Bilingualism/Bilingual education

Definition

Bilingualism is the ability to communicate in two different languages. Bilingual education is the use of two different languages in classroom instruction.

Description

Languages are learned most readily during the toddler and preschool years and, to a lesser extent, during elementary school. Therefore, children growing up in bilingual homes and/or receiving bilingual education easily acquire both languages. Throughout much of the world, bilingualism is the norm for both children and adults. In the past, immigrants to the United States often began learning and using English in their homes as soon as possible. In the early 2000s, however, many immigrants choose to maintain their native language at home. Bilingual children are at an advantage in this increasingly multilingual nation.

Bilingual language development

Language acquisition is very similar for monolingual and bilingual children, although some experts view bilingualism as a specialized case of language development . Children growing up in homes where two different languages are spoken usually acquire both languages simultaneously. Although their acquisition of each language may be somewhat slower than that of children who are acquiring a single language, their development in the two languages combined is equivalent to that of monolingual children. Bilingual language learners proceed through the same patterns of language and speech development as children acquiring a single language. Their first words usually are spoken at about one year of age, and they begin stringing two words together at about age two. Even if the two languages do not share similarities in pronunciation, children eventually master them both.

There are two major patterns of bilingual language development, both occurring before the age of three. Simultaneous bilingualism occurs when a child learns both languages at the same time. In the early stages of simultaneous bilingual language development, a child may mix words, parts of words, and inflections from both languages in a single sentence. Sometimes this occurs because a child knows a word in one language but not in the other. Some bilingual children initially resist learning words for the same thing in two languages. Children also may experiment with their two languages for effect. During the second stage of bilingual language development, at age four or older, children gradually begin to distinguish between the two languages and use them separately, sometimes depending on where they are. One language may be used less formally to talk about home and family , whereas the other language may be used more formally, perhaps for relating events that took place outside the home. Often children find it easier to express a specific idea in one language rather than the other. Bilingual children also go through periods when one language is used more than the other. Some children may begin to prefer one language over the other, particularly if that language is spoken more frequently in their home or school. Bilingual children usually are not equally skilled in both languages. Often they understand more in one language but speak more in the other.

Sequential bilingualism occurs when children use their knowledge of and experience with a first language to rapidly acquire a second language. The first language may influence the way in which they learn and use their second language. Learning the second language is easier for children if the sounds, words, and vocabulary of the languages are similar.

Bilingual language development usually proceeds more smoothly when both languages are introduced early and simultaneously. When the parents each use a different language with their child, the child is less likely to experience language confusion.

Research indicates that there are numerous advantages to bilingualism. Bilingualism has been reported to improve the following skills:

• verbal and linguistic abilities
• general reasoning
• concept formation
• divergent thinking
• metalinguistic skills, the ability to analyze and talk about language and control language processing

These abilities are important for reading development in young children and may be a prerequisite for later learning to read and write in a new language.

Types of bilingual education

Bilingual education is common throughout the world and involves hundreds of languages. In the United States bilingualism is assumed to mean English and another language, often Spanish. More than 300 languages are spoken in the United States. In New York City schools, classroom instruction is given in 115 different languages. Bilingual education includes all teaching methods that are designed to meet the needs of English-language learners (ELLs), also referred to as "limited English proficient" (LEP) students.

There are numerous approaches to bilingual education, although all include English as a second language (ESL). ESL is English language instruction that includes little or no use of a child's native language. ESL classes often include students with many different primary languages. Some school districts use a variety of approaches to bilingual education, designing individual programs based on the needs of each child.

A common approach is transitional bilingual education (TBE). TBE programs include ESL; however, some or all academic classes are conducted in children's primary languages until they are well-prepared for English-only classes. Even children who converse well in English may not be ready to learn academic subjects in English. Often these children spend part of the school day in an intensive ESL program and the remainder of the day receiving instruction in their primary language. Bilingual teachers may help students improve their primary language skills. Bilingual/bicultural programs include instruction in the history and culture of a student's ethnic heritage. Studies have shown that children who receive several years of instruction in their native language learn English faster and have higher overall academic achievement levels that those who do not.

Two-way bilingual or dual-language programs use both English and a second language in classrooms made up of both ELLs and native English speakers. The goal is for both groups to become bilingual. Children in twoway bilingual education programs have been found to outperform their peers academically.

