Bilingual Education Institute Creating Bridges Among Languages & Cultures
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Bilingual Education Institute Creating Bridges Among Languages & Cultures
Head Start students Joseluis Salas, left, and Jesus Gonzalez listen to a lesson during a Sobrato Early Academic Language, or SEAL, class in El Monte in October 2015. At Cahuenga, Spanish speakers can enroll in what is known as a transitional bilingual education program, in which students learn all subjects in their native language beginning in kindergarten, with the goal of transferring to mainstream English classes by fourth grade.
On average therefore, limited English proficient students placed in bilingual education programs have less exposure to other students as well as to limited English proficient students of other native languages, and there could be peer effects associated with this.
In contrast to traditional English as a second language” bilingual programs, more progressive bilingual programs, which the state emphasizes in its reformed curricular guidelines , have grown as a resource to build the language and cultural competency required for a globalizing society.
Limited-English-proficient Spanish-speaking children have little access to books at home (about 22 books per home for the entire family according to Ramirez, Yuen, Ramey, & Pasta, 1991) or at school (an average of one book in Spanish per Spanish-speaking child in some school libraries in schools with bilingual programs, according to Pucci, 1994).
For Spanish-speaking limited English proficient students in grades 1 and 2, bilingual education, relative to English-only approaches, has significant large negative associations with English listening and speaking proficiencies, but the associations are small and positive in grades 3-5 (and insignificant in grade 5). English reading and writing proficiencies are measured in higher grades, and there is no evidence of significant differences in grade 5, with mixed results in grades 3−4.
