dissertation about bilingual education

Framing Bilingual Education Policy: Articulation and Implementation in Texas

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Language education policy and its implementation have been controversial and ongoing issues throughout the United States, especially in the border state of Texas, with its large population of students who are learning English. This dissertation reports two studies, the first of which was a frame analysis of problems and solutions as represented by the five bills amending the Texas Education Code with regard to bilingual education and English as a second language programs. These laws, passed in 1969, 1973, 1975, 1981, and 2001, have been enacted since 1968, the year the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) was passed. The problem framed … continued below

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vii, 143 pages : color maps

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Dixon, Kathryn V. August 2014.

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• Dixon, Kathryn V.
• Nelson, Nancy Major Professor

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• Harris, Mary M. Minor Professor
• González-Carriedo, Ricardo
• Mathis, Janelle
• Oppong, Joseph R.
• University of North Texas Publisher Info: www.unt.edu Place of Publication: Denton, Texas

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• Department: Department of Teacher Education and Administration
• Discipline: Language and Literacy Studies
• Level: Doctoral
• Name: Doctor of Philosophy
• Grantor: University of North Texas
• PublicationType: Doctoral Dissertation

Language education policy and its implementation have been controversial and ongoing issues throughout the United States, especially in the border state of Texas, with its large population of students who are learning English. This dissertation reports two studies, the first of which was a frame analysis of problems and solutions as represented by the five bills amending the Texas Education Code with regard to bilingual education and English as a second language programs. These laws, passed in 1969, 1973, 1975, 1981, and 2001, have been enacted since 1968, the year the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) was passed. The problem framed consistently by these state policy documents was inadequate instruction for children who come to school speaking languages other than English. More variability was seen in the framing of solutions, with approaches changing from the authorization of instruction in languages other than English, to the establishment of mandated bilingual programs, to the extension of special language programs, and to the establishment of dual language immersion programs. The primary ideology influencing the policy documents was the monolingual English ideology; however, alternative ideologies are apparent in the policies that allow for dual language immersion programs. Geographic information systems (GIS) analysis was used in the second study to investigate the geographic locations of particular programs and the demographics of students they served. Choropleth maps showed variability in program distribution across the state with distinct patterns apparent in only two programs. The maps indicated that districts with high percentages of student enrollment in one-way dual language programs tended to be located in and near the major metropolitan areas, whereas many districts offering early exit transitional bilingual programs tended to be located along the Texas-Mexico border. Despite the literature on bilingual/ESL program effectiveness, the predominant program in the border region of Texas is among those considered least beneficial to students learning English. This pair of studies illustrates the influence of monolingual English ideology on educational practice and policy through the implementation of programs by districts as well as the framing of bilingual education in legislation.

• bilingual education
• frame analysis

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• Education, Bilingual -- Government policy -- Texas.
• Education, Bilingual -- Law and legislation -- Texas.
• Education, Bilingual -- Texas.
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Dixon, Kathryn V. Framing Bilingual Education Policy: Articulation and Implementation in Texas , dissertation , August 2014; Denton, Texas . ( https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc699899/ : accessed May 28, 2024 ), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu ; .

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LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND BILINGUAL EDUCATION POLICIES IN A DUAL LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Eirini Pitidou , University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7184-4188

Open Access Dissertation

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dissertation

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Year degree awarded, month degree awarded, first advisor.

Ysaaca Axelrod

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Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education | Education

Dual language programs have been considered by many scholars as the epitome of bilingual education models as they promise bilingual competence, academic success and cultural awareness for both majority and minority language students attending the program. Research has shown that they also tend to promote equity and establish social justice among all students, and students have reported improved self-esteem and bilingual pride among other benefits. The three guiding principles or pillars of dual language education are bilingualism, biliteracy and biculturalism. Recently, critical consciousness has been proposed as the 4 th pillar as an establishment of the promotion of social justice and equity within the dual language classroom. This case study explores the language ideologies of six school officials and four families directly involved with the implementation of a newly established dual language program in a town in Massachusetts. The semi-structured in-depth qualitative interviews with the school’s principal, assistant principal, ELL coordinator, superintended and two first grade teachers in the focal program and the voices of four parents whose children attend the first grade in this program, highlight the notion of critical consciousness and how it manifests in their decision-making regarding choice of schooling and school practices. The findings show that there is strong sense of social justice and equity practices both in the school setting but also in the town community that is prevalent in the participants values, beliefs and attitudes. However, the findings also revealed a conceptual mismatch regarding notions of privilege between school officials and attending families, which suggests that the inclusion of critical consciousness should become a more visible aspect of the program and eventually be considered as an integral part of the dual language curriculum.

https://doi.org/10.7275/24369939

Recommended Citation

Pitidou, Eirini, "LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND BILINGUAL EDUCATION POLICIES IN A DUAL LANGUAGE CLASSROOM" (2021). Doctoral Dissertations . 2303. https://doi.org/10.7275/24369939 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2303

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The language of opportunity: Bilingual education is on the rise in Japan

Japan wants its next generation to be fluent in english. culture and economic inequality stand in the way..

