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Educational and political dimensions of bilingual education 47 California’s LEP pupils were enrolled in any form of bilingual education program, and that many of these pupils were not in fact taught by a fully credentialed bilingual teacher. Developmental Bilingual Education (DBE) DBE, or maintenance bilingual education, is a strong form of bilingual education (Baker 2001), which aims to maintain and enhance the pupil’s L1 while they acquire the majority language (e.g. English), leading them to full bilingual proficiency and biliteracy. A defining characteristic is the continued use of the L1 as a medium of instruction through elementary school for 50 per cent or more of the timetable. Teachers are usually bilingual and committed to supporting the pupil’s L1 and its associated culture. A key justification for the prominence given to the minority language in school is that it is more likely to suffer attrition being not so well supported in the out-of-school environment Though data is not easy to come by, DBE and the similar late-exit transitional bilingual education programs are thought to serve only a very small minority of LEP pupils. An illustrative statistic is that of Thomas and Collier (1997: 55), who report that only 7 per cent of students in their sample were enrolled in DBE. Dual language (two-way bilingual education) Majority and minority pupils attend this type of program in as close to equal proportions as possible. Both groups are integrated for most content subjects and are taught in two languages – for instance, Spanish and English. The overall program aim is the development of proficiency in two languages, satisfactory academic attainment at or above grade levels and positive cross-cultural attitudes. Lindholm (1997, 2001) explains that there are two variants of the program: the 90:10 and the 50:50 model. In the former, 90 per cent of instruction in kindergarten and grade 1 is in the minority language (e.g. Spanish) and 10 per cent in English – making this effectively an immersion program for the majority language participants. However, the proportion of instructional time allocated to the minority language is progressively reduced so that by grade 5 or 6 instruction is equally divided between the two languages. The 50:50 variant, by contrast, starts with an equal distribution of time between majority and minority language in kindergarten and continues with this proportion through elementary school. An important feature of the methodology is that language mixing (or concurrent language use) is discouraged. While teachers need to be bilingual, they separate their two languages: the separation is usually based on time of day, subject or occasionally by teacher – as, for example, in the team-teaching that sometimes occurs in the early grades. Throughout the program efforts are made to promote a bilingual/bicultural ethos and to encourage parental involvement (Guzman 2002). Dual language programs first emerged in the 1960s: the Coral Way Elementary School of Dade County, Florida, is usually recognised as a pioneer. Another early
48 Language Planning and Education example is the Oyster Elementary School program initiated in 1971. In the 1990s there has been a rapid expansion in the number of dual language programs – perhaps because of favourable evaluations. Crawford (1997) reports that by 1994–95 there were 182 program schools across ten states, still a small proportion relative to the total number of schools. Baker (2001) cites a figure of 200 dual language schools established by 2000. Nearing the end of this overview, it needs to be said that the program types outlined above constitute only very loose categories. Not only is there considerable variation within each type but the generic labels given to particular programs may positively mislead as to their actual content and nature. Willig and Ramirez (1993), for example, point out that some programs bearing the label ‘transitional bilingual education’ in fact provide very little instruction through the L1. Conversely, some SAIP programs that claim to instruct only in English, even those deemed exemplary (Lucas and Katz 1994), utilise the pupils’ L1 for a variety of pedagogic purposes. Guzman (2002: 1) also warns that some dual language programs are incorrectly labelled as such: ‘What school districts describe as dual language programs is not always clearly aligned with the technical definition’. And even when the label is correctly applied, there is ‘variation in implementation’. It is precisely this kind of variation, and mismatch between label and operationalisation, that has undermined the value of some of the research evaluations attempting to assess the relative effectiveness of program types. And it is this that prompts Willig and Ramirez (1993) to advise that any such research should document carefully the details of program implementation. In conclusion to the section, then, we refer to some of the key parameters distinguishing programs and program types: • Proportion of instructional time in the L1: The quantity of teaching in the L1 (relative to the L2), defined in terms of (a) the duration of L1 teaching in years and (b) the intensity of L1 use (that is, how much of the school week, and in how many subjects, instruction through L1 takes place) and its impact on educational outcomes for LEP pupils, has been a major focus of research, perhaps unduly so. As we shall see, there is a near consensus among bilingual education researchers that greater support for L1 development, and academic development in L1, is positively related to higher long-term academic attainment by LEP pupils. • Type of L2 support: While all programs for LEP pupils provide ESL teaching, there is variation in the type of support offered. The main contrast is between ESL taught as a language arts subject, usually in ESL pull-out mode, with a focus on the grammar, vocabulary and phonology of the language, and ESL taught via content subject instruction by a qualified ESL teacher. Thomas and Collier (1997) claim that the latter is associated with higher long-term educational attainment. • Degree of integration with the mainstream: In some program types (e.g. ESL pull-
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