Dual Language Education Challenges & Opportunities

Published by the Sacramento Bee, January 21, 2015

Earlier this month, the Obama administration released guidelines to safeguard the civil rights of students learning English as a second language. These rules reinforce the Supreme Court’s 40-year-old decision to provide targeted support for this group, which now numbers nearly 5 million nationally. Unfortunately, this explosion in the number of English learners in our public schools has also meant a corresponding rise in the number of civil rights complaints and investigations.

You might think California could serve as the model for supporting this important population. Nearly 45 percent of Californians speak a language other than English at home, and in our schools, nearly 1 in 4 students is learning English.

Sadly, the state doesn’t get a passing grade yet. Of the 60 public school agencies nationally under scrutiny by the Office for Civil Rights, 13 are in California. Test scores in our state still show a persistent achievement gap between native speakers and English learners. There is some indication students who transition out of English learner status often still struggle. Moreover, California’s misguided passage of Proposition 227 in 1998 has severely limited the use of bilingual education programs, which can lead to positive language and academic outcomes for students.

Published by the Pantagraph.com, December 21,2014

When it comes to teaching children who speak languages other than English, Maura Toro-Morn thinks American schools have it all wrong.

"Schools see students who speak other languages as deficient," she said. "We need to see them not as deficient but as contributing something new."

Toro-Morn, director of Illinois State University's Latin-American and Latino Studies program, is one of the leading local voices pushing a new kind of language teaching: dual language immersion.

Immersion seeks to improve on two traditional language programs: foreign language teaching for English speakers that usually begins in middle or high school, and bilingual education that helps students who don't speak English learn the language but not necessarily the culture.

Dual language programs place students who speak fluent English and those who fluently speak another language — usually Spanish — into the same classroom.

Beth Hatt, an associate professor in ISU's College of Education, said that arrangement benefits both native English speakers and their new peers.

Published by the Huffington Post, December 16, 2014

When our family immigrated to the United States, we believed our son Rodrigo would have greater opportunities for prosperity and success. However, we underestimated the social, emotional, and academic hurdles we would face....

Published by the Journal Times, November 16, 2014

RACINE — Luz Celedon embraces the premise that for a student to succeed in life, learning has to take place inside and outside the walls of a school.

And that was a component Celedon felt was a bit lacking when she began working about 10 years ago at Madison’s Nuestro Mundo Community School, a dual-immersion Spanish/English elementary school. So only a year into her job, she set up a program at Nuestro Mundo to help give parents the tools they need to further their students’ education and, at the same time, their own learning.

Published by Chalkbeat New York, January 16, 2015

For non-English-speaking families with preschoolers, bilingual programs remain few and far between, though the city is moving to rapidly expand both its pre-K offerings and dual-language programs over the next couple of years. Some parents and researchers are hoping the city combines those priorities to expand dual-language programs for its littlest learners. Until this happens, experts say, the city is missing an opportunity to teach bilingualism at an age when students’ brains are most adaptable.

Published by the Pantagraph.com, December 21, 2014

The dual language movement has reached Central Illinois, thanks to Urbana schools that began a Spanish dual language immersion program for kindergartners in 2012 intended to stretch to fifth grade.

Joseph Wiemelt, director of bilingual and multicultural programs at Urbana School District 116, said at a recent dual language summit in Bloomington that the program has been immensely popular, but proved controversial before it even started.

Wiemelt said “money, xenophobia, linguicism and racism” were all reasons, stated or not, that community members, school board members and even school officials hesitated to support the program.

“It’s not thought of to have dual language immersion in Central and southern Illinois. It’s a north of I-80 thing,” he said. "We need to be visionary."

Published by Among Friends magazine, Fall 2014

How would you describe your day-to-day work?

I work for the New York City Department of Education as a dual language teacher in elementary schools. “Dual language” indicates that students learn all academic content in both English and Spanish. At my school last year, we had “English days” and “Spanish days.” The idea is that 50 percent of the students in a classroom come from an English speaking background and 50 percent are stronger Spanish speakers (although it doesn’t always work out perfectly in practice). So the English dominant students learn Spanish while the Spanish dominant students learn English. They learn from each other in an organic way, through content and social interaction rather than isolated language courses.

On a daily basis, I work with my co-teacher to lead reading, writing, math, science, and social studies in both languages. I usually spend a minimum of eight hours each week writing lesson plans, grading assignments, and analyzing data around student progress. It feels worth it because the work is so rewarding.