Introduction

The scope of this research paper is to look at one dual language program in terms of one of the critical features necessary for a successful bilingual program.According to Cloud, Genesee and Hamayan (2000), in their handbook on successful program design for bilingual programs, one of the critical features in DL is that the languages remain separate during instruction time.For example in a 50/50 model, in the 50% of the time designated as Spanish time, the instructor should strictly maintain instruction and social talk in Spanish.Compliance with this critical feature could have a significant influence on the progress made by the students, both English and Spanish speaking, in the dual language program.

My research question is whether the amount of Spanish spoken by the teacher, assistant and students in the dual language program is greater than the amount of Spanish spoken by the teacher, assistant and students in the regular program. I need to find out how much Spanish is used in the Spanish part of the dual language day, and, whether the amount of Spanish compares with the amount of Spanish heard or used in the mainstream or English kindergarten class.If Spanish is not used as the primary language of instruction during the Spanish part of the instructional day, then the program design would be compromised.The test data at the end of the year comparing progress in language acquisition from the beginning to the end of the academic year would not accurately reflect the results of a true dual language program.Also, the research that children in a DL program will show strong academic results after four years in the program, might not be valid in this case since the program did not comply with a successful program design.

The assumption in a 50/50 model of a dual language program is that for 50% of the day children receive instruction in the primary language and 50% of the day the children receive instruction in English (Collier, Cummings, Cloud, et al).To develop literacy skills in two languages, the lessons must be “cognitively complex on grade-level academic instruction.” (Diaz-Rico, p.174), not watered down language with translation.In fact, the translation model has been shown to be ineffective because if the students whose language is not being used know that the translation is coming, they will tune out and wait for their primary language (Diaz-Rico, 2002).McGroarty also notes in her chapter on Bilingual Approaches to Language Learning (in Celce-Murcia, 2001) that in order for the two languages to be developed appropriately, both must be accorded the status of exclusive medium of instruction for a variety of content areas as well as extra curricular activities. The minority and majority languages must have equal status.One way to assure language equity is to keep the primary language and English separated by either subject matter (Spanish for math, English for science, and so on), scheduling (one day in Spanish and the next in English), or by personnel (one teacher speaks only Spanish and the other speaks only English). Separation of the two languages of instruction is a critical feature of successful dual language program design.

In my study, I observed in two Dual Language kindergarten classes and two regular kindergarten classes for two 30 minute segments over a period of two weeks.I observed during the instructional time, rather than playtime, free time or a special subject such as Art, Music or PE.In each class I observed for about 10 minutes and then charted the frequency of Spanish use and English use by the teacher, assistant and the students for 20 minutes.The teachers were informed that I was there just to observe language use of the students to see what English or Spanish structures were most commonly used.I asked the teachers to do what they normally do since I was there to listen to the children.

Observation 1:The first DL class consisted of 20 students, 10 Spanish speakers and 10 English speakers.I observed during the Spanish instruction part of the day.The teacher is bilingual, with Spanish as her first language and the assistant’s primary language is also Spanish.The teacher greeted me in English and spoke to me in English.The children came into the room, had snack and then free reading time before settling down to the lesson.The children sat at tables, in arrangements that seemed to be along language lines.

The teacher spoke English to the English speaking children and Spanish to the Spanish speakers.The assistant did the same.The students used predominantly English from my observations.The charted results appear below in Table 1. (DL)
 

Time	10:30	10:32	10:34	10:36	10:38	10:40	10:42	10:44	10:46	10:48
Teacher	EE	EEE	SSSEEEE	SSSS	SSSEEEE	SSSSSSEE	SESSSSESEEEE	SSEEEEEE	SSEEEEEE	SSSEEES
Assistant				SSEESS	EESS		S
Students	EEEE		EEEEEESS	EEEEESS	EEEEE	EEEEESEE	EEEEES	EEEESSEE	EEEESSEEE	SSSEEE

Table 1

During the observation, the teacher would give instructions in Spanish and then in English.Even the song that they eagerly sang in Spanish was eventually sung in English. The percentage of language usage during 20 minutes show that 37% of the 138 recorded utterances were in Spanish and 63% were in English.(See chart 1)

Observation 2.The second observation was also in the DL language class.The language breakdown is 10 English speakers and 10 Spanish speakers.The teacher and assistant are both bilingual with Spanish as their primary language.The activities in this class were very similar to those in the first observation.The children entered from lunch, had a short playtime and then settled down to the teacher directed lesson.

