Translating Bilingual Results Stephen Krashen and James Crawford
Opponents of bilingual education claim that rising test scores, especially in California's Oceanside school district, are the result of a 1998 law requiring all-English instruction for children learning English. But Oceanside Superintendent Ken Noonan [Outlook, Sept. 2] suggests a more plausible explanation. Mr. Noonan says that, before Proposition 227, Oceanside's bilingual program was all-Spanish, lasting "for up to four years, even longer for some. Only after being designated fluent in English would a child's learning in English begin in earnest." Properly organized bilingual programs, by contrast, introduce children to English from Day One. Academic subjects are taught in English as soon as they can be made comprehensible. Failing to provide any English instruction will naturally lead to miserable results on English-language achievement tests. This explains why Oceanside's test scores showed substantial improvement when English was introduced. It also explains why the results from Oceanside's "bilingual" programs were so different from the results reported in the research literature: When compared with students in all-English programs, students in truly bilingual programs do well, acquiring at least as much English as the other students. Mr. Noonan explained that his previous support for bilingual education was based on a "romantic notion that preserving the child's home language should be the ultimate goal of our schools." Certainly in today's global economy developing bilingual skills has advantages. But the primary goal of well-organized bilingual programs is academic success in English. STEPHEN KRASHEN, Malibu, Calif. JAMES CRAWFORD, Silver Spring |