Many educators—and a segment of the public—believe in the English immersion approach, even if ELLs do not understand very much in the classroom. In this approach nearly all instruction is in English, and there is little or no use of other languages. If the teacher is bilingual, students may be allowed to ask questions in their native language, but the teacher answers them in English. Some schools employ structured English immersion or sheltered English, in which teachers use pictures, simple reading words, and other techniques to teach ELLs both English and academic subjects.

History of bilingual education

Although bilingual education has been used in the United States for more than 200 years, the 1968 Title VII amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) instituted federal grants for bilingual education programs. This legislation led to the development of appropriate teaching and learning materials and training for teachers of bilingual students.

In 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the San Francisco school system had violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by not providing English-language instruction for Chinese-speaking students. All school districts were directed to serve ELLs adequately, and bilingual education quickly spread throughout the United States. In the 1980s a group called Asian Americans United filed a class-action lawsuit charging that Asian Americans were not being provided with an equitable education because they were not offered bilingual classes. The result of this suit was the creation of sheltered ESL, in which ESL students take all of their classes together.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001—President George W. Bush's major education initiative—reauthorized the ESEA. It also imposed penalties on schools that did not raise the achievement levels of ELLs for at least two consecutive years. Although most research indicates that it often takes seven years for ELLs to attain full English fluency, the new federal law allows these children only three years before they must take standardized tests in English. Schools with large numbers of children speaking many different languages are particularly disadvantaged under the law. A 2003 survey by the National Education Association found that 22,000 schools in 44 states failed to make the required yearly progress on standardized tests, primarily because of low test scores by ELLs and disabled students. The National Association for Bilingual Education claims that NCLB sets arbitrary goals for achievement and uses "invalid and unreliable assessments." Furthermore, although the NCLB requires teachers to be qualified, as of 2004 there is a severe shortage of qualified teachers for ELLs. Some communities have developed early-intervention programs for Spanish-speaking parents and preschoolers to help children develop their Spanish language skills in preparation for entering English-only schools.

In May of 2004, the U.S. Department of Education and faith-based community leaders launched an initiative to inform Hispanic, Asian, and other parents of ELLs about the NCLB. It featured the "Declaration of Rights for Parents of English Language Learners under No Child Left Behind."

As of 2004 American public schools include about 11 million children of immigrants. Approximately 5.5 million students—10 percent of the public school enrollment—speak little or no English. Spanish speakers account for 80 percent of these children. About one-third of children enrolled in urban schools speak a primary language other than English in their homes. Between 2001 and 2004, 19 states reported increases of 50 to 200 percent in Spanish-speaking students. ELLs are the fastest-growing public school population in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Between 2000 and 2002, nationwide ELL enrollment increased 27 percent. About 25 percent of California public school children are ELLs. However, there is a profound shortage of bilingual and ESL teachers throughout the United States. Although 41 percent of U.S. teachers have ELLs in their classrooms, only about 2.5 percent of them have degrees in ESL or bilingual education. The majority of these teachers report that they are not well-prepared for teaching ELLs. About 75 percent of ELLs are in poverty schools, where student turnover is high and many teachers have only emergency credentials.

Opposition to bilingual education

In 1980 voters in Dade County, Florida, made English their official language. In 1981 California Senator S. I. Hayakawa introduced a constitutional amendment to make English the country's official language. In 1983 Hayakawa founded U.S. English, Inc., which grew to include 1.8 million members by 2004. U.S. English argues the following premises:

• The unifying effect of the English language must be preserved in the United States.
• Bilingual education fails to adequately teach English.
• Learning English quickly in English-only classrooms is best for ELLs, both academically and socially.
• Any special language instruction should be short-term and transitional.

In 1986 California voters passed Proposition 63 that made English the state's official language. Other states did the same. In 1998 Californians passed Proposition 227, a referendum that attempted to eliminate bilingual education by allowing only one year of structured English immersion, followed by mainstreaming. Similar initiatives have appeared on other state ballots. However, only 9 percent of the California children attained English proficiency in one year, and most remained in the immersion programs for a second year. Prior to the new law only 29 percent of California ELLs were in bilingual programs, in part because of a shortage of qualified teachers. Since the law allowed parents to apply for waivers, 12 percent of the ELLs were allowed to remain in bilingual classes.

