Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

Educational and political dimensions of bilingual education 49
out) pupils spend much of their time in mainstream classes but are withdrawn
for part of the school day for separate ESL lessons, which may or may not be
on the same school site. In others (e.g. ‘sheltered English’, Structured English
Immersion and developmental bilingual education programs), pupils are
often taught separately from the mainstream for substantial periods. In TBE
programs, meanwhile, pupils are often taught some subjects in L1 during part
of the school day but remain in mainstream classes for other portions of the day.
Such variations are significant given that bilingual education is sometimes
criticised for segregating LEP pupils from the mainstream with potentially
undesirable social and pedagogic consequences. Isolation from Englishspeaking
pupils may, for instance, limit opportunities for L2 input from this
source and hence retard second language acquisition. Dual language programs,
however, overcome this alleged disadvantage by integrating majority and
minority pupils in the same classes, where they learn to value each others’
language and culture.
3.2 BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES:
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND PEDAGOGY
The bilingual education debate in the United States has an instrumental, pedagogic
dimension and, more fundamentally, an ideological, political one. In this section, we
focus on the former, where, as in the ideological domain, there are fundamental
disagreements between two opposing camps, pluralists and assimilationists. Both
camps’ starting point, however, is common. Both accept that the United States is an
English-dominant society and that therefore the acquisition of English is fundamental
to securing equal opportunities for linguistic minority pupils. Both also
accept that many LEP pupils, particularly those of Mexican descent, are overrepresented
among those performing poorly at school. Thereafter, however, the two
sides part company to disagree fundamentally over the causes of, and remedies for,
educational underperformance, as well as over the best means for promoting the
acquisition of English.
Some of these disagreements have crystallised around the role of the native
language (L1) in the educational process, and, in particular, around its use as a
medium for teaching content subjects and for introducing literacy. Bilingual
education (BE) opponents have tended to see L1 teaching as a distraction from, and
even an impediment to, the important goal of acquiring English. Supporters of BE,
on the other hand, backed by empirical evidence and theory, have tended to view
support for the L1 as highly functional both in the mastery of academic content and
in the acquisition of the L2. They also stress the potential cognitive advantages of full
bilingualism.
One particular area of dispute is the research attempting to evaluate the comparative
effectiveness of different types of educational program for LEP pupils. It is
to this body of research literature that we now turn.