Blog Task: Bilingualism (or Multilingualism) in any curriculum you know about
UIC Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language in Bilingual and Multilingual Contexts
November 21, 2022
I currently work in New London Public Schools in Connecticut, USA and this is a great district to talk about Multilingualism or Bilingualism in a curriculum because it is a minority-majority city. Here are some pie charts that show the racial breakdown according to the national census, the town census, and the schools records, and just for comparison- also included is the racial background of the education staff at the high school.
Unfortunately, I can only access the student racial breakdown of the school that I work in and not all of the schools in the district. That is why I did not include a pie chart of all of the schools' racial backgrounds.
As New London is a minority-majority city, meaning the largest demographic in this city is a minority demographic in the country, and most of those students are immigrants or children of immigrants, their first language is not English. New London schools does what they can with the resources that they have to accommodate to the language learning of these students by offering Bilingual Kindergarten classes though ninth grade, until students reach high school (ninth to twelfth grade or 14-18 years old) and students are placed in either sheltered learning classrooms or the mainstream classroom with classes one hundred percent in English. Even though bilingual education is available for K-9, students are not allowed to be enrolled in bilingual education all 8 years following state and federal law.
On the New London Public Schools website, it states that “the mission of the Bilingual & ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Program is to ensure the academic success of all Multilingual Learners.” Then in the Program Description it says, “English as a Second Language (ESL) and Bilingual programs are designed to meet the needs of our English learners.” This school district follows the state's guidelines and federal statutes for ESL rooms and ESL support in other core curriculum areas. This means that the school measures success of the Multilingual Learners (MLLS) in the means of how fast these students can be moved from bilingual instruction to one hundred percent English instruction.
Connecticut and the country have very specific rules for how long a student can be in Bilingual education. The United States has a different understanding of Bilingual education than the rest of the world. In most countries the goal of bilingual education is to teach all students to be academically proficient in the two languages. Whereas, in the United States, the goal of bilingual education is to bring students to the point they are able to join mainstream all English courses.
This is proven to be the goal at New London Schools in two ways; first, native English speakers are not encouraged to become proficient in another language, such as Spanish, the most commonly used language in the city. Native English speakers as well as non-native English speakers actually only need to take one World Language credit to graduate (ESL does not count as a World Language credit, but as an elective). Second, there is a Connecticut state law that students are only permitted to be enrolled in Bilingual education for 30 months. After the 30 months, if the students’ English skills are not good enough to be put in mainstream classes, they have to request approval from the court to continue to receive access to other ESL support which may be additional ESL courses or Sheltered classes.
In the United States, the federal law is not too different from the Connecticut state law. This is not surprising as Connecticut has the second-best public education in the United States after Massachusetts. The “first official federal recognition of the needs of students with limited English-speaking ability (LESA)” was the Bilingual Education act put into motion in 1968. The act has since been reauthorized and amended four times in; 1974, 1978, 1984, and 1988. The most recent has an emphasis on diversity of LEP (limited English Proficient) students and different education approaches. This led to the “pluralistic approach”. The Pluralistic approach allows school districts to decide how to provide the best possible instruction due to their specific population. This initiative has an emphasis on three things: 1. The district gets to decide how long native instruction is required for these students, 2. Extensive parental involvement, and 3. Use federal funds to continue these programs. The Bilingual Education Initiative also states that the objective of the LEP student program is quick English fluency. This is where the US government placed the three-year cap to enrollment in not only Bilingual education but also transitional or special alternative instructional programs. With the exception of a student in special circumstances can stay in a similar program for two more years.
New London definitely follows these three pluralistic approaches in that the district decides what is best for the students and how long native instruction should be required for these students. A federal law is a floor, so a state statute could go above and beyond and provide better than the rest of the country. Meaning Connecticut law could have said that rather than 3 years bilingual education is required, we require four as additional support to our students. However, Connecticut also maintained the 3 year or 30-month limit. There is a lot of parental involvement in the school. Advisors, counselors, attendance motivators and administrators are in constant contact with parents and inviting them for discussions and meetings at the school and with teachers. Third, the state uses federal funds to continue these programs. For example, I work as a Bilingual Interventionist and my salary comes from a state grant that the school received.
To best explain how bilingualism and multilingualism is organized in this institution, the New London school website describes their ESOL program in different ways. For newcomer elementary students, “the teacher uses a pull-out basis to develop their “survival” and literacy” in English. The school’s website also states the Connecticut state law “mandates that bilingual education is offered to all identified English Learners in any school where there are twenty or more students who share the same language”. This point is very interesting as the school district only offers bilingual education K-9 and there are most definitely more than 20 students who speak the same native language in all other grades in the high school grades 9-12 where bilingual education is not offered, rather sheltered education.
Sheltered content instruction is offered in grades 9-12(the high school) and it is when core curriculum courses are taught in English, as the teachers all speak English, and the teachers can modify the curriculum to meet the language needs of the students.
What is clear is that bilingual education in New London, Connecticut, and the United States Bilingual education is used as a tool to bring students to a level of English at an exceedingly quick speed to move students into mainstream classes with the native English speakers. Bilingual education in this way is used as a crutch to bring the immigrants and children of immigrants away from their heritage language and into the monolingual world of the United States.
Bibliography:
Bureau, US Census. “2020 Census.” Census.gov, 2020, www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/decade/2020/2020-census-main.html.
---. “U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: New London City, Connecticut.” Www.census.gov, 2020, www.census.gov/quickfacts/newlondoncityconnecticut.
Public Schools, New London. “Home.” Newlondon.org, 2019, www.newlondon.org/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2019.
Stewner-Manzanares, Gloria. The Bilingual Education Act: Twenty Years Later. 2010.
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