In January of 2004, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the California State Board of Education was forced to radically revise the implementation of their "Reading First" program. Previously California had withheld all of the $133 million provided by NCLB from ELLs enrolled in alternative bilingual programs.

Common problems

Language delay

Language and learning difficulties occur with the same frequency in monolingual and bilingual children. However, as the number of bilingual children in the United States increases, it becomes increasingly important for parents and pediatricians to understand the normal patterns of bilingual language development in order to recognize abnormal language development in a bilingual child.

If a bilingual child has a speech or language problem, it should be apparent in both languages. However detecting language delays or abnormalities in bilingual children can be difficult. Signs of possible language delay in bilingual children include the following:

• not making sounds between two and six months of age
• fewer than one new word per week in children aged six to 15 months
• fewer than 20 words in the two languages combined by 20 months of age
• limited vocabulary without word combinations in children aged two to three years of age
• prolonged periods without using speech
• difficulty remembering words
• missing normal milestones of language development in the first language of a sequentially bilingual child

Language development in bilingual children can be assessed by a bilingual speech/language pathologist or by a professional who has knowledge of the rules and structure of both languages, perhaps with the assistance of a translator or interpreter.

English-only education

ELLs in English-only programs often fall behind academically. Many ELLs who are assessed using traditional methods are referred for special education . Such children often become school drop-outs.

Parental concerns

Parents in bilingual households can help their children by taking the following steps:

• speaking the language in which they are most comfortable
• being consistent regarding how and with whom they use each language
• using each language's grammar in a manner that is appropriate for the child's developmental stage
• keeping children interested and motivated in language acquisition

KEY TERMS

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) —The 1965 federal law that is reauthorized and amended every five years.

English as a second language (ESL) —English language instruction for English language learners (ELLs) that includes little or no use of a child's native language; a component of all bilingual education programs.

English language learner (ELL) —A student who is learning English as a second language; also called limited English proficient (LEP).

Immersion —A language education approach in which English is the only language used.

Limited English proficient (LEP) —Used to identify children who have insufficient English to succeed in English-only classrooms; also called English language learner (ELL).

Metalinguistic skills —The ability to analyze language and control internal language processing; important for reading development in children.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act —The 2001 reauthorization of the ESEA, President George W. Bush's major education initiative.

Sequential bilingualism —Acquiring first one language and then a second language before the age of three.

Sheltered English —Structured English immersion; English instruction for ELLs that focuses on content and skills rather than the language itself; uses simplified language, visual aids, physical activity, and the physical environment to teach academic subjects.

Sheltered ESL —Bilingual education in which ESL students attend all of their classes together.

Simultaneous bilingualism —Acquiring two languages simultaneously before the age of three.

Structured English immersion —Sheltered English; English-only instruction for ELLs that uses simplified language, visual aids, physical activity, and the physical environment to teach academic subjects.

Transitional bilingual education (TBE) —Bilingual education that includes ESL and academic classes conducted in a child's primary language.

Two-way bilingual education —Dual language programs in which English and a second language are both used in classes consisting of ELLs and native-English speakers.

See also Language development.

Resources

BOOKS

Bhatia, Tej K., and William C. Ritchie, eds. The Handbook of Bilingualism. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.

Cadiero-Kaplan, Karen. The Literacy Curriculum and Bilingual Education: A Critical Examination. New York: P. Lang, 2004.

Calderon, Margarita, and Liliana Minaya-Rowe. Designing and Implementing Two-Way Bilingual Programs: A Step-by-Step Guide for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2003.

Crawford, James. Educating English Learners: Language Diversity in the Classroom. Los Angeles, CA: Bilingual Educational Services, 2004.

Genesee, Fred, et al. Dual Language Development and Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes, 2004.

Santa Ana, Otto, ed. Tongue-Tied: The Lives of Multilingual Children in Public Education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.

San Miguel Jr., Guadalupe. Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960–2001. Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2004.

PERIODICALS

Dillon, Sam. "School Districts Struggle with English Fluency Mandate." New York Times November 5, 2003.

