Costs and Benefits of Dual Language Program

What are the cognitive costs and benefits of bilingualism?

Cost of Bilingualism: Mobility

Cost of Bilingualism: Mobility

Cultural Empathy

The study discovered that:

• 25% of all k-12 students moved throughout the school year
• ELL, SPED, and Free/Reduced lunch were more likely

Out of the students who are classified ELL

• 56.8% moved or took a break longer than 19 days
• 10% moved 3+ times in a 4 year span

The was a strong correlation between low test scores and high mobility rates amongst ELL students.

Global Leaders

The HBR piece reports on a recent conference on global leadership, and notes findings that “sensitivity to culture” or “cultural empathy” ranks first among all of the critical soft skills that make great global leaders. And the best way to achieve this is to learn other languages, which far fewer Americans than Europeans do. “Since every business professional around the world has (happily for them) been taught to communicate well in English, American business students simply — and arrogantly — assume that they don’t need to bother with learning” a second language, writes HBR’s Bronwyn Fryer.

An extensive study was preformed in Arizona in 2009 that looked at two basic questions regarding mobility within ELL students.

• How often do students move?
• Does it hurt their academic performance?

Cost of Bilingualism: Mobility

Severns, Maggie. "The Ties Between Student Mobility and Dual Language Learners in Arizona." Early Ed Watch (2010):

Another recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that Northwestern University researchers had, for the first time, discovered differences in how bilingual thinkers process the sounds of speech. That seems to improve attention and working memory among foreign-language speakers: “because you have two languages going on in your head, you become very good at determining what is and is not relevant,” Northwestern professor Dr. Nina Kraus told the Wall Street Journal. “You are a mental juggler.” Few would argue that a more focused brain able to juggle multiple demands is a great leadership trait.

Severns, Maggie. "The Ties Between Student Mobility and Dual Language Learners in Arizona." Early Ed Watch (2010):

• Students tend to stay in ELL programs longer.
• Many ESL and Bilingual programs vary widely from school to school.
• Students end up with wide gaps in their language development.
• Schools do not always send the correct information immediately so a child is placed in the bilingual program.
• Since language development is unique to each individual, it is impossible to know how much language acquisition would have occurred if a student stayed at the same school.

Cost of Bilingualism: Mobility

Global and Business Language

Do we need bilingualism?

Moving to a new school affects all students; however, to what extent does it affect CLD students?

Mobility rates vary widely from district to district and state to state.

Accoriding to the Illinois State Report Card, in 2012 the Illinois average rate was 13.1% of students who moved out of district and/or into a new district.

Cost of Bilingualism:

Language Development

Put a few thousand business executives in a room and you likely won't find many with the same educational backgrounds, industry experience or job descriptions. But about two-thirds of executives do have one thing in common.Thirty-one percent of executives speak two languages, according to a poll of 12,562 visitors to the Korn/Ferry International Web site. An additional 20 percent speak three languages, 9 percent speak four languages and 4 percent speak more than four.

• The child may expereince subtractive bilingualism (L2 replaces L1).
• Native language may be spoken at home, but child rejects home language and culture.
• Parents encourage the child to use the dominant language more.

Costs of Bilingualism:

Language Development

Benefit of Bilingualism:

Supporting Home Language Strengthens Identity

Cost of Bilingualism: Standardized Tests

Benefit of Bilingualism:

Supporting Home Language Strengthens Identity

article: Schiffer-Myers, Naomi, Considering Arrested Language Development and Language Loss in the Assessment of Second Language Learners

• According to Cummins, if a child is introduced to L2 before reaching full competency in L1; the development of their first language is regressed and may be lost!
• The proficiency in L2 is influenced by the competency in the native language.
• If L1 is not fully developed, it may affect the development of L2. This may also result in "semi-lingualism," in which a student does not reach monolingual/ native like proficiency in either language.

