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Educational and political dimensions of bilingual education 59 The key policy implication of the linguistic interdependence hypothesis, then, is that time invested in developing pupils’ academic literacy skills in their L1 does not adversely impact or retard the long-term growth of those same skills in the L2. Indeed, to the contrary, there is evidence (see Thomas and Collier 1997) that development of L1 skills provides a sound foundation for subsequent academic success in and through L2 English. Combined with other educational arguments for incorporating the child’s home language into the schooling process (see above), a positive case thus emerges for bilingual education programs that promote additive forms of bilingualism. In short, data and theory combine to undermine the simplistic ‘time-on-task’ principle 19 underlying Proposition 227. 3.2.3.4 The ‘how-long-does-it-take’ issue Proposition 227’s problems do not end here, however. The requirement (Article 2) that LEP pupils undergo structured English immersion during ‘a temporary transition period not normally intended to exceed one year’ rests on assumptions about the rapidity of English language acquisition that have been described as ‘wildly unrealistic’ (Hakuta et al. 2000: 13). Just how unrealistic will be seen presently as we turn briefly to a body of research whose central question is: how long does it take for language minority pupils to acquire sufficient English language proficiency to attain parity in academic uses of English with native-speaking peers? Answers have considerable significance for policy: they may help determine appropriate time limits for providing minority pupils with the special services now funded under Title III, and they may help avoid the situation of LEP pupils being prematurely classified English proficient on the basis of superficial oral proficiency, and subsequently transferred to mainstream classes where they underperform and get falsely labelled ‘learning disabled’. ‘How long’ research may also allow a more realistic appraisal of the effectiveness of BE, often criticised for appearing not to develop pupils’ English language sufficiently swiftly. A prerequisite for satisfactory research on this matter is, of course, an adequate conceptualisation of the nature of second language proficiency, and so, before turning to what the data shows, it is worth commenting on Cummins’s distinction between conversational and academic language proficiency (Cummins 2000). Cummins’s BISC/CALP distinction The distinction derives from Cummins’s (1981) analysis of data from the Toronto Board of Education, which appeared to show a time lag between the acquisition of oral fluency in the L2 and the attainment of ‘grade norms in academic English’ (Cummins 2000: 53). By way of explanation, Cummins (1984) proposed a distinction between BISC (basic interpersonal communicative skills) and CALP (cognitive-academic language proficiency), arguing that whereas minority pupils acquired L2 oral fluency relatively quickly, they took much longer to develop L2 academic-literacy skills. The reason for this, according to Cummins (1984), is that CALP skills typically
60 Language Planning and Education Context-embedded communication Cognitively undemanding communication A C B Cognitively demanding communication Context-reduced communication Figure 3.1 Two dimensions of communicative language use situations (Cummins 2000: 68) involve context-reduced, cognitively demanding situations of language, whereas BISC (conversational abilities) are typically deployed in cognitively undemanding, context-embedded situations supportive of easy communication. These two dimensions of communicative language use situations are depicted in Figure 3.1, where BISC would fall in quadrant A and CALP in quadrant D. Over the years the BISC/CALP distinction has suffered considerable criticism on a variety of grounds. It is said, for example, to present an unduly simplified, dichotomous and static picture of the developing L2 language proficiency of the bilingual pupil. The terms themselves appear to suggest that CALP is a superior form of language proficiency, and encourage a ‘deficit’ view 20 of minority pupils’ academic difficulties. The BISC/CALP constructs also seem to be constituted in such a way that they divorce language/literacy practices from their socio-cultural context. Some of these criticisms have substance, some are unfair (see Baker 2001). Certainly, if intended as a complete theory of language proficiency, the distinction is inadequate, but, as Cummins (2000: 73) remarks, it was never intended as such. Rather it was an attempt to address specific issues in the language education of minority pupils, and in this light the figure above may more appropriately be regarded as a heuristic for analysing the cognitive-linguistic demands of certain types of school work. Meanwhile, acknowledging that they are liable to misinterpretation, Cummins (2000: 75) has now dropped the terms BISC/CALP in favour of the less easily misconstrued, if less mnemonically useful, conversational and academic (language) proficiency. While theoretically imperfect, this distinction is similar to those of other researchers (e.g. Snow et al. 1991); it has established itself in the lexicon of educators; and it does, as Hakuta et al. (2000: 4) point out, ‘make sense in the California context where very basic issues of English development still need to be resolved’. A second conceptual issue, clearly central to the ‘how long’ research, is the criterion level of academic English proficiency at which LEP pupils may be deemed to be on an equal footing with native-speaking pupils. Discussion here is complicated by the fact that different studies employ different proficiency tests and utilise D
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