Bilingual Education, the Acquisition of English, and the Retention and Loss of Spanish*
by Stephen Krashen
|State of California: LEP||Oceanside: LEP|
In my view, examining SAT9 scores is an awkward way, at best, to do research. SAT9 comparisons are very crude – one has no assurance that groups were comparable at the beginning of the year. Last year's scores do not tell us this: Among LEP children, those who acquire enough English are recategorized and are no longer LEP the next year. Also, districts differ a great deal in factors that may affect test scores, including whether and how bilingual education is done. Serious research done in a scientifically respectable way (controlled studies) consistently shows that children in quality bilingual programs outperform comparison children in all-second language classes on tests of second language literacy. The results of this kind of research are much more compelling.
Unfortunately, these are not isolated examples. Every case reported so far of the alleged success of "immersion" in California is seriously flawed (Krashen, 1999; McQuillan, 1998a; Krashen and McQuillan, 1999).
Improving bilingual education
Bilingual education has done well, but it can do much better. The biggest problem, in my view, is the absence of books, in both the first and second language, in the lives of students in these programs. It is now firmly established that reading for meaning, especially free voluntary reading, is the major source of our literacy competence. Those who report that they read more read better and write better (Krashen, 1993), and students who participate in free reading activities in school (e.g., sustained silent reading) show superior literacy development when compared to students who do not (Krashen, 1993; Elley, 1998). Free reading appears to work for first language, for second language, for children, and for teenagers, and the research has confirmed this in many different countries. Free voluntary reading can help all components of bilingual education: It is a source of comprehensible input in English, a means for developing knowledge and literacy in the first language, and, as we will see later, a way of continuing first language development.
It is also firmly established that those with greater access to books read more; while access is not sufficient to guarantee reading, it is certainly necessary (Krashen, 1993; McQuillan, 1998b). It is also very clear that many limited English proficient children have little access to books in any language. I present here data on Spanish-speaking children.
The average Hispanic family with limited English proficient children has about 26 books in their home (Ramirez, Yuen, Ramey, and Pasta, 1991). This refers to the total number of books in the home, including the bible, cookbooks, and dictionaries. This is about one-sixth the US average (Purves and Elley, 1992). School is not helping: In fact, school is making things worse. Pucci (1994) investigated school libraries in schools with strong bilingual programs in Southern California and found that books in Spanish were very scarce. Those that were available, while often of high quality, were usually short and for younger children.
Enriching the print environment is not the only recommendation one can make in discussing improvement of bilingual education, but it is a great place to begin. If it is true that learning to read in the primary language is in fact beneficial, children need something to read. My suggestion is a massive book flood in the child's home language as well as in English, a suggestion that is relatively inexpensive to implement.
The Retention and Loss of Heritage Languages: Are Immigrants Resisting
Language shift: A powerful force
One of the most consistent findings in the field of sociology of language is the phenomenon of language shift: Heritage languages are usually not maintained and are rarely developed. This fact is nearly unknown to the general public, as well as to many politicians. Robert Dole, for example, felt that immigrants were resisting English, and maintained that we need "the glue of language to help hold us together" (quoted in the Los Angeles Times, October 31, 1995). Newt Gingrich also warned that "Immigrants need to make a sharp break with the past ..." (Los Angeles Times).
Here are just a few of the many studies showing that "shift happens": Hudson-Edwards and Bills (1980) examined self-report of ability in Spanish among residents of a section of Albuquerque considered to be a strong Spanish-speaking community. As seen in table 2, the older generation considered themselves to be better in Spanish than English, but their children rated themselves more highly in English.
Table 2. Self-report of ability in Spanish and English (percent claiming
"good" or "very good" ability)
|Generation||Spanish ability||English ability|
|Junior||33% (26/80)||81% (69/81)|
|Senior||85% (74/87)||47% (41/88)|
Senior = heads of households, spouses, siblings; Junior = children of heads of households. Source: Hudson-Edwards & Bills, 1980, Albuquerque.Portes and Hao (1998) compared English competence to heritage language competence with a sample of eighth and ninth graders of language minority background (n = 5,266). All were native born or had lived in the US at least five years. Self-reported competence in the heritage language was much lower than self-reported competence in English, with only 16% claiming they spoke the heritage language "very well" (table 3). Even for a group considered by some to be English-resistant, students of Mexican origin, the shift to English was obvious.