Here is observed language use from Class 2 (DL)
 

Time	12:28	12:30	12:32	12:34	12:36	12:38	12:40	12:42	12:44	12:46
Teacher	EESS	SSE	ESSEE	EEE	SSS	SEE	ESS	EEEES	SSSSEE	ESSE
Assistant		SE	SEE		S		SSESES		SSEE	SEEE
Students		SEEE	EEEE	EEEEE	SSS	EEE	EESSSE		SSSSEE	EEEE

Table 2

In this class, the teacher seemed more comfortable teaching in English and seemed to use English in both instruction and in social language with the English-speaking students.The Spanish-speaking students addressed the teacher in Spanish and she answered them in Spanish most of the time.The assistant used English with the English speaking students and Spanish with the Hispanics.She used Spanish with the teacher.

During the 20 minute observation, there were 94 utterances.Forty of them were in Spanish.The percentage of Spanish and English during the recorded time is:42.5% Spanish and 57.5% English.This was during the Spanish instructional part of the day. (See chart 2)

Observation 3:In the regular kindergarten class there were 19 children, 10 Spanish speakers, 8 English speakers and 1 Ethiopian.The teacher is a monolingual English speaker and the assistant’s primary language is Spanish.The same kinds of activities were observed. The children entered the room, had snack and a short free time before settling down to the lesson.All of the children used English with the teacher and the Spanish speakers used Spanish with the assistant.The Spanish-speaking children alternated between Spanish and English with their classmates.

Here is the observed language use from Class 3 (regular).
 

Time	10:38	10:40	10:42	10;44	10:46	10:48	10:50	10:52	10:54	10:56
Teacher	EEE		EEE	EEE	EE	E	EE	EE	EEE	E
Assistant	SSSEEEE		SSE	SESSSSS	SESSSSS	SS	ESSSE	SSEE	SEEEE	ESSS
Students	EEESSSES		EEESEE	EESSEE	EESSEE	SEEEE	EEEEEEE	EEEEE	SSEEEEEEE	ESSSSSSEE

Table 3

Out of 125 utterances, 46 were in Spanish during the 20 minute period.In percentages, 36.8% of the time Spanish was used in the regular kindergarten classroom. (see Chart 3)

Observation 4:The 4^th observation took place in a regular kindergarten class with a monolingual English teacher and an assistant whose primary language is Spanish.The class followed a slightly different routine from the other regular class.The students entered the room, had snack and then brief free time before settling down to group work at tables.The tables seemed to be divided by primary language groups.There were 20 students in the class, 12 Hispanics and 8 English speakers.There was no direct instruction.The teacher and the assistant circulated among the tables and spoke to individual students.

Here is the observation chart for observation 4 (regular) kindergarten class.
 

Time	10:50	10:52	10:54	10:56	10:58	11:00	11:02	11:04	11:06	11:08
Teacher	EE	EE	E	EEE	EEE	EE		EE	E
Assistant	SS	ESSSS	SSEE	SESS	SSS	SS	SSES	SSSS	SSESS	SSSS
Students	ESSSEEE	SS	ESSE	EESSS	SSS	SS	SSSE	SSSSE	ESSES	SSSSS

Table 4

The teacher dealt with the students whose English was proficient and the assistant circulated among the tables where there were English language learners.Even though there is only one student in the class who can not express himself in English, the assistant, who is not fluent in English, used Spanish with all of the Hispanic students.The children switched from Spanish to English when the teacher addressed them.

Out of the 95 utterances during the 20 minute observation, 61 of them were in Spanish.That means that 64% of the language during the observation was Spanish and 36% was in English. (see chart 4)

Looking at the percentage of Spanish in the chart below, it would be difficult to tell which is the dual language class and which is the regular one.The use of English in the dual language class is greater than the use of English in one of the regular classes.The Spanish instruction part of the DL day is more than 50% in English.In one of the regular Kindergarten classes, since the assistant is not fluent in English, there is more Spanish spoken than in the Spanish part of the DL class. (Use APA table format ? you’ll get gigged on that in any other GMU class).

	% of Spanish utterances	% of English utterances	Total
Dual Language 1	37	63	100
Dual Language 2	40	60	100
Regular 1	37	63	100
Regular 2	64	36	100

Table 5

These observations show that there is not a significant difference between the amount of Spanish in the DL classroom and the amount of Spanish in the regular classroom.If this is the way that instruction is carried out every day during the Spanish part of the DL program, then the children are not receiving an equal amount of Spanish and English during the day.

When I asked the DL teacher why she used so much English, her response correlated with an observation in Dual Language Instruction that when the teachers had to make sure that the students understood the content, the temptation was to use the native language of the student. (Cloud, et al, 2000).The teacher switched to English when the content was taught. If the teacher switches to English consistently to teach academic content, then Spanish becomes the social language and English the academic language.This defies the goals of a successful dual language program, which is to use both languages as languages of instruction.The teacher’s rationale is that the students will be tested in English.

