Bilingual Education Policy Research Articles

An Analysis of Code-switching in Uygur, Chinese and English: From the Perspective of Sociolinguistics

Code-switching is a common phenomenon in daily life. With the improvement of social education level, we have not only mastered our mother tongue, but also other languages. Code-switching between native language, Chinese and English is an ubiquitous phenomenon in daily conversation for ethnic minorities. Previous studies merely focus on code-switching between two languages, but lack the analysis of code switching function in the dialogue between three language users. Code-switching among the three languages involves little communication in daily life. Bilingual education policy and multi-ethnic communication enrich the language of the nation.This paper analyzes the function of human transcribing in the daily conversation of language users.The author made a questionnaire, which designed whether code-switching would be involved in communication, under what circumstances would code-switching occur, and the intention of code-switching. The author collects and records the conversion of people's three languages in the natural state. Secondly, the author classifies and analyzes the recorded dialogues according to their functions.

“Stealing from the language”: interest convergence and teachers’ advocacy for language-inclusive practices

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to support advocacy for racial and linguistic justice by examining teachers’ efforts to contest their colleagues' language-exclusive policies and practices.Design/methodology/approachThe author used a critical and reconstructive discourse analysis guided by interest convergence theory to analyze narratives shared by teachers working to contest language-exclusive practices.FindingsTeachers identified or created interest convergence to successfully contest specific practices. However, their arguments had the potential to be coopted for hegemonic purposes.Originality/valuePrevious studies have used interest convergence to analyze bilingual education policy. This study is one of the few to apply the theory to analyze other efforts to contest language-exclusive practices.

The Role of Education in the Development of Jawi in Brunei Darussalam

This literary research aims to discuss the role of education in the history and development of the usage of the Jawi script in Brunei. This discussion is divided into six phases. The first phase is the use of Jawi in education after the arrival of Islam. The second phase is its use during the early development of education between 1914 and 1941. The third phase is during the Japanese occupation era from 1942 until 1945. The fourth phase is in the pre-independence era between 1943 and 1983. The fifth phase is in the Bilingual Education policy from 1984 until 2007, and the last phase is during the National Education System for the 21st Century Policy, from 2008 until today. The researcher discovered that the role and importance of Jawi in the field of education remain relevant, especially in preserving it as the heritage and identity of the Malay race.

Application of Human Capital Theory to Understand Funding Inequities in Dual Language Programs

Language is a form of human capital. Human capital refers to skills an individual needs to succeed within the labor market. Originating from The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968), one of many purposes of dual language programs (DLPs) was to provide equal access to classroom opportunities for all students, regardless of their native language. The goal of bilingual programs is to promote the literacy of the English language and their home language. Two-way DLPs in schools were created to help strengthen the English literacy of non-native-English-speaking students, while simultaneously supporting their performance in school. English-speaking students are also within the classroom, while instruction is split between English and the home language of the non-native English speakers. Despite the original focus of equity in these programs, there seems to have been a growing interest in DLPs from native English speakers whose goals are most closely related to human capital and globalization views. In addition, disparities in funding highlight the lack of value placed on DLPs when it comes to equity for non-native English speakers, which are ultimately rooted in the history of oppressive bilingual education policies. The globalization view, coupled with funding inequities, could lead to resource hoarding among certain groups, ultimately negatively affecting English learners’ labor market outcomes later in life due to an inability to access DLPs and utilize the benefits that come from them.

Teachers’ implementation of bilingual education in Taiwan: challenges and arrangements

This qualitative study reports on the early implementation of bilingual education by teachers working in pre-tertiary contexts in Taiwan, with a specific focus on perceived challenges and the resulting bilingual education arrangements. Taiwan’s public schools have begun to implement bilingual education in response to the Bilingual 2030 policy. Several scholars have identified potential challenges that may affect implementation. However, little is known about the challenges perceived by teachers and their effect on the implementation of bilingual education. This study addresses this gap using data collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers from various academic disciplines in five primary schools and five junior high schools in northern Taiwan. Three challenges and six bilingual education arrangements were reported by the participating teachers. The paper discusses how these challenges may produce varying arrangements that are designed to achieve different outcomes, highlighting the need for policymakers to clearly define the intended outcomes of the bilingual education policy.