Table 3. Self-reported competence in English and in parents' language
|Knows English||Knows parents' language||Prefers|
|well||very well||well||very well||English|
Source: Portes and Hao (1998)
Orellana, Ek and Hernandez (1999) conducted conversations and interviews with Mexican-American children in bilingual schools in Los Angeles, and observed "a gradual but marked shift over the middle childhood years toward a preference for English, and a disinclination to use Spanish. When we spoke in English at the start of the year in (a) first-grade classroom, the children called out for Spanish. When we spoke in Spanish in the focus groups with fifth graders, all but the children who arrived in the U.S. within the last year responded in English, and several complained, saying 'Aw, do we have to speak Spanish?' ...." (pp. 125-26).
Why does shift occur?
The most obvious cause of shift is lack of input in the heritage language. Input/use related variables are clear predictors of heritage language competence.
Some of these input factors may be beyond the control of the subject. A number of studies have confirmed that heritage language competence is related to parental use of the heritage language (HL) (Portes and Lao, 1998; Hinton, 1999; Kondo, 1998; Cho and Krashen, 2000). Parental use, however, appears to be necessary but not sufficient. Hinton (1999) reported that in her sample, "many of the families ... did in fact choose to use the heritage language at home, and yet still found that their children were loosing fluency" (see also Kondo, 1998). Not surprisingly, studies also show that those who live in close proximity to other HL speakers maintain it longer (Demos, 1988), an effect that appears to be especially predictive of HL maintenance after the first generation (Li, 1982). Of course, once the speaker moves away from other HL speakers, competence may diminish (Hinton, 1999). Also, those who visit the country of origin more often have higher HL competence (Demos, 1988; Kondo, 1988, Hinton, 1999; Cho and Krashen, 2000). Other input factors, such as reading and watching TV (Cho and Krashen, 2000), are under the voluntary control of the HL speaker.
Less obvious are affective factors, but they appear to be quite powerful. Tse (1998a) notes that some some language minority group members go through a stage in which the desire to integrate into the target culture is so strong that there is apathy toward or even rejection of the heritage culture. Tse refers to this stage as Ethnic Ambivalence or Ethnic Evasion. Typically, this stage occurs during childhood and adolescence, and may extend into adulthood. Those in this stage have little interest in the heritage language, and may even avoid using it.
"Maria Shao recounted how her knowledge of Chinese was a source of shame. She recalled that when she was in elementary school, 'if I had friends over, I purposely spoke English to my parents. Normally, we only spoke Chinese at home. Because of the presence of a non-Chinese, I used to purposely speak English.'" (Tse, 1998, p. 21).Those in this stage who did not know the heritage language had no interest in acquiring it:
"David Mura noted these feelings as a child: 'I certainly didn't want to be thought of as Japanese-American. I was American, pure and simple. I was proud I didn't know Japanese, that English was my sole tongue.'" (p. 21)Orellana, Ek and Hernandez (1999) provide additional examples: Their subject "Andy" an 11 year old child of Mexican immigrants, "said he didn't like to speak Spanish, because then people thought he was from Mexico ..." (p. 124).
For some, this stage gives way to another stage, Ethnic Emergence, in which minority group members get interested in their ethnic heritage. Those in this stage, Tse points out, may be quite motivated to develop their competence in the heritage language.
Another affective factor is a reluctance to use the language because of the negative reactions of other HL speakers. Some imperfect HL speakers (often a younger sibling) report that their efforts to speak the heritage language are met with correction and even ridicule by more competent HL speakers, a reaction that discourages the use of the HL, and thus results in less input and even less competence. What is often lacking are late-acquired aspects of language, aspects that typically do not interfere with communication but that indicate politeness or mark social class differences.
