs ( Pesco et al., 2016 ). Bilingual children benefit when they have access to clinical and educational services and support in all of their languages. Consequently, training on bilingualism is needed for educational and healthcare professionals. Historically, professionals have often recommended to bilingual families that they should only use one language when raising children with developmental disorders. However, such recommendations are not evidence-based and can decrease both the amount of high-quality speech infants hear and opportunities to practice conversational skills ( Davis et al., 2021 ; Kaiser et al., 2001 ). Further, the inability to communicate in a heritage language may exclude the child from family culture and values ( Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2012 ).

In evaluating whether bilingual children have language disorders or delays, they should not be assessed in the same way as monolinguals because most tools do not take into account the bilingual child's full, diverse language achievements. Whenever possible, evaluations should be conducted by trained professionals who are knowledgeable about bilingual assessment, and if possible fluent in each of the child's languages ( Nayeb et al., 2021 ). Moreover, services should be provided in each of the child's languages. This goal can be supported by encouraging communication between families, school districts, clinicians, and universities that train speech-language therapists.

Each Bilingual Family and Community Is Unique and Has Different Needs

Policies need to take into account variability across families and communities so that they can accommodate each bilingual child's profile. Policymakers should take time to understand the community of interest, and take into account the unique linguistic, cultural, and societal circumstances of the specific community. In this way, policymakers can develop tailored ways of promoting bilingual proficiency in context .

Many infants around the world grow up learning more than one language, but raising bilingual children is not always easy. Families need both individual and societal support in promoting positive attitudes towards bilingualism and biculturalism, and providing children with sufficient opportunities to hear and use their different languages. Effective policies have the potential to support families, clinicians, and educational professionals to base decisions on the ever-growing science of bilingualism. Because every bilingual experience is different, policies that aim to support bilingual language learning should take into account each family context as well as their sociocultural environment.

Integrating bilingualism into our social fabric will ensure that children have the opportunities and advantages that come with learning more than one language. This will only be possible if we develop policies that support bilingual learning beginning in infancy. To inspire new ideas, an important best practice is to consult directly with members of the community in order to understand their goals, needs, and values—from their perspective and using their own words.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: This work was supported by the NICHD R01 1R01HD095912-1A1 grant to KBH and CLW, NICHD NRSA F32 HD103439 to JK, SSHRC 435-2019-1032 Discovery grant to KBH, NSERC 2018-04390 Discovery grant to KBH, and the support from the Concordia University Research Chairs program to KBH.

ORCID iDs: Laia Fibla https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1917-8509

Jessica E. Kosie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2390-0963

Ruth Kircher https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8437-7371

Krista Byers-Heinlein https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7040-2510