Earlier this month, the education ministry gave itself a big high-five after the results of a survey showed the English proficiency of Japan’s students is improving. The proportion of third-year junior and senior high school students with Grade 3 and Grade Pre-2 or higher on Eiken proficiency tests, respectively, both rose past the 50% mark. The government wants that number to pass 60% by fiscal 2027.

Despite that, bilingual education is booming here. A variety of schools pledging to nurture the nation’s children up into international citizens, fluent in Japanese and English alike, are opening new branches across the country.

Aoba-Japan Bilingual Preschool, for example, opened a new campus in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward last year, hot on the heels of the newly opened Freely Akasaka English school in 2021; and over in Nagoya, the Yaruki Switch Group launched two bilingual preschools in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

Education critic Manabu Murata estimates that around 200 new English schools have opened in the past five years , bringing the number of English preschools alone to more than 800.

“We’re seeing a strong demand from areas throughout Japan, so we are actively opening new schools,” says Jakub Druszkiewicz, an instructor at Kids Duo International, one of Yaruki Switch Group’s schools.

English has long been trendy in Japan, but the current generation of parents view a bilingual education as indispensable for their children’s future success, according to Norihiko Inoue, who manages the Asian market at English education company Education First.

“More foreign international schools are coming into Japan,” he says, “but there’s such a long queue to get into international schools, and many Japanese students are being rejected.”

With spiking demand from Japanese and non-Japanese parents here, options for bilingual schools are more present than ever. But an inflexible educational system and a growing economic and cultural divide threaten access to these skills, which have the potential to transform Japanese society in the decades to come.

A cultural fear of mistakes

Japanese parents seeking a bilingual education for their children are anything but off the mark. Research shows that bilingual ability leads to increased classroom achievement, higher levels of cognitive development, increased self-esteem and increased employment opportunities.

In Japan, more than 50% of Japanese companies reported referring to applicants’ scores on the Test of English for International Communication, or TOEIC, with companies also using English skills as a baseline for career advancement opportunities. Meanwhile, the number of Japanese companies operating overseas increased by over 20% from 2014 to 2019, when the number exceeded 75,000.

While the Japanese government updated its English education guidelines to emphasize communication rather than grammar and memorization in 2017, Inoue says that teachers at the nation’s public schools haven’t been able to implement these changes.

“Public teachers are very busy,” he says. “They’re doing a lot of extra work and don’t have the time to think about these extra things. There’s a big gap between private and public education now in English teaching.”

“The strong privacy sensibility in Japan, seriousness about human relationships and privileging ritualistic face-to-face communication inhibit freewheeling communication in foreign languages,” adds Steve McCarty, who researches bilingualism and language education at Osaka Jogakuin University. McCarty cites Ikuyo Tsuboya-Newell’s list of reasons for Japan’s lack of language proficiency: a grammar-translation pedagogy, cultural fear of mistakes, insufficient class time, lack of international exposure and the perception that foreign languages are not needed.

A rise in immigration, which brings foreign cultures and languages to a nation facing population decline, puts further pressure on Japan’s lagging bilingualism.

The number of foreign nationals living in Japan hit 3.4 million in 2023 , over 2.5% of the population, compared to just 1.6% in 2013. Young native speakers of Chinese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Korean speakers and more are in the middle of learning Japanese and integrating into society through the current haphazard Japanese-as-a-second-language (JSL) programs at public schools.

Tomomi Nishikawa, a professor studying JSL acquisition at Ochanomizu Women’s University, notes that there is no licensing system for Japanese education.

“Many schools don’t even have a class, and the teacher may not have a license and proper training,” she says. “There is a strong awareness of the need for better Japanese education, and the government has developed an outline for things like the number of hours of education needed, but there is no national standard.

“Even when a child seems to speak quite fluently on the surface, they still don’t have as much exposure compared to Japanese children, and this makes it harder for them to succeed in exams. It affects their grades as well scores in entry examinations.”

A matter of money

As of 2024, roughly four kinds of bilingual education in Japan have emerged: long-standing prestigious international schools; newer Japanese schools emphasizing bilingualism within a Japanese context; bilingual schools representing a particular national background such as French, Chinese or Korean schools; and innovative multicultural and multilingual schools.

International schools, which often use an English immersion curriculum to prestigious international standards such as the International Baccalaureate, have strong results in producing global citizens — students who study at foreign universities or go on to be employed by multinational corporations. As of 2021, there were 43 such schools in Tokyo. However, the Japanese government lags behind in proactively disseminating information about educational opportunities compared to places such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Sky-high tuition costs restrict these schools largely to expats and the Japanese upper class. Furthermore, while some immersion schools such as Katoh Gakuen in Shizuoka have documented success in student bilingual achievements, some research suggests that there are limits to approaches that mandate the use of certain languages at certain times, a feature common in immersion programs, in monolingual countries such as Japan. Strong pressure or rules can cause children to develop negative associations with a language. For foreign-born children, such teaching methods can cause them to lose their mother tongue in a single generation.

These factors inspired the Tokyo Children’s Garden, a bilingual preschool in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, to take a psychology-based approach. Principal Ann Nishigaya says that they want to reduce pressure so that children will want to speak other languages. The Reggio Emilia-inspired program has done away with a curriculum and instead caters entirely to the interests of the students.

