Bilingual education: past, present, future  (Page 5/6)

An example of an exemplary program model would be Coral Way Elementary School in Miami, Florida. “As the nation’s oldest (1936) 20th century public bilingual school, Coral Way represents one of the most successful bilingual schools in the nation…the students of Coral Way score at or above district, state, and national averages on standardized tests” (Pellerano and Fradd, 1998). Two-way programs benefit the community by maintaining the home-language of all students while exposing them to the second language at a young age. Several districts in the Dallas area have considered two-way programs based on brain research and cognitive growth resulting from the acquisition of a second language. Dual-language models yield the best long-term results for students acquiring a second language (Thomas&Collier, 1995).

The subsequent program model is Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), also referred to as early-exit Bilingual Education. The native language is used for instruction at the primary grades so that students are able to gain cognitive understanding of the basics, which can then be transferred into English as they acquire the language. There is a lot of variation in this formerly popular model in Texas. The common thread, however, is that students are encouraged to reach English proficiency at the fastest rate possible so that they can exit the program and join the regular classroom. The Transitional Bilingual Program also requires teachers that are proficient in both target languages. The teachers must be highly trained and certified by the state. The difference is that TBE programs generally go through the third or fourth grade. Students arriving after the third grade generally receive intensive ESL instruction until they are ready to exit the program and enter a regular classroom. Therefore, the number of staff required for 4-6 grades is much smaller. In addition to this savings, materials in the second language are generally only required through the third or fourth grade (depending on the program). Arlington ISD has a TBE program, and in the 2002-2003 school year, they budgeted approximately $8.3 million dollars for their elementary school programs. That averages out to be about $1,073 per student enrolled in the program (AISD, 2002-2003). Within this figure, teacher’s salaries are included and the teachers would be necessary regardless of the program model.

The third common program is ESL, a form of immersion (not to be confused with submersion “sink or swim,” which is unconstitutional). Immersion in a language means that the target language is the primary language for instruction and specific strategies and modifications are made to ensure student success in acquiring that language. Students are learning content at the same time that they are learning the target language. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes were generally a pull-out program but have more recently been moving toward an inclusion model. The pull-out program is known to be the least effective (Thomas&Collier, 1995) and the most expensive. The inclusion model requires more teachers in a building be certified in ESL so that they can support the ELL students that are in their classrooms. Fort Worth ISD requires that all of their new staff be ESL certified so that their large ELL population is served without the need for extra resource ESL teachers. Space on a campus is also made available when teachers can accommodate their ELL students in the regular classroom. Although ESL has generally been avoided for Spanish speaking students in the state of Texas, research has been completed that shows immersion programs to be effective in the long term. According to a 30-year review of Bilingual Education conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, “There is no conclusive evidence that native language programs are superior to English Immersion or ESL programs; teaching children to read and write without first developing literacy in their native language does not have negative effects” (Porter, 2000).