Posted on 02/02/2006 9:34:51 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
AUSTIN - The State Board of Education plans to discuss English-immersion instruction as a possible alternative to the bilingual programs in place in Texas schools.
Supporters of both methods of teaching English are expected to speak at the board's meeting next week. The 15-member elected board oversees the state's public schools.
In bilingual classes, students are taught in their native languages while they are learning English. In immersion programs, the students receive all or most of their instruction in English.
Proponents of immersion programs say they capitalize on the ability of young students' brains to absorb a new language. But critics argue that the programs aren't successful.
"We're not out to undo years and years of what we've done," said Gail Lowe, a Republican board member from Lampasas. "But it's incumbent on us to be informed about successful programs."
More than 14 percent of Texas students, or about 631,500, were in bilingual or English as a Second Language programs last school year. School districts with 20 or more students with limited English skills in the same grade are required by state law to offer bilingual education.
State House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, said in a speech last month that the state needs more accountability in making sure students are progressing toward English proficiency.
Among the speakers invited to the Feb. 9 education board meeting is Don Soifer, vice president of the Lexington Institute. The Virginia-based think tank advocates limited government and market-based solutions to public policy challenges.
Soifer has said bilingual programs segregate students and often put more emphasis on multicultural studies than on teaching students to read and write in English.
Geraldine Miller, a Dallas Republican and the board chairwoman, said in a letter to Soifer that the board wants to learn how it "can encourage school districts within Texas to move into this model of successful instruction to enable non-English speakers to close the achievement gap more effectively."
Board member Joe Bernal, D-San Antonio, said bilingual programs have helped minority students in Texas when compared with similar students in other states.
"We have developed a program with a lot of accountability," he said.
Immersion instruction has not been successful in Arizona, said Jeff MacSwan, an associate professor of language and literacy at Arizona State University. He said 11 percent of students in a study of the program became proficient in English after one year in immersion.
Kenneth Noonan, superintendent of schools in Oceanside, Calif., and a member of the California State Board of Education, is also expected to speak at the meeting. In California, non-English speaking students are required to spend at least one year in an English-immersion classroom.
It is about freakin' time. No more spanish except as an elective.
Immersion works
Immersion is the correct way for the kids...."bilingual" is the correct way for teachers' unions that want to expand their membership and increase their dues revenue.
"BiLingual Education", Illiteracy in two languages.
Related post by Cincinatus' Wife.
Bilingual classes to get second look
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1569252/posts
I used to teach school 1973-1975 in Texas. I remember, for example, a student named Gilbert. CUTE little kindergarten boy, who had just moved from Mexico. Didn't speak a word of English other than CAR! He loved American cars. I saw him a year or so later and he was 100% totally fluent in English. It works when in total immersion. I am moving to Italy soon and I am taking Italian NOW. I don't even visit another country without knowing basic conversation!
I read a piece in the Scientific American some time ago which addressed the "neurobiology" of language acquisition. The piece essentially said that the brain of a prepubescent child is somehow chemically attuned to learning languages but that something happens to the brain during/after puberty which changes that substantially.
Bilingual education exists to provide jobs for Hispanics who speak neither good English nor good Spanish.
Chemistry aside, my experience is that a family must have a HIGH culture before the child can be truly bilingual.
I guess it depends on how you define "truly".If the kid's exposed to nothing but Spanish at home and nothing but English at school he's likely to gain at least a pretty good (if not very good) command of both languages.
He will seldom be equally proficient in both languages.
A person is seldom required to be "eqaually proficient" in two languages.
A simple "proficient" in English would suffice.
My own experience is the reverse of this: at age 8, my family moved to Brazil, and our training in Portuguese came from a Berlitz book on the voyage by ship from New York to Sao Paulo.
Once in Brazil, we settled in an "Interior" town where we were the only Americans, Ponta Grossa, and I went to school there.
In a short time I was sufficently "proficient" to play with other kids my age, to learn math and science, and to read along with the other kids Brazilian history, songs, etc.
I went to and from school on the city buses, and generally got along well, except when some stranger mistook me for one of those much-reviled Germans!
Needless to say, we continued to speak mostly English at home, except with the maid and the yardman; even my mother learned very passable Portuguese. My younger brother and sister, however, grew up speaking mostly Portuguese, and when we returned to the U.S. several years later were at a bit of a handicap in school - for about two months.
The problem arises when two linguistic communities are contending for power. I am thinking of Quebec and Belgium. An individual family find it easier to assimilate when no political advantage is gained by mastery of one language as opposed to another.
I knew a family who moved to Texas from Mexico who had a lot of kids. They all learned English in no time. The one who was ten years old spoke perfect English and perfect Spanish without accent. Sounded like a native speaker in both languages. I think age ten is a perfect age to learn a new language. As a person with a degree in Spanish, who is now learning Italian, I think we can all learn a new language at any time. Ciao!
Maybe so. But it is always possible to learn a new language. I am STUMBLING my way through learning Italian, and I had Latin and have a degree in Spanish. It stimulates the brain when you bother to learn a new language. I am working hard on pronunciation as I learn the new words. The woman sitting next to me in Italian class yesterday is pronouncing the words like English. She isn't even TRYING. I won't sit by her next time. LOL She kept throwing me off.
Nearly every 7 year old in the world wants to learn English. 95% of the internet and music and tv and the movies, let alone commerce and science are all in English.
The problem is government bureacracy forcing people to do what they don't want to do. Free markets work, just get government out of the education business and all will be wiell.
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