Spanish language proficiency in dual language and English as a second language models: the impact of model, time, teacher, and student on Spanish language development

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic information of target schools in the 2018–2019 school year.

District	School	Language program model	Total # of students	Total # of Emergent Bilinguals	% of emergent bilinguals	% students of color	% of special education	% of SES
Mapleton	Mapleton TX Elem.	DLBE 50/50/2T	518	234	45.2	65.6	9.8	61.0
	Mapleton Comp. Elem.	ESL	354	146	41.2	65.0	14.4	71.8
Silton	Silton TX Elem.	DLBE 90/10/1T	769	235	30.6	71.1	4.7	45.1
	Silton Comp. Elem.	ESL	602	58	9.6	74.6	14.1	65.6
	Silton Comp. Kinder center	ESL	162	25	15.4	74.6	18.7	59.6

Table 2. School sites of investigation, N = 94.

School name (pseudonym)	Program model	# of tests (over 2 years)	# of teachers	Site type
Mapleton TX Elem.	DLBE 50/50/2T	42	4	Treatment
Mapleton Comp. Elem.	ESL	40	4	Comparison
Silton TX Elem.	DLBE 90/10/1T	76	5	Treatment
Silton Comp. Elem.	ESL	20	4	Comparison
Silton Comp. Kinder center	ESL	10	1	Comparison
Total		188	18

Table 3. LAS Links Español score ranges by language domain and grade level.

	Kindergarten and Grade 1		Grades 2 and 3		Grades 4 and 5
	Min SS	Max SS	Min SS	Max SS	Min SS	Max SS
Listening	245	550	280	580	335	655
Speaking	290	590	290	610	290	675
Reading	215	560	280	630	330	720
Writing	300	630	320	685	320	695

Table 4. Descriptions of Spanish language proficiency levels by language domain and level (CTB/McGraw-Hill LLC 2013a, p. 10)

Grade-span level proficiency level descriptors Table D.2 Proficiency level descriptors, Kindergarten Please note that the performance level descriptors represent a progression of skills and abilities. Skills and abilities specified in lower-performance levels are likely demonstrated by students in the higher-performance levels and may not be noted in the higher-level descriptors for a grade or grade range.
Kindergarten	Hablando	Escuchando	Lectura	Escritura
1 Beginning	Beginning students are starting to develop receptive and productive skills in Spanish.	Beginning students are starting to develop receptive and productive skills in Spanish.	Beginning students are starting to develop receptive and productive skills in Spanish.	Beginning students are starting to develop receptive and productive skills in Spanish.
2 Early intermediate	Early Intermediate students typically use basic vocabulary and simple phrases to name or describe common objects and express opinions or preferences in social and academic situations. They narrate a story related to a sequence of pictures about school-related activities using basic vocabulary. Restricted vocabulary and developing grammar limit expression. Errors frequently impede communication.	Early Intermediate students typically follow some simple oral directions using knowledge of everyday tasks, basic academic vocabulary, and familiar locations. Errors frequently impede communication and comprehension.	Early Intermediate students typically identify capital and lowercase letters in isolation and identify beginning, middle, and ending sounds. They match text to pictures and recognize high-frequency words. Errors frequently impede comprehension.	Early Intermediate students typically copy simple words and sentences that describe pictures or other prompts. Errors frequently impede communication.
3 Intermediate	Intermediate students typically use appropriate words and phrases when conducting transactions, making requests, and asking for clarification. They narrate a story related to a sequence of pictures about school-related activities using mostly accurate, although limited, vocabulary. They provide mostly clear information although errors interfere with communication.	Intermediate students typically follow simple oral directions. They identify the main ideas and details and make some inferences in simple oral stories. Errors interfere with communication and comprehension.	Intermediate students typically decode words, identify some main ideas, and recall details and events from a passage read independently. Errors interfere with comprehension.	Intermediate students typically write one or more words to describe a picture or respond to other prompts. Students are beginning to recognize correct sentence format. Errors interfere with communication.
4 Proficient	Proficient students typically produce simple and accurate sentences when making requests and asking for clarifications. They use appropriate words and phrases to label and describe the purpose of less common objects. They narrate a story related to a sequence of pictures about school-related activities using accurate vocabulary. Minor errors do not interfere with communication.	Proficient students typically follow more complex oral directions and draw inferences from oral stories. They identify the main ideas in more complex stories.	Proficient students typically read sentences or short passages independently. They identify rhyming words and identify main ideas and recall details in a passage. Errors do not interfere with comprehension.	Proficient students typically use correct basic grammar and capitalize the beginning of a sentence. They identify standard sentence structure and generate descriptive and explanatory sentences. Errors do not interfere with communication.
5 Above proficient	Above Proficient students typically produce simple sentences and use correct grammar when making requests, asking for clarification, and describing situations. They narrate a story with extensive and accurate vocabulary and grammar appropriate to their age.	Above Proficient students typically recall sequence of events from oral stories that have advanced vocabulary.	Above Proficient students typically use context clues to determine word meanings. They recall subtle details, identify sequences, and make inferences in a passage read independently.	Above Proficient students typically write a complete sentence to describe a picture or respond to other prompts. They use correct punctuation in exclamatory, declarative, and interrogative sentences. Communication is clear and complete, although content may contain minor errors.