Gutiérrez-Clellen, Vera F., et al. "Verbal Working Memory in Bilingual Children." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 47, no. 4 (August 2004): 863–76.

Hamers, Josiane F. "A Sociocognitive Model of Bilingual Development." Journal of Language and Social Psychology 23, no. 1 (March 2004): 70.

Hammer, Carol Scheffner, et al. "Home Literacy Experiences and Their Relationship to Bilingual Preschoolers' Developing English Literacy Abilities: An Initial Investigation." Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 34 (January 2003): 20–30.

ORGANIZATIONS

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. 10801 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. Web site: <http://asha.org>.

National Association for Bilingual Education. 1030 15th St., NW, Suite 470, Washington, DC 20005. Web site: <www.nabe.org>.

National Association for Multicultural Education. 733 15th St., NW, Suite 430, Washington, DC 20005. Web site: <http://nameorg.org>.

National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition. Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement & Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students, U.S. Department of Education, George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 2121 K St., NW, Suite 260, Washington, DC 20037. Web site: <www.ncela.gwu.edu>.

U.S. English Inc. 1747 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20006. Web site: <www.usenglish.org>.

WEB SITES

"Children and Bilingualism." American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Available online at <www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Bilingual-Children.htm> (accessed December 6, 2004).

"Immigrant Children Enrolled in Some of the State's Poorest School Districts Will Now Have Access to Millions of Dollars to Help Them Learn to Read." hispanicvista, January 29, 2004. Available online at <www.latinobeat.net/html4/013104be.htm> (accessed December 6, 2004).

Jehlen, Alain. "English Lessons." National Education Association, May 2002. Available online at <www.nea.org/neatoday/0205/cover.html> (accessed December 6, 2004).

"Language Development in Bilingual Children." KidsGrowth.com. Available online at <www.kidsgrowth.com/resources/articledetail.cfm?id=1229> (accessed December 6, 2004).

"What is Bilingual Education?" National Association for Bilingual Education, 2001. Available online at <www.nabe.org/faq_detail.asp?ID=20> (accessed December 6, 2004).

"What's the Score on English-Only?" National Education Association, May 2002. Available online at <www.nea.org/neatoday/0205/cover.html> (accessed December 6, 2004).

Margaret Alic, PhD

Bilingualism/Bilingual education

Use of a language other than English in public school classrooms.

The language rights of ethnic minorities in the United States have been a source of public controversy for close to two decades. The 1970s saw record levels of immigration, bringing an estimated 4 million legal and 8 million illegal immigrants into the country. To accommodate this dramatic surge in the nation's population of foreign language speakers, language assistance has been mandated on the federal, state, and local levels in areas ranging from voting and tax collection to education, social services, disaster assistance, and consumer rights. Today Massachusetts offers driver's license tests in 24 languages; residents of California can choose one of six different languages when they vote; street signs in some parts of Miami are printed in both English and Spanish; and classroom instruction is taught in 115 different languages in New York City schools. Altogether, over 300 languages are spoken in the United States. As of 1990,31.8 million Americans spoke a language other than English at home, and the country's population included6.7 million non-English speakers. Nationwide, one-third of the children enrolled in urban schools speak a language other than English at home as their first language. Around 2.6 million schoolchildren throughout the country do not speak English at all.

Organized opposition to bilingualism, which collectively became known as the English-Only movement, began in the 1980s. In 1980 voters in Dade County, Florida, designated English as their official language. The following year, U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa of California introduced a constitutional amendment to make English the country's official language. Two influential English-Only lobbying groups were formed: U.S. English, in 1983, and English First, in 1986. In 1986, with the passage of Proposition 63, English became the official language of California. By the mid-1990s, 22 states had passed similar measures. In August 1996, the U.S. House of Representatives, by a margin of 259-169, passed a bill to make English the official language of the federal government. (However, President Bill Clinton vowed to veto the bill if it passed the Senate.) Observers attribute the English-Only movement to backlash against immigration and affirmative action, spurred by fear of competition for jobs and resentment of government spending on bilingual programs.

