Bilingual Education Part II

Morning Edition
National Public Radio
Tuesday, January 6, 1998, 10:00am ET.

BYLINE: Claudio Sanchez, Orlando; Bob Edwards, Washington, DC

HIGHLIGHT:

In the second part of a week-long series on bilingual education, NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on a school district in Orlando, Florida, that offers two different approaches to students who speak Spanish at home. Depending upon their needs, they are placed either on a fast track, known as 'English immersion'; or on a slower track, called 'bilingual education.' For at least three academic years, students in the bilingual program spend half of their school day learning basic reading and writing skills in Spanish, and the other half learning subjects in English.

BODY:

BOB EDWARDS, HOST: This is MORNING EDITION. I'm Bob Edwards.

Thirty years ago, the number of Spanish-speaking children failing in school because they weren't learning English was so alarming that Congress passed the 1968 Bilingual Education Act.

The law did not prescribe how or when those children should learn English. That was left up to educators, who settled on two approaches: a fast track and a slow track. Both work, but when schools are forced to choose one over the other, an angry debate is sure to follow.

One state, Florida, has all but defused this debate by allowing both approaches to flourish.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.

CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, NPR REPORTER: Most Americans, including recently arrived immigrants, instinctively believe that the main job of public schools is to teach children how to read, write, and speak English well, especially kids who start school not knowing English.

Studies show that a child who learns English and only English quickly is more likely to succeed in school. But there are also studies that show that a child who masters his native language before he masters English does better over the long term in two languages. The dilemma for schools is deciding which approach is in the best interest of each child.

SOUNDBITE OF A CLASSROOM

TEACHER, MICHAEL MCCOY (PH) ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: We are going to read. OK? Review reading. Everybody understand?

STUDENTS: Yeah.

TEACHER: All right. OK...

SANCHEZ: At Michael McCoy Elementary School in Orlando, Florida, teachers use both approaches. The school district here enrolls children from nearly 200 countries, speaking over 100 different languages. All of them are expected to move into regular English-only classrooms at some point. There's a fast track known as "English immersion" and a slower track called "bilingual education."

TEACHER SPEAKING IN SPANISH

TEACHER: Let's do it in English. Number four first.

TEACHER AND STUDENTS: One, two, three, four.

SANCHEZ: Spanish-speaking students at McCoy Elementary are the most likely to enroll in the bilingual program, where the objective is that children maintain their Spanish while they learn English.

SOUNDBITE OF CHILDREN SPEAKING IN SPANISH

In this kindergarten class, the teacher, Myra Rivera (ph), says all the skills that her students are learning in Spanish will transfer to English.

MYRA RIVERA, KINDERGARTEN TEACHER, MICHAEL MCCOY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: In the morning I speak Spanish and I teach math, science, language arts in Spanish. And then in the afternoon, I teach English. And then, I try to speak to them in English so they can get used to it.

SANCHEZ: But if you were to teach just in English, what would happen, do you think?

RIVERA: They would understand some things and they would understand some of the other things. They would be missing part of the curriculum.

SANCHEZ: And they would fall behind.

RIVERA: Yes. That's right.

CHILD SPEAKING IN SPANISH

SANCHEZ: This little boy now knows that brown means cafe and that mariyo (ph) means yellow. Learning a second language at this age seems effortless. But Ms. Rivera says some parents get nervous when they realize that their child is speaking Spanish at least half the day.

RIVERA: Parents are afraid that the child, because he's in a bilingual program, he's not gonna learn English.

SANCHEZ: So, what do you tell them?

RIVERA: I explain the program and I explain the importance of developing basic skills in the native language.

SANCHEZ: This approach, teaching kids basic skills in their native language for at least three years, is in essence bilingual education. And bilingual program directors like Irma Hernandez-Moss (ph) in Orlando are convinced it's the right approach.

IRMA HERNANDEZ-MOSS, BILINGUAL PROGRAM DIRECTOR: If a student already has the foundation in a first language, why assist him in losing that first language? We should take advantage of the opportunity where he could become bilingual.

SANCHEZ: Hernandez-Moss says she's a convert to bilingual education.

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: I used to not believe in bilingual education based on my personal experience.