“Children can speak or not speak in any language, and we’ve seen great results,” Nishigaya says. “We want them to know that it’s OK to speak in any language, and we don’t correct language mistakes either. Confidence and psychology is most important, and the grammar will come with time.”

Alternative curricula

Other schools have adapted a more unusual double-immersion curriculum, where students complete academic subjects in a mix or combination of Japanese and English. The AmerAsian School in Okinawa, a K-12 school in Ginowan focusing on not just bilingual but bicultural education, is one such example. Students learn all core subjects in both English and Japanese.

“Language is not learned in a vacuum and is largely context-dependent,” says principal Katherine Mansfield. “Multiculturalism and diversity are extremely important when running a double immersion program like ours. Students here interact with diverse people on a daily basis (which helps them) acquire a strong foundation of the languages they learn.”

But a bicultural focus is still far from the norm. Perhaps the fastest-growing sector of bilingual education is a host of programs that emphasize that they are Japanese programs but are conducted in either English or bilingually. Three such programs include Kids Duo International, i Kids Star and Aoba-Japan Bilingual Preschool, which implement immersion programs for preschool and kindergarten within a Japanese cultural context.

“(Parents) are attracted to our program’s integration of English and Japanese,” says Druszkiewicz from Kids Duo International. “We’re not an international school — we’re focused on nurturing Japanese identity.”

Druskiewicz cites that approximately 80% of students are Japanese nationals with two Japanese parents. Although lessons at Kids Duo International and i Kids Star are held almost entirely in English, the schools explicitly promote Japanese manners and culture. Aoba-Japan Bilingual Preschool, which has implemented an International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum to help students develop international perspectives, takes a multilingual bent by splitting their program into English and Japanese days. The school aims for students to enjoy a school life in English without causing any delay to their native Japanese acquisition.

Chinese and Korean schools such as the Yokohama Yamonote Chinese School (YYCS) and Korea International School in Osaka emphasize the way they promote and nurture their respective cultures.

“Children of overseas Chinese can inherit and promote Chinese language and culture, and, in addition, understand Japanese language and culture,” YYCS states on its website. Its curriculum covers Chinese history and geography in Chinese, teaches the Japanese public school curriculum in Japanese and has students take English courses as well.

Seeking motivation

Immersion, double-immersion, more flexible approaches — all have legitimate claims to effectiveness. But the proliferation of diverse bilingual schooling hasn’t made waves with the Japanese public yet. First and foremost, public education lags. “(English) teaching methods are gradually changing, but teachers themselves are not familiar with the new methods,” Inoue emphasizes.

Inoue says that one potential change to improve bilingualism in Japan is a policy matter: namely, the Japanese education law that does not include international schools within its definition of a Japanese educational institute. Meanwhile, to promote fluency in Japanese among foreign children, Nishikawa says that the government should set a standard for training and licensing Japanese-language teachers and establishing classes in public schools.

“It’s hard for me to imagine bilingual schools becoming a normal part of Japanese society and education,” says Nishikawa. “It’s not going to change quickly.”

Put simply, private bilingual education is expensive: Annual tuition for schools offering multilingual education ranges from around ¥300,000 to ¥3 million at the primary level and ranges from ¥1 million to over ¥3 million for high school.

In 2019, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare did implement a child care subsidy system for early education offering up to around ¥40,000 per month, which can be used for private bilingual schools. Prefectures and localities are also expanding their subsidies, such as Yokohama making preschool education free for certain eligible residents.

Of course, these subsidies only apply to early childhood education. And even improving accessibility doesn’t necessarily mean that students will be motivated to speak and learn multiple languages.

On that front, teachers point out just how important parental involvement is.

“In early childhood, a trusting relationship with adults around the child supports his (or) her own desire to understand and speak the language tremendously,” says Haruko Isobe, preschool coordinator for Aoba-Japan Bilingual Preschool. “Guardians should have a flexible and realistic view of what level of bilingualism their child should acquire.” Educators emphasize that desire and motivation must come from parents, students and teachers.

When asked to imagine an ideal bilingual education in Japan, Inoue emphasizes diversity and exchange.

“There needs to be some opportunity to communicate with different cultures in junior high and high school,” he says. “If students can be connected to other cultures, it will motivate them to be bilingual, to be global citizens, and that will help Japan’s society and economy.”

Teachers and educators, at the very least, are confident that a bilingual Japan does not pose a risk to preserving and maintaining Japanese culture. While many critics have cited the way that English erodes and harms local languages , educators in Japan can’t overlook how much sheer opportunity better language proficiency would bring to the country.

The ideal educational approach: one where students are exposed to Japanese and English, and are encouraged but not pressured to speak both. An education that includes cultural exchange and a curriculum that inspires children about the importance of languages, communication and diversity. An education that is affordable for all.

Japan needs it now more than ever.

“Japan will become more globalized, multilingual and multicultural, whether individuals find bilingualism necessary or not,” says McCarty. “It is a choice, but becoming bilingual and bicultural to some extent brings more choices and therefore greater freedom.”

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