The government program that has drawn the most fire is bilingual education, which costs taxpayers an estimated $200 million a year in federal funds and billions of dollars in state and local expenditures. Bilingual education programs, which allow students to pursue part of their study in their first language and part in English, were first mandated by Congress in 1968. The constitutionality of bilingual education was upheld in a 1974 Supreme Court ruling affirming that the city of San Francisco had discriminated against 18,000 Chinese-American students by failing to make special provisions to help them overcome the linguistic barriers they faced in school. However, the court did not specify what these provisions should be, and educators have evolved several different methods of instruction for students with first languages other than English. With the immersion (or "sink or swim") approach, nearly all instruction is in English, and the students are expected to pick up the language through intensive exposure. If the teacher is bilingual, the students may be allowed to ask questions in their native language, but the teacher is supposed to answer them in English. The English as a Second Language (ESL) approach, often used in a class where students speak more than one foreign language, takes a more gradual approach to mastering English, using it in conjunction with the student's first language. English-only instruction may be offered, but only in some, rather than all, classes.

The remaining methods rely more heavily on the student's first language. Even though, technically, all teaching methods aimed at meeting the needs of foreign language speakers are considered bilingual education, participants in debates about bilingual education often single out the following methods as targets of praise or criticism. In Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), students study English but are taught all other academic subjects in their native languages until they are considered ready to switch to English. In some cases, bilingual teachers also help the students improve their skills in their native language. Bilingual/bicultural programs use the students' native languages not only to teach them the standard curriculum but also for special classes about their ethnic heritage and its history and culture. Two-way or dual language programs enroll students from different backgrounds with the goal of having all of them become bilingual, including those who speak only English. For example, Spanish-speaking children may learn English while their English-speaking classmates learn Spanish.

Critics of bilingual education (or of those methods that rely heavily on the students' native languages) claim that it fails to provide children with an adequate knowledge of English, thus disadvantaging them academically, and they cite high dropout rates for Hispanic teenagers, the group most likely to have received instruction in their native language. They accuse school systems of continuing to promote bilingual programs to protect the jobs of bilingual educators and receive federal funding allocated for such programs. As evidence of this charge, they cite barriers placed in the way of parents who try to remove their children from bilingual programs. Hispanic parents in New York City have claimed that their children are being railroaded into bilingual programs by a system that requires all children with Spanish surnames, as well as children of any nationality who have non-English-speaking family members, to take a language proficiency exam. Children scoring in the bottom 40% are then required to enroll in bilingual classes even if English is the primary language spoken at home. Critics of bilingual instruction also cite a 1994 New York City study that reported better results for ESL instruction than for methods that taught children primarily in their native languages.

In spite of the criticism it has aroused, bilingual education is strongly advocated by many educators. Defenders cite a 1991 study endorsed by the National Academy of Sciences stating that children who speak a foreign language learn English more rapidly and make better overall academic progress when they receive several years of instruction in their native language. A later study, conducted at George Mason University, tracked 42,000 children who had received bilingual instruction and reported that the highest scores on standardized tests in the eleventh grade were earned by those students who had had six years of bilingual education. Programs with two way bilingual education have had particularly impressive results. Oyster Bilingual Elementary School in Washington, D.C., (whose student body is 58% Hispanic, 26% white, 12% black, and 4% Asian) is admiringly cited as a model for bilingual education. Its sixth graders read at a ninth-grade level and have tenth-grade-level math skills. Experts on both sides of the controversy agree that for any teaching method to be successful, the teaching must be done by qualified instructors equipped with adequate teaching materials in appropriately assigned classes with a reasonable ratio of students to teachers.

Further Reading

Chavez, Linda. Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation. New York: Basic Books, 1991.

Crawford, James. Hold Your Tongue: Bilingualism and the Politics of "English-Only." Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1992.

Harlan, Judith. Bilingualism in the United States: Conflict and Controversy. New York: Franklin Watts, 1991.

Lang, Paul. The English Language Debate: One Nation, One Language! Springfield, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1995.

Porter, Rosalie Pedalino. Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual Education. New York: Basic Books, 1990.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. New York: Bantam Books, 1983.

Simon, Paul. The Tongue-Tied American: Confronting the Foreign Language Crisis. New York: Continuum, 1980.

Further Information

Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy, Inc. (META). 240A Elm Street, Suite 22, Somerville, MA 02144.

National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE). Union Center Plaza, 1220 L Street NW, Suite 605, Washington, DC 20005.

U.S. English. 818 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20006.