SANCHEZ: Which was?

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: I was born in Cuba. I went to kindergarten, first, second, and half of third grade in Cuba. So, I was a very good reader, strong literacy skills in Spanish.

SANCHEZ: Hernandez-Moss arrived in Orlando as a child at a time when schools didn't acknowledge, let alone rely, on students' native language. It was sink or swim. But now, she says she's convinced that her strong reading skills in Spanish saved her. Teachers didn't know it back then, says Hernandez-Moss, but reading in Spanish made reading English easy, almost automatic.

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: And this is what the research indicates and supports.

SANCHEZ: Some researchers in the United States, Europe, and Canada argue that children cannot effectively learn a second language until or unless they're literate in their native language.

ROSALIE PEDALINO PORTER, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENGLISH ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT, AUTHOR, "FORKED TONGUE": I began my career as a Spanish bilingual teacher believing exactly those things.

SANCHEZ: Rosalie Pedalino Porter, director of the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development, says that the concept of bilingual education has proven to be absurd.

PORTER: Bilingual education is a very controversial issue, mostly because it has been shown not to do what it was set out to do -- to remove the language barrier to an equal education. The problem I'm seeing around the country is that students do not begin to read in English until fourth or fifth grade, and they are so far behind other children that they never catch up.

SANCHEZ: In a 1990 book that she wrote titled "Forked Tongue," Porter denounced bilingual education as one of the worst failures in American public education. Porter favors the fast track approach and one program in particular called "sheltered English." This is a program in which a child is expected to learn English in two years or less, because there's little or no emphasis on native language.

In Orlando, Irma Hernandez-Moss says sheltered English programs work for some kids, not all.

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: In the shelter classroom, it could be students from different language groups, because the instruction is in English. So, in a shelter instruction classroom, the student's gonna have math taught in English, but with more simplified terms, with a lot of regalia, visuals.

SANCHEZ: The risk you run, says Hernandez-Moss, is that the level of instruction in sheltered English programs is often too simple. So even if kids learn English quickly, they have a hard time catching up in other subjects once they're in regular classrooms.

Porter, though, denies that sheltered English is a modern day version of sink or swim, as parents are often led to believe.

PORTER: Sink or swim is doing nothing; putting a child in the back of the classroom, waiting for that child to learn by himself.

SANCHEZ: In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the sink-or- swim approach, paving the way for all kinds of programs. But it also created a great deal of confusion. Even the term "bilingual education" is confusing because it's used as a catchall for so many programs that have nothing in common.

The research, meanwhile, is inconclusive. After reviewing 30 years worth of studies, the National Research Council recently found no evidence that teaching children in their native language helps or hinders their overall academic progress.

SOUNDBITE OF A CLASSROOM

HERNANDEZ-MOSS, SPEAKING IN SPANISH

SANCHEZ: What bilingual education directors like Irma Hernandez- Moss are convinced of is that you cannot run a quality bilingual program without quality teachers.

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: I have lots of problems with teachers if they cannot speak, write, and be fluent in English.

SANCHEZ: But it happens.

HERNANDEZ-MOSS: That's true.

SANCHEZ: That's what parents usually object to: bad teachers and poorly run programs, not reading, writing or speaking two languages.

But then there are parents like Benito Lisardi (ph), an immigrant from Peru, who says there's nothing wrong with bilingual education, he just doesn't think it's the best thing for his two daughters.

BENITO LISARDI, PERUVIAN IMMIGRANT, SPEAKING IN SPANISH

SANCHEZ: "If they study English only half day, it'll take them longer to learn English," says Lisardi. "And if you don't learn English quickly, like Asians, Germans or French immigrants have," he says, "people think you don't love this country. I love this country with all my heart," says Lisardi.

LISARDI SPEAKING IN SPANISH

SANCHEZ: This country, says Mr. Lisardi, has given him opportunities he never imagined he'd have. He says the only reason he hasn't gone farther is that he doesn't speak English very well and he's not going to let that happen to his daughters.

"They're going to learn English," says Lisardi, "even if it means losing their Spanish."

I'm Claudio Sanchez, NPR News, Orlando, Florida.

EDWARDS: Tomorrow, bilingual education and preserving national identity.