A Dual Language Revolution in the United States? On the Bumpy Road From Compensatory to Enrichment Education for Bilingual Children in Texas

• In Event: 65.043 - Bilingual and Multilingual Education: Current Practices and Future Prospects for Promoting Justice, Culture, Language, and Heritage in Education

Abstract

In this paper, the authors argue that program labels (e.g., ESL, bilingual education, dual language) often tell us little about the competing assimilationist and pluralist discourses that abound in schools and classrooms (Menken & García, 2010; Palmer, 2011). Because these discourses are constantly shifting, they argue that the only way to understand them is to venture inside classrooms to speak with educators. Thus, the authors use a multi-layered language policy ethnography approach to focus on the case of the unprecedented growth and challenges of implementing programs calling themselves dual language in Texas. The authors understand teachers and school administrators as localized language policy makers influenced by ideologies and other factors when implementing DL programs (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007; Spolsky, 2004). Specifically, the authors focus on the case of an elementary school in a large urban school district implementing the highly structured “Gómez & Gómez Dual Language Enrichment Model” that is popular in the state of Texas. As they studied the layers of implementation and examined the localized discourses at the district, school and classroom level, they found that with each layer, the goals of uniformity and fidelity that language programs strive for become obscured. They found some positive trends: more teachers and administrators were talking about bilingualism and biliteracy as desirable goals in their schools and expressing the belief that high academic achievement was a real possibility for their emergent bilingual students. However, they warn that attempts at large-scale change bring up some important issues that need to be addressed. They argue that that real change takes time, particularly when asking educators to change their fundamental beliefs about language and learning. They further assert that if the “dual language revolution,” i.e. if top-down implementation of an enrichment-oriented dual language education program, is to lead to positive and lasting change we must invest heavily in teacher professionalism to engage teachers in authentic ongoing professional development aimed at deep reflection.

Authors

• Christian Ellen Zuniga, The University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

• Kathryn I. Henderson, The University of Texas - San Antonio