BILINGUAL EDUCATION

Native Culture or Larger Culture?

The Supreme Court case of Lau v. Nichols in 1974 affirmed the concept of language rights when a group of Chinese students in San Francisco demanded, and won, instruction in their native language. This case marked an official recognition of multilingualism in the United States. Schools were required to offer the curriculum in a manner understandable to the non-English-speaking child. The federal BiLingual Education Act, which had been in effect since 1967, had as its primary goals "cultivating ancestral pride, reinforcing native languages, and cultivating inherent strengths of students." However, during the decades following the Lau decision, two competing philosophies of bilingual instruction emerged. In the early days, the goal was successful integration of the students into the culture as a whole; the competing view that emerged during the 1970s was promotion of cultural differences as a valid educational goal. Advocates of the first philosophy believed students should be taught English in immersion programs as quickly as possible so that they may better succeed in other subjects that are taught in English; the other advocates believed students should be taught all of their subject-matter classes in their native language.

Politics and Bilingual Instruction

During the 1980s a furor erupted over funding instruction in native languages when the Reagan administration expressed real concern that some bilingual programs based on the cultural-difference model were failing to help students enter the larger culture. President Reagan's education secretary, William J. Bennett, denounced the cultural-difference model and suggested that all bilingual education change to conform to the short-term immersion program. Because Reagan proposed amendments to the federal Bi-Lingual Education Act, the National Advisory and Coordinating Council on Bi-Lingual Education undertook a comprehensive study of programs nationwide. Their report, which was not issued to Congress until 1988, stated that the instructional quality and comprehensiveness in meeting student needs was significantly more important that any particular method or philosophy. In some settings one approach was successful but the same approach elsewhere was not effective. The best programs were judged to be those taught by teachers linguistically and culturally sensitive who maintained high expectations of the students. Bennett's successor in the Bush administration, Lauro Cavazos, a native speaker of Spanish himself, similarly supported the immediate teaching of English. However, he emphasized that the children should also be encouraged to maintain their native language and culture.

Spanish as First Language

The debate on bilingual instruction took on greater significance in the 1980s as the percentage of households with Spanish as a spoken language grew. By 1982, 7.5 million Mexican Americans and 16 million Hispanics made up the largest American ethnolinguistic group: 30 percent of the population in New York City, 32 percent in Miami, 35 percent in both Hartford and Denver, 50 percent in Los Angeles, and 60 percent in both San Antonio and El Paso. The number of Hispanics judged in need of spoken-language assistance in school was estimated to be 3.6 million in 1981. These students progressed through school at an average of two to three levels behind their peers; Hispanic unemployment was more than double that of the rate for whites; and annual income of Hispanics averaged $12,600 in the late 1970s whereas that of whites averaged $17,600. Clearly, improvements in education for this segment of the population were needed. Additionally, there was a big demand for bilingual instruction for the estimated 1.7 million immigrant Hispanics attempting to fulfil the second stage of immigration legalization. In order to receive citizenship, applicants must present to the Immigration and Naturalization Service a certificate of satisfactory pursuit of English language acquisition. The state or local school districts were obligated to provide classes for these non-native speakers as well as for enrolled students. Thus, if for no other reason than to facilitate immigration, funding for bilingual programs in the 1980s remained steady, despite Reagan administration efforts to cut expenditures.

Sources:

"Bilingual Education," Education Digest (September 1982): 4-8;

Hugh Davis Graham, The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

EDUCATION, BILINGUAL

EDUCATION, BILINGUAL. Bilingual education refers to an educational program in which both a native language and a second language are taught as subject matter and used as media of instruction for academic subjects. In the United States the tradition of public bilingual education began during the 1840s as a response to the many children who spoke German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, and other languages. As a result of the nativism of World War I and the adverse popular reaction to the large number of non-English-speaking immigrants entering the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, restrictive laws prohibiting instruction in languages other than English brought this educational practice to a halt.