The effect of early enrollment in dual-language immersion programs on children’s English reading development: findings from a 5-year longitudinal study

ABSTRACT The present study examined the effect of children’s enrollment in U.S. dual-language immersion (DLI) programs in first grade on English development across five years, using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2011 (ECLS-K:2011) database. Propensity score matching was used to create comparable groups of DLI and non-DLI students based on students’ kindergarten reading performance and a series of student-, family-, and school-level characteristics. Growth curve models demonstrate that first-grade DLI enrollment had a positive effect on children’s English reading growth from Grade 1 to 5. Children who enrolled in DLI experienced greater improvements by Grade 5. We also found that first-grade teacher judgment was related to children’s initial reading performance but not their reading growth. Implications related to DLI programs, teacher practices, and bilingual educational policies are discussed.

Empowering local bilingual teachers through extending the pedagogy of multiliteracies in Taiwan’s primary education

In 2018, Taiwan announced a bilingual education policy. Since then, bilingual teacher development has been a national priority, which has created anxiety and concerns among local Taiwanese teachers, who are expected to teach in the English medium. By extending the core values, design principles and inspired practices from New London Group’s (1996) pedagogy of multiliteracies (PoM), we present how a local Taiwanese teacher in a Grade 1 content and language integrated learning mathematics class successfully leveraged translingual and trans-semiotic resources in an English-as-a-foreign-language context, which in turn facilitated learners’ multilingual production. The findings show that trans-semiotizing helps bilingual teachers effectively deliver and support content learning, whereas translanguaging enables bilingual teachers to create a positive environment which encourages learners’ multilingual production. This study provides an opportunity for Taiwan’s educators to productively navigate problems arising from the bilingual education policy and nativespeakerism in Taiwan through creatively adapting the PoM. This study concludes with directions for bilingual teacher education.

Selling and resisting English-medium schooling on Milwaukee’s multilingual Near South Side: A typology of choice schools’ marketing strategies

Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families of English learner-identified children to navigate school choice structures, and raised critical questions about the information that is made available through school marketing. At a time of increasing tension around school choice and the rapid expansion of certain forms of bilingual education, we argue for the importance of documenting language minoritized parents’ experiential knowledge as one means of combating choice-based exclusion. Drawing from theories of racial capitalism, language ideologies, and language policy, we analyze charter and voucher school websites and interview data from a nine-month critical bifocal ethnography on the intersections and tensions between bilingual education and school choice policy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our findings identify six marketing strategies that choice schools employed on Milwaukee’s Near South Side, a place with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking, low-income Latinx families. We also present one working-class Mexican father’s narrative of choosing a school for his child as an example of the ways in which parents actively resist the racializing logics embedded within choice-based, marketized school systems. The article provides policy agents with a typology to help generate additional, place-specific analyses of the marketization of language education in multilingual communities.

Constructing a teaching capability maturity model for content and language integrated learning teachers in Taiwan

The national policy of bilingual education will inevitably entail a demand for content and language integrated learning (CLIL) teachers. Consequently, feasible and sustainable CLIL teacher education in Taiwan will be required. This study explored a teaching capability maturity model for CLIL teachers based on the level of maturity of teachers’ teaching capabilities. The modified Delphi method and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process were used. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit 33 interdisciplinary professional CLIL teachers. The three most important levels in the model were the basic course management, advanced course management and implementation, and initial levels. Implications of the results are discussed and suggestions for CLIL teacher education are proposed, such as emphasising the development of course management capabilities and providing teachers with practical experience in teaching content subjects.

Colombian ELT Community and Scholarship: Current Pathways and Potency

This editorial article reflects on the paradigmatic changes that the Colombian ELT community has recently experienced due to the developments of local scholarship in varied topics. This editorial article makes the changes evident by introducing the papers for this special issue of HOW journal on its 30th anniversary. These include topics as interculturality, literacy, English language pre-service teacher construction and professional development, critical views about bilingual education policy, and the interrelation between gender and ELT. The local scholarship development in these topics displays a rupture with the ELT canon. By so doing, the Colombian ELT scholarship shows a potency that wields foundations for the ELT field in the country.

Emergence and Development of a Research Area in Language Education Policies: Our Contribution to Setting the Grounds for a Local Perspective on Policymaking

This article presents our narration of the emergence and development of a research area about the teaching and learning of the English language in Colombia and the creation of a research group named Critical Studies of Colombian Education Policies. The narration includes a description of the bilingual education policy in Colombia and a literature review of how the themes Different Shades of the Colombian National Plan of Bilingualism and Theoretical and Practical Concerns over Bilingualism have been addressed by authors of local journals, such as How, Profile, Íkala, and Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, in the issues published from 2008 to 2020. The description and literature review link the life stories of our growth as teachers and researchers as related to the research area and research group mentioned above. A final part of the narration refers to our contributions to the ELT field in Colombia through the following two themes: Dimensions of Language Policies: A Political Discourse Perspective and Making Teachers’ Agency Relevant: Bottom-up Approaches to the Study of Language Education Policies.