Benefit of Bilingualism:

Supporting Home Language Strengthens Identity

Fact: In the United States, methods to measure student achievement have not drastically changed in the past twenty years.

Teachers have a big effect on how children feel about their home language and whether they'll lose or retain it. To avoid communicating negative messages about home languages to children, ask yourself the following questions:

Yes___ No___ Do I respond to children when they initiate contact

with me in their home language?

Yes___ No___ Do I encourage both children and parents to use their home

language?

Yes___ No___ Do I take care not to use the home language only to reprimand

children or give them directions?

Yes___ No___ Do I use the home language to give children positive

reinforcement?

Yes___ No___ I create opportunities for children to use different languages in

day-to-day activities?

Yes___ No___ I have classroom materials in the different home languages and

are those materials equal in quality to the English materials?

Yes___ No___ I work with parents to identify when to validate home

languages and dialects and when to emphasize standard English?

The use of the home language also promotes:

• children's cognitive development
• self-esteem
• second language (usually English) acquisition
• academic preparation

Cost of Bilingualism:

Language Development

Language is such an important component of culture, a child's fluency in the family language will affect his or her sense of identity.

article: Schiffer-Myers, Naomi, Considering Arrested Language Development and Language Loss in the Assessment of Second Language Learners

Consequences of L1 language regression

• It will take a longer time to develope academic language in L2.
• Language skill transfer from L1 to English will subside
• The learners language may appear to be a language learning disability and may be placed in tiered language interventions.

Cost of Bilingualism: Standardized Tests

Example of Cultural bias from a Texas Assessment of Kowledge and Skills test:

Test Question:

Some students wanted to make a model to show how the size od the moon compares with the size of the Earth. They used an organge to represent the moon.

Which of the following would best represent Earth?

A. cantaloupe

B. grape

C. lime

D. cherry

Cost of Bilingualism: Standardized Tests

Article: Brice, A., Brice, R., Kester, K.

Focus on Bilingualism: Language Loss in ELLs

How the bilingual brain works - LANGUAGE

Vocabulary Gaps in Bilingual Students

One of the greatest cons of being bilingual in regards to standardized testing is:

Cultural bias:

• Test items often reflect only the mainstream cultural background of the test writers and population of students who participated in the norming. (Wilde and Sockey 1995)
• The test can be biased against students from other cultural backgrounds who have different experiences.

• Language is processed in the left hemisphere

o Particularly in men’s brains

o Women tend to process language and speech in both hemisphere

• When translating between languages - the brain’s dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is most active (jeden, two, tres...)

• Have more gray matter (crinkles)

• Increase blood and oxygen flow to the brain, which keeps nerve connections healthy

Cognitive Benefits

English Spanish

Doublet eye ojo

Singlets ? dedal

blackboard ?

Figure 2. Diagram explaining doublet and singlet vocabulary knowledge

• Protects against the onset of Alzheimer’s, dementia and other age-related cognitive decline

• Better able to adjust and monitor environmental changes

• Easier to remember a sequence of events (translating)

• Bilingual brains are nimbler and quicker to respond

• Bilingual brains are able with deal ambiguities and resolve conflicts easier

• Enhances a person’s ability to concentrate

• Increases ability to ignore distractions, stay focused for longer periods of time, hold and recall information, and switch attention from one task to another

Cognitive Benefits Continued

Bilingual Statistics

3-2-1

• Improves brain’s executive function or command system, which directs the attention processes we use for planning and performing as well as other many mentally demanding tasks

• Learn easier than monolingual peers because objects have more than one name

• Vocabulary tends to be higher because of the two languages

• Improves metalinguistic awareness, which is the ability to recognize language as a system that can be manipulated and explored

• Able to answer high cognitive demand tasks as well as think “Outside the Box”

• Promotes mental flexibility, creativity, and innovation as well as handling problem-solving tasks

3 things you learned

2 things you’re still wondering

1 question you may have

Cognitive Development