Renewed interest developed, however, with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. In 1968 Congress provided funding for bilingual programs in Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as the Bilingual Education Act. In Lau v. Nichols (1974) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that eighteen hundred Chinese students in the San Francisco School District were being denied a "meaningful education" when they received English-only instruction and that public schools had to provide special programs for students who spoke little or no English. The number of students fitting this description increased dramatically toward the end of the twentieth century. Since 1989, for example, they went from 2,030,451 to 4,148,997 at the end of the century, representing an increase from 5 percent to almost 9 percent of the school-age population. These children come from more than one hundred language groups. Of those served by special language programs, almost half are enrolled in bilingual education programs; the others are served by English-as-a-second-language or regular education programs. In the 1990s an increasing number of English-speaking children sought to learn a second language by enrolling in enrichment bilingual education programs. Title VII appropriation for special language programs for both minority language and mainstream groups rose from $7.5 million in 1969 to $117 million in 1995.

The effectiveness of such programs has been much debated. Opponents have claimed that promoting languages other than English would result in national dis-unity, inhibit children's social mobility, and work against the rise of English as a world language. Advocates propose that language is central to the intellectual and emotional growth of children. Rather than permitting children to languish in classrooms while developing their English, proponents claim that a more powerful long-term strategy consists of parallel development of intellectual and academic skills in the native language and the learning of English as a second language. Proponents also argue that immigrants and other non-English-speaking students have valuable resources to offer this multicultural nation and the polyglot world. While in 1999 forty-three states and the District of Columbia had legislative provisions for bilingual and English-as-a-second-language programs, the citizens of California and Arizona voted to restrict the use of languages other than English for instruction. The growing anti-bilingual-education movement had similar proposals on the ballot in other states at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

August, Diane, and Kenji Hakuta. Education of Language-minority Children. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1998.

Baker, Colin, and Sylvia Prys Jones. Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters, 1998.

Brisk, Maria Estela. Bilingual Education: From Compensatory to Quality Schooling. 2d ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2001.

Maria EmiliaTorres-Guzman

See alsoSpanish Language .

bilingualism ability to use two languages. Fluency in a second language requires skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing, although in practice some of those skills are often considerably less developed than others. Few bilinguals are equally proficient in both languages. However, even when one language is dominant (see language acquisition ), performance in the other language may be superior in certain situations—e.g., someone generally stronger in Russian than in English may find it easier to talk about baseball in English. Native speakers of two languages are sometimes called equilingual, or ambilingual, if their mastery of both languages is equal. Some bilinguals are persons who were reared by parents who each spoke a different language or who spoke a language different from the one used in school. In some countries, especially those with two or more official languages, schools encourage bilinguilism by requiring intensive study of a second language. Bilinguals sometimes exhibit code-switching, or switching from one language to the other in the middle of a conversation or even the same sentence; it may be triggered by the use of a word that is similar in both languages.

Bibliography: See G. Saunders, Bilingual Children (1988); K. Hyltenstam and L. K. Obler, ed., Bilingualism Across the Lifespan (1989).

bilingual education the sanctioned use of more than one language in U.S. education. The Bilingual Education Act (1968), combined with a Supreme Court decision (1974) mandating help for students with limited English proficiency, requires instruction in the native languages of students. The National Association for Bilingual Education (founded 1975) is the main U.S. professional and advocacy organization for blingual education. Critics (including the national group English First), who maintain that some students never join mainstream classes, have attempted to make English the "official" language in several states and cities; state ballot initiatives approved in California (1998) and Arizona (2000) mostly eliminated bilingual education programs there. Bilingualism proponents note the importance of ethnic heritage and the preservation of language and culture, as well as the need to educate non-English-speaking students in all subjects, not just English.

Bibliography: See K. Hakuta, Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism (1986); J. Cummins and D. Corson, Bilingual Education (1997); and H. Kloss, The American Bilingual Tradition (1998).

BILINGUALISM. The capacity to make alternate (and sometimes mixed) use of two languages, in contrast to monolingualism or unilingualism and MULTILINGUALISM. In the social context of languages like English, especially in England and the US, the traditional tendency has been to consider the possession and use of one language the norm. Bilingualism, however, is at least as common as monolingualism; about half the world's population (some 2.5 bn people) is bilingual and kinds of bilingualism are probably present in every country in the world. See CANADIAN LANGUAGES, CODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING, HIGHLAND ENGLISH, IRISH ENGLISH, MAORI ENGLISH, WELSH ENGLISH.

BILINGUALISM

BILINGUALISM. SeeEducation, Bilingual .