Expert backs bilingual ed
Nobody is more in favor of Spanish-speaking children learning English than University of Southern California professor Stephen Krashen. The only question is, how to get there the fastest while absorbing math, science and social studies at the same time, he said. Krashen, an expert in second-language acquisition, is in town to talk to educators and weigh in against the English-immersion side of the language wars. On the other side is multimillionaire Ron Unz, who spent more than $1 million on successful campaigns to dismantle bilingual education in California and Arizona and now is financing a similar effort in Colorado with support from former Denver school board member Rita Montero. Montero and Unz want a proposal to eliminate bilingual education on the November 2002 ballot. "It defies common sense," Krashen said, but the reason students in bilingual education learn English faster than those in English immersion is that a good foundation in the first language works like a skeleton on which to hang the flesh of a second. The author of "Condemned Without a Trial: Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education," said English-immersion proponents promote the idea that children languish for years in bilingual education. But 75 percent of young bilingual students in New York exited in three years, Krashen said. In Texas, only 7 percent were still in a bilingual classroom by grade 5. The students in bilingual seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade classrooms are mostly newcomers to the United States, he said. Further, Krashen cited research indicating fewer bilingual students drop out than students in English immersion classes. While Unz points to soaring test scores in post-bilingual-education California, Krashen said everybody's scores went up. A good bilingual program must do three things, he said: "Of course, you give them English in the classroom from the first day" and start offering subject matter in English as soon as it can be made comprehensible. In the meantime, subject matter - reading, writing and arithmetic - is taught in the first language, which, secondarily, will speed English acquisition. Give students literacy in their first language, then transfer that literacy to English. |