Among the participants whose entire education was in American schools, only two received bilingual education. Table 6-9 compares the score rankings for their compositions.
Table 6-9 Rankings on Measures of L2 Writing by Thirty-third Percentiles for Participants with Educated in the US who Received Bilingual Education
# EFC E DC C/T WT SWT #W Rhet Coord Logi Topi P&EP
11 H H H H H H H H - - m- -
16 - - - m m m - m m m- - -
Participant 11’s rankings are generally high. In fact, out of all of the compositions, hers is one of the two that ranked in the top 33rd percentile on more than 50% of the measures.
The composition by participant 16, on the other hand, received nearly the opposite kind of scores. The similarities and differences between the two participants, both of whom agreed to be interviewed, ultimately support my hypothesis about the value of bilingual education.
Both participants come from families in which both parents have at least some college education. Participant 11’s father had immigrated to the US in order to attend college here and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in business, and her mother had at least several years of college education either in the US or in Lebanon. (Participant 11’s description of her mother’s education was not clear on this point.) Currently, participant 11’s father works as a software manager and her mother as a teacher. Participant 16’s parents’ education was entirely in Nicaragua, where they both worked as accountants;
upon immigration to the US, participant 16’s parents became a car wash owner and a tailor. In addition, neither of the two participants began her schooling in Milwaukee.
Participant 11’s family moved to Milwaukee when she was ready for tenth grade;
participant 16’s family moved to Milwaukee in time for her to enter fourth grade.
Both participants came to college with no previous college experience. At about 17 years old when she wrote her placement assessment composition, participant 11 was a traditional student, planning to enter college after graduating from high school. At her high school, participant 11 took several Advanced Placement courses, for which she received college credit. (The results of her placement test confirmed her exemption from the freshman composition sequence.) Participant 16 was about 23 years old when she wrote her placement composition; she was married and had one child. Unlike participant
11, she had no Advanced Placement credits on her transcript; her CPA results placed her in the pre-college program.
Remembering the role that personality plays in L2 acquisition (Fillmore, 1989), I note that one other similarity these participants share is that they are both energetic, dedicated personalities. I had not met participant 11 until I interviewed her. In my field notes from that day, I commented,
She is a chemistry major, biology minor. She does not want to be a doctor, but says that she has a strong interest in social issues and hopes to use her scientific knowledge and skills to make the world a better place to live in… The student impresses as extremely competent. She articulates her ideas in such clear, concise, forceful language that I want to put many of her sentences up on posters around my office (April 14, 2011).
I had met participant 16 a year earlier, when she volunteered for my pilot study. Like participant 11, she is motivated by altruistic goals. She is majoring in Community Leadership and plans to go straight into a Master’s program that will enable her to work with women and children (April 19, 2011). What is especially impressive about
participant 16 is the time and effort she puts into improving her L1 (Spanish). In high school, she elected to take Spanish for two years:
6-rr: I said, “Well, since I speak the language, [I] might as well learn how to write grammatically correct” (lines 42-47).
In college, she continues to study the language on her own by reading Spanish
newspapers online as well as books and articles by one of her favorite Spanish-language journalists, Jorge Ramos. She researches
6-ss: a lot of information about my country in Spanish and every two years I try to go back home (lines 46-58).
Desiring to continue developing her Spanish writing skills, she uses the computer to practice writing:
6-tt:…try to leave Spanish blogs, or whatever, on Spanish websites.…I have a lot of cousins. Thank goodness for FaceBook, cause we could do instant message…and I do tell them, “Okay, if I say something wrong, remember, you know, I grew up here. I’m not like you guys; so just let me know if I…type something wrong.” So they do tell me. I like that (lines 126-141).
Certain differences in their backgrounds may have made it harder or easier for participants 11 and 16 to excel in written English; for example, it is possible that the socio-economic status of their parents in the US may be a factor. Also, although both participants’ families moved during their schooling, participant 16’s family actually moved twice, first from Nicaragua to Florida when she was 3 years old, and then later from Florida to Milwaukee. She therefore experienced more geographic and cultural dislocation than participant 11. However, I suspect that part of the difference is the quality of their bilingual education programs. As described before, the program participant 11 attended was the most similar to a 50-50 dual language program. In addition, participant 11 was fortunate enough to be in this program for eleven years.
In contrast, participant 16 received only three years of bilingual education. This took place when she began school in Florida. She described her bilingual classes:
6-uu: The teachers, they would teach like Spanish and English, like a mixture because there were students there that did not speak any English at all. So the teachers taught in Spanish and English (lines 13-17).
When I asked her to clarify if the two languages were spoken by one teacher or if there were two teachers, one who spoke Spanish and one who spoke English, she said,
6-vv: No, it was the same teacher (lines 22-23).
After three years, participant 16 moved with her family to Milwaukee, where she was mainstreamed.
With only two participants to contrast, I cannot make any definitive statements about the value of bilingual education for bilingual learners educated only in the US.
Clearly, participant 16 experienced more academic disruption than participant 11. The writing results for participants 11 and 16, however, do support my hypothesis about the value of bilingual education that “participants who have had more and/or more effective kinds of language-learning education” will write more highly rated L2 compositions.