But How Can Kids Learn English if They're in Bilingual Education Programs?

• In Event: Parent Language Perceptions and Ideologies in Bilingual/Dual-Language Contexts

Abstract

Some have argued that elementary bilingual programs in the U.S. don’t teach language-minority children enough English to be successful later in school. To examine this issue, I investigated whether Spanish-speaking emergent bilingual first and second graders (N = 120) enrolled in either dual language immersion (n = 68) or English-only (n = 52) programs differed in their performance on an oral narrative retell task. Findings suggest that in both instructional programs, children in second grade performed better than those in first grade. However, there were no significant differences between children in different instructional programs at either grade in either language, suggesting that dual language education is as supportive of overall language development as English only programs for emergent bilingual children.

Author

• Audrey Lucero, University of Oregon