THE United States Department of Education released three guidebooks with "research-based recommendations" for teaching English language students, Education Week has reported. But one issue the guidebooks don't address is whether it is more beneficial to use bilingual education or English-only methods.
"We intentionally avoided that," explained Russell Gersten, the executive director of the Instructional Research Group. Gersten was referring to why the practice guide panel that he led hadn't made a recommendation on whether schools should provide instructions to English learners in their native languages.
David J. Francis, a professor of psychology at the University of Houston, who led the writing of the three guidebooks, said his team of researchers from Harvard University and his own university had deliberately excluded discussing the language of instruction.
By contrast, a study on how best to teach English language students in high schools did take up the matter of the language of instruction. The study was released on November 2 by the Washington-based Alliance for Excellent Education.
"If adolescent ELLs (English language learners) are literate in their native language and on grade level, a bilingual programme might be the best option," says the report. It was entitled "Double the Work" and describes a bilingual programme in public schools in Union City, New Jersey, US.
The US Education Department guides on English language learners "are omitting something that is important," said Stephen D. Krashen. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California and an advocate of bilingual education. Research shows "a consistent small to moderate advantage to bilingual education," Krashen said. "It's one of the most reliable findings we have in all of education."
Grover J. Whitehurst, the director of the department's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), said it was his understanding that the practice guide doesn't address such research because the authors "wanted to focus on research-based recommendations that could be carried out anyplace in the country." Some states, Whitehurst noted, have laws that restrict the use of bilingual education.
The practice guide for teaching English language learners is the first of several such guides the IES has planned. "It's to fill a space that currently isn't filled in education research-informed documents that provide coherent advice about a problem that is multifaceted," Whitehurst added.
Timothy Shanahan, the director of the Centre for Literacy at the University of Illinois, explained that the practice guides recommend that teachers explicitly teach vocabulary to English language students throughout the school day. That recommendation, Shanahan said, is backed by only two studies focusing on vocabulary and English language learners. Another of the recommendations is that teachers who teach reading in students' native languages should also introduce English reading early on.
Sylvia Linan Thompson, an associate professor of special education at the University of Texas and a member of the guide panel, said, "The decision was made early on that because a majority of English language learners in the US received instruction in English, that's what we would focus on."
At the same time, Thompson said, "I don't think that this practice guide suggests that if you are able to provide bilingual education, you shouldn't do so."