In Krashen (1998a) I presented some cases of "language shyness." Subjects confirmed that correction and ridicule discouraged their use of the heritage language. Here is one example:
"I began to realize as I spoke Spanish to my relatives, they would constantly correct my grammar or pronunciation. Of course, since I was a fairly young child the mistakes I made were 'cute' to them and they would giggle and correct me. This ... would annoy me to no end. I wasn't trying to be 'cute'; I was trying to be serious. My relatives would say, 'You would never know that you are the daughter of an Argentine.' Comments like these along with others are what I now believe shut me off to Spanish ....".Sadly, some blamed themselves for not speaking the heritage language better:
"My self-esteem reached an all-time low in college. Several of my peers made well-meaning, but harsh comments upon hearing my Spanish. This was the final blow. It was then I made the decision that I wouldn't speak unless I could speak fluently, grammatically correct, and with a proper native accent. I couldn't even feel comfortable describing myself as bilingual on my resume. I had to add 'limited proficiency' in parentheses to ease my conscience ... I was ashamed of being Puerto Rican and living in a bilingual home and never learning Spanish ... the only conclusion I could come to was that it was somehow my fault ...".Why worry about heritage languages?
Developing the heritage language
If it is worthwhile to develop the HL, how can it be done? The usual solution is formal language classes, either those meant for non-native speakers or specially designed classes ("Spanish for Native Speakers").
Heritage language speakers are in a no-win situation in foreign language classes. If they do well, it is expected. If HL speakers do not do well in foreign language classes, the experience is especially painful. Often, classes focus on conscious learning of grammatical rules that are late acquired. Some HL speakers may not have learned or acquired these items. It can happen that non-speakers of the HL who are good at grammar will outperform HL speakers on grammar tests and get higher grades in the language class, even though the non-speaker of the HL may be incapable of communicating the simplest idea in the language, while the HL speaker may be quite competent in everyday conversation. Such events could be psychologically devastating, a message to the HL speaker that he or she does not know his or her own language, while an outsider does. Even though the kind of knowledge the outsider has is not genuine, the HL speaker may not understand this, given the authority of the classroom and the value the teacher places on conscious knowledge of grammar.
Some heritage language programs have been successful, particularly those that are integrated into the school day (Tse 1998b). McQuillan (1998c) describes two heritage language classes for university students (Spanish for native speakers) that not only succeeded, but provided a foundation for future progress. Both classes included a survey of popular literature as well as self-selected reading. Students showed clear gains in language (vocabulary) and, more importantly, when students in one class were surveyed seven months after the class ended, they were reading more in Spanish on their own than a comparison group.
McQuillan's results strongly suggest that providing a print-rich environment is also a strong investment in heritage language development. If heritage language speakers become readers in their primary language, they can continue to develop their primary language, whether or not other sources of input are available. Reading is also the perfect method for heritage language speakers who do not want to risk errors in interacting with others: It is the perfect method for the shy language acquirer.
If immigrants are dropping their heritage language and embracing English, why do we need bilingual education? When immigrants acquire English informally, the version they acquire is what Cummins (1989) terms "conversational language," the language of everyday interaction. They do not necessarily acquire "academic language," the language of school. Evidence for this is the Los Angeles Times report on the "success" of 227, as reported earlier. Evidence also includes studies such as Romo and Falbo (1996)' s investigation of 100 Latino high school students designated as being at risk for dropping out. Romo and Falbo reported that "almost all students in our sample were comfortable speaking in English ... yet, almost all students in our sample experienced a skills deficit in reading" (p. 9); although the students were in the seventh to eleventh grades, their average reading score was sixth-grade. In other words, they had acquired conversational, but not academic English.
As noted earlier, good bilingual education programs aid in the development of academic English by providing literacy in the first language, which transfers to English, subject matter teaching in the primary language, which provides background knowledge that makes English input more comprehensible, as well as comprehensible subject matter teaching in English. The arguments presented in the second half of this paper indicate that an additional component would be desirable: Continuing development of the heritage language.
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