Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

Educational and political dimensions of bilingual education 55
Underlying this mandate is an educational rationale based on three key principles,
the first of which is the so-called ‘time-on-task’ principle, most explicitly propounded
by Porter (1990), which claims a direct, positive correlation between the
amount of time spent in learning a second language and proficiency in that language.
Neatly dovetailing with popular intuition, the principle would suggest that if
children need to learn English to access opportunities, then they should be given
as much classroom instruction in, and through, English as possible. Instruction
through the pupil’s native language is nothing but an impediment to the acquisition
of English, and thereby to LEP pupils’ academic attainment.
The second principle, more a notion actually, and implied more than explicit,
is that instruction in two languages unduly burdens pupils’ cognitive capacities,
especially average pupils, and can adversely affect educational performance. It would
be more effective, then, to concentrate effort on developing pupils’ skills in English,
the language of opportunity.
The third principle is that younger children learn languages readily and rapidly,
and, on the whole, are better learners than older children. The policy implication
derived is that English teaching – in the form of structured English immersion –
should start as early as possible. The point is made with unusual explicitness in
Article 1 of Proposition 227:
(e) Whereas young immigrant children can easily acquire fluency in a new
language, such as English, if they are heavily exposed to that language in the
classroom at an early age.
(f ) Therefore it is resolved that: all children in California public schools shall be
taught English as rapidly and effectively as possible.
We now discuss each of these principles in reverse order.
3.2.3.1 Principles 3: ‘The younger, the better’
Extended discussion of the third principle (the optimal age question in Second
Language Acquisition (SLA)) lies beyond the scope of this chapter, so we confine
ourselves to the straightforward point (Scovel 2000a, 2000b) that older learners may
be advantaged in certain areas (e.g. vocabulary learning, pragmatics, literacy) and
younger learners in others (e.g. pronunciation, syntax). In addition, age is not a
‘stand-alone’ factor but interacts with a range of other contextual and developmental
factors jointly influencing second language acquisition. In a policy-relevant review,
Johnstone (2002: 20) concludes on a positive note that:
given suitable teaching, motivation, and support, it is possible to make a success
of language learning at any age and stage, though older learners are less likely to
approximate to the levels of a native speaker.
The evidence for what Scovel (2000a: 114) calls ‘the younger, the better myth’ is thus
more equivocal than the Proposition 227 drafters suggest.