Bilingual education for self-determination: Re-centering Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x student voices

ABSTRACT In recent decades, bilingual education policies, programs, pedagogies, and practices have been constrained by neoliberal agendas which have undermined the radical vision of bilingual education as a means toward self-determination that the Chicana/o Movement youth articulated more than 50 years ago. This narrowing of educational possibilities has perpetuated the marginalization of bi/multilingual students from Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x backgrounds who comprise the majority of “English-language Learners” in public schools. In this theoretical essay, we re-center the calls of 1960s Chicana/o Movement youth (and parents and educators) and argue that to realize their radical vision, bilingual education and educators must deliberately re-center and engage dialogically with contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x bi/multilingual students’ critical assessments about their lived intersectional experiences with language, power, identities, and schooling. To this end, we propose what we call Bilingual Education for Self-determination against Oppression (BESO). We see contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x bi/multilingual children and youth as uniquely positioned to advance radical forms of bilingual education, like the type envisioned by Chicana/o Movement youth activists. We conclude with implications for the realization of BESO in practice and policy.

Understanding CLIL from an ELF perspective: language in Taiwanese primary bilingual education

Abstract Recent global developments have intensified the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), the principal means of communication employed among speakers of different linguistic backgrounds to interact worldwide. Consequently, there has been a growing interest in the pedagogical implications and applications of ELF in language teaching and learning. Few works, though, have investigated the influence of ELF in bilingual education such as in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The current paper describes the design and implementation of a CLIL + ELF observation tool that was used to study a pilot CLIL program in Taiwan and to anticipate CLIL teachers’ training needs. The data collected from the rubric were contrasted with several unstructured interviews. The rubric contains 10 criteria developed from previous CLIL and ELF studies including: learners’ L1 and L2 proficiency; teachers’ L2 proficiency; teachers’ ability to reflect upon their practice; their familiarity with CLIL and ELF methodologies; and the school’s commitment to bilingual education and language policy considerations. Using these criteria, the researchers identified many positive results such as teachers’ growing familiarity with CLIL and their use of class management language, content-related language, and academic communication. The study also suggests areas for improvement such as the need for teacher training regarding ELF.

Prospects and Challenges of Bilingual Education in the Light of Pakistan’s Language Policy

This research study explores prospects and challenges of bilingual education in the light of language policy of Pakistan. It directs the scholars and policymakers to revisit the notion of language and norms of traditional bilingual education. However, the researcher brings in light that translanguaging as a particular model facilitates for understanding dynamic multilingualism to promote social justice to languages and their speakers. The implementation of this model is viable in both theory and practice. The issue of monoglossic model of bilingual education in Pakistan is yet to be dealt with. Moreover, the researcher employed qualitative empirical method and used secondary data from previous studies to investigate the problem. Additionally, the findings reveal that the subtractive language policy, linguistic hegemony, politicians’ monolingual politics are challenges to the dynamic bilingual education. On the other hand, multilingual reality and its practice, speakers’ multilingual repertoire, transcultural interaction of students are important prospects of dynamic bilingual education policy in Pakistan. The study also highlights the research gap in Pakistani bilingual classrooms from the latest approach of translanguaging and dynamic model of bilingualism which can direct a multilingual language policy of Pakistan.

Bilingual education and beyond: how school settings shape the Chinese Yi minority’s socio-cultural attachments

ABSTRACT Bilingual education policy in Liangshan, China, has been implemented since the end of the 1970s using two bilingual school models. This study examines how mainstream and bilingual education are correlated with the Yi population’s social attachment to the larger social system, and their cultural attachment to ethnocultural maintenance. The student-reported survey data collected from ten junior high schools in Liangshan were analysed using a multinomial logistic regression model that produced three findings. Firstly, family socioeconomic status is determinant in the Yi minority’s school setting choices. Secondly, school settings are significantly associated with Yi students’ educational achievements and occupational expectations. Lastly, Yi minority’s cultural attachments to their mother tongue has become significantly reduced among those attending Chinese-only schools, yet no significant discrepancy has been noted among students attending schools with two models of bilingual education.