Charts for observation 1:Dual Language Class

Charts for the first observation show that Spanish was used 36% of the time during the Spanish part of the instructional day.

Charts 2 for the second observation also show that English was used more than

Charts 3 for third observation ? regular kindergarten class

In this regular Kindergarten classroom the teacher is monolingual with English as her only language.The assistant speaks both languages with Spanish being dominant. The ratio of Spanish/English in this regular class is the same as the ratio of Spanish/English in the Spanish part of the dual language class.

Charts for observation 4 in a regular Kindergarten classroom

In this class, the teacher is monolingual in English and the assistant is Spanish-speaking.There is more Spanish than English during the instructional part of the day.(This raises an interesting point that the assistant is instructing the Spanish-speaking children.She is not a certified teacher.)

I observed only 30 minutes out of a 90-minute instructional period.During that time the amount of Spanish used by the staff and students in both DL classes was less than 50%.It is possible that during the other 60 minutes of the Spanish time, Spanish is used exclusively.From the attitude of the teacher, I doubt that this would be the case.

Another possible limitation of the brief study is that the students know that I am an ESL teacher and they always use English with me outside the classroom.They may have thought that they needed to speak English when I was in the room.When I was finished recording the Spanish/English utterances, I remained in the room to circulate among the children.A group of them asked me to read to them from a book they had chosen.The book was in Spanish.I read in Spanish and they told me that I could read it to them in English.The remark was unsolicited and I am fluent in Spanish.My reaction to their remark is that they are more accustomed to hearing English than Spanish in the classroom.

This study is not generalizable because it was a short period of time and in a very specific program.I believe that what I observed is reflective of the general methodology of the teachers involved. The children are accustomed to having visitors in the classroom since it is a new program and has drawn a lot of scrutiny from the school district office as well as other bilingual programs in the area.My presence in the classroom was not disruptive.Some of the children in the class know me from the school but they also know that I am an English teacher and that I do not use Spanish in the classroom.This could have influenced the children to use more English than customary.But I believe that they reacted normally since most of the children ignored my presence.Only in the first observation did the children address me directly and that occurred after the observation

The four brief observations showed that the DL program is not following the program design that specifically states that the languages of instruction must be treated equally and that they must be kept separate.In both DL classes, Spanish was not used as much as English during the Spanish part of the instructional day.

The observations also point out that in the regular Kindergarten classes, since there is an assistant whose primary language is Spanish, a great part of the instructional time is in Spanish.When the two groups are tested for progress in English at the end of the year, the results should show that since the dual language children are learning in both languages, their progress in English should be slower.But, with all four observed groups using Spanish 40-60% of the instructional time, the results should be very similar.

These observations show that the dual language program is not complying with good program design.Translation method, which is found not to be efficient, is consistently used.Since program design for an effective dual language program requires equal instruction of the two languages (Cloud, et al 2000; Collier, 1995, Cummins, 2001) then non-compliance with the design will skew the results of the testing at the end of the academic year.This program cannot be considered a true dual language program since Spanish is used less than 50%, as the language of instruction during the Spanish part of the day.When evaluating dual language programs, we have to look at not only the program design but also the implementation of the program in terms of actual language division and use.A 50/50 program might be on paper only if the teacher feels that she/he must use the language of the child to teach a concept rather than maintain strict separation of languages.

Equal use of the two languages in a dual language program is a critical feature of program design.When the program does not comply with this feature then the students’ test results will not be a valid evaluation of the program.

(Ideally, we should have figured out a way to check for teacher differences within method differences using a nested ANOVA design.However, due to the very exploratory nature of your study, this was an appropriate analysis.Good work.

References

Celce-Murcia, M. (Ed.). (2001). Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Cloud, N., Genesee, F., & Hamayan, E. (2000).Dual language instruction: A handbook for enriched education. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.

Collier, V. (1995). Promoting academic success for ESL students: Understanding second language acquisition for school. Elizabeth, NJ: New Jersey Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages-Bilingual Education.

Collier, V. & Thomas, W. (2002). A National study of school effectiveness for language minority students; long-term academic achievement. Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence.Retrieved June 17, 2002 from

http://www.crede.ucsc.edu/research/llaa/1/1es.html

Cummins, J. (2001).Empowering minority students:A framework for intervention. Harvard Educational Review 71, No. 4 p. 649-675.

Diaz-Rico, L., & Weed, K. (2002).The crosscultural, language and academic development handbook.Boston:Allyn and Bacon.

McGroarty, M. (2001).Bilingual approaches to language learning. In Celce-Murcia (Ed.) Teaching English as a second or foreign language 3^rd edition. Heinle & Heinle, Boston.

Nieto, S. (1999).The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning communities. New York: Teachers College Press.