Language teaching and bilingual education policies in Scotland and Andalusia: A language-use-based comparative study

European countries and their regions are trying to develop quality foreign language policies to help citizens become communicatively competent. The Spanish region of Andalusia has implemented Bilingual Education since 2005, whereas in the United Kingdom the take-up rates of languages in schools are low despite the linguistic demands that Brexit will pose to citizens. Scotland, however, seems keen on promoting the inclusion of languages into curricula. Analysing language policies may help understand differences between both contexts and, ultimately, build synergies between the educational administrations of these countries. Considering that corpus linguistic analysis of language policies allows identifying political ideologies permeating language policy and planning, this article studies and compares the use of language in Scottish and Andalusian language teaching policies. Although differences are identified in terms of the focus of the instruction and the language approach followed, findings show the efforts of Andalusia and Scotland to foster plurilingualism.

“Now it’s all upper-class parents who are checking out schools”: gentrification as coloniality in the enactment of two-way bilingual education policies

Bilingual education as a whole has been gentrifying, as more privileged students replace Transnational Language Learners (TLLs) in bilingual education spaces and policies (Valdez et al. in Educ Policy 30(6):849–883, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904814556750 ). We argue this is an extension of coloniality (Mignolo in Local histories/global designs: coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2000/2012): as two-way bilingual education (TWBE) policies are enacted, they are shaped by globalizing, neoliberal, and monoglossic discourses that have a history of dispossessing and erasing minoritized peoples and languages. Taking a critical constructivist grounded theory approach, this study brings together three unique data sets from the US Midwest, Southeast, and Texas to question: How does gentrification manifest in TWBE across policy scales and contexts? And how are stakeholders responding to or resisting gentrification and its underlying coloniality? Regardless of the varying state policy and local contexts, each TWBE program in our study experienced gentrification. Specifically, TLLs and their Spanish language(s) were replaced or diminished as TWBE policy enactment intersected with district and state policies, particularly those shaping enrollment, transportation, course scheduling, and teacher and student recruitment. While the analysis focuses on gentrification processes through policy enactment, we also detail spaces of consciousness where stakeholders recognized and resisted them and conclude with a discussion on how coloniality is both manifested and can be challenged in language policy enactment.

Grassroots resistance and activism to one-size-fits-all and separate-but-equal policies by 90:10 dual language schools en comunidades latinas

ABSTRACT Bilingual education—chiefly the subcategory of dual language bilingual education—has been undergoing a pattern where the interests of language-minoritized communities have in several contexts been pushed out of the way. One aspect of this gentrification process has been the fiftyfication of dual language bilingual education policy, where privilege is placed on a 50:50 balance of language allocation between English and the partner language. Using thematic narrative analysis, we looked at the only two dual language bilingual education schools in the U.S. state of Utah with a 90:10 language allocation. Findings show that (a) the two charter schools were pressured in multiple ways to conform to the state’s fiftyfication policy, and (b) the schools and their Latina/o communities resisted the policy and associated pressures on behalf of their students through forms of grassroots language activism and bottom-up resistance. Although these actions ultimately resulted in the official revision of the state’s DLBE policy to be inclusive of multiple language allocation models, the schools had to continue their activism to benefit from the policy change as the state then moved to a separate-but-equal policy approach that continued the privileging of the 50:50 model. Implications for scholars and policymakers are discussed.

Bilingual Policy Implementation in Ras Al Khaimah

Discourses on globalization and knowledge societies have encouraged an increasing number of governments to institute bilingual education policies to develop citizens’ fluency in English and a native language. To diversify the country’s economic activity, extensive bilingualism in Arabic and English has long been a goal of governments in the United Arab Emirates. Utilizing questionnaires and interviews with school teachers and school leaders, this study investigates the processes by which they are embedding this policy in government schools in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.

A critique of Taiwan’s bilingual education policy through a ROAD-MAPPING of teacher experiences

ABSTRACT Bilingual education is spreading throughout the world as an approach for teaching content and language simultaneously. This is particularly true in Taiwan where implementation of bilingual education has begun as directed by the Blueprint for Developing Taiwan into a Bilingual Nation by 2030. However, the spread of bilingual education is often coupled with policies influenced by monolingual ideologies. This collaborative autoethnography critically examines the experiences of two teachers, an American and Taiwanese English teacher, teaching in a bilingual elementary program in Taiwan. Guided by the ROADMAPPING Framework, we critically evaluate our experiences with bilingual education in order to provide a critique of the policy directives for bilingual education implementation in Taiwan. Several issues are addressed including the promotion of monolingual classrooms, the balance of content and language in bilingual education, the use of Western curricula and materials, the hiring of native English speaking teachers (NESTs), and the disconnects and effects that result from the importing of Western practices. From this analysis, we suggest that Taiwan should pursue a glocalized, rather than an internationalized, bilingual education in order to fully achieve its goals of becoming a bilingual nation.