Table 5. Statistics strategies to address each analytic difficulty.

Analytic difficulty	Statistics strategy
Data Set
Selection bias in comparison vs. experimental groups	Test matching methods (Propensity Score Matching, Mahalanobis Distance Matching, Coarsened Exact Matching, Mahalanobis frontier, L1 frontier) to maximize both the subsample size and balance of covariates (King et al. 2011; Stuart 2010)
Outcome variables
Nested data (students within classes within schools …)	Multilevel analysis (aka Hierarchical linear modeling, Goldstein 2011)
Multiple outcomes (Y1, Y2, … )	Multivariate outcome multilevel analysis (Goldstein 2011) Multilevel Structural equation model (Joreskog and Sorbom 2018)
Explanatory variables
Many hypotheses’ false positives	Two-stage linear step-up procedure (Benjamini, Krieger, and Yekutieli 2006)
Compare effect sizes (β1 > β2?)	Lagrange multiplier tests (Bertsekas 2014)
Consistency of results across data sets (Robustness)	Separate multilevel, single outcome models Analyses of subsets of the data (Kennedy 2008)

Table 6. Treatment and comparison teacher characteristics.

District	School	Teacher grade level	Language program model	Language(s) of instruction	Teacher's years of experience	Teacher's reported overall proficiency in English (1–5)*	Teacher's reported overall proficiency in Spanish (1–5)*
Mapleton treatments	Mapleton TX	Kinder	DLBE 50/50/2T	English	3	4	1
	Mapleton TX	Kinder	DLBE 50/50/2T	Spanish	2	5	5
	Mapleton TX	1st	DLBE 50/50/2T	English	35	5	Did not report
	Mapleton TX	1st	DLBE 50/50/2T	Spanish	14	Did not report	5
Mapleton comparisons	Mapleton Comp	Kinder	ESL	English	22	5	Did not report
	Mapleton Comp	Kinder	ESL	English	5	5	5
	Mapleton Comp	1st	ESL	English	5	3.5	Did not report
	Mapleton Comp	1st	ESL	English	21	5	4.5
Silton treatments	Silton TX elem	Kinder	DLBE 90/10/1T	Spanish and English	3	5	4
	Silton TX elem	1st	DLBE 90/10/1T	Spanish and English	5	5	3
	Silton TX elem	1st	DLBE 90/10/1T	Spanish and English	8	5	5
	Silton TX elem	3rd	DLBE 90/10/1T	Spanish and English	6.5	5	5
	Silton TX elem	3rd	DLBE 90/10/1T	Spanish and English	14	5	5
Silton comparisons	Silton comp ELC	Kinder	ESL	English	11	5	Did not report
	Silton Comp elem	1st	ESL	English	21	5	Did not report
	Silton Comp elem	1st	ESL	English	17	5	Did not report
	Silton Comp elem	3rd	ESL	English	16	5	Did not report
	Silton Comp elem	3rd	ESL	English	3	5	Did not report

Note: Teachers self-reported their language proficiency in English and/or Spanish (*), reporting for the language(s) they ‘used on a daily basis.’ Proficiency levels were defined based on the US Department of State's language proficiency definitions – 1: beginner; 2: intermediate; 3: advanced-low; 4: advanced-high; 5: native or native-like.

https://careers.state.gov/faq-items/language-proficiency-definitions/

Table 7. Summary statistics (N = 188).

Variable	Mean	SD	Minimum	Median	Maximum
Student
Female	0.457
Free/reduced lunch	0.920
Special ed	0.043
Grade	1.330	1.064
Age (years)	7.06	1.09	5.28	6.90	10.12
Speaking score	468.45	39.507	290	475	590
Listening score	419.81	41.609	280	414	550
Reading score	383.94	72.772	215	377	566
Writing score	402.77	74.221	300	412	588
School
Total staff	34.683	6.186	17	39	40
Years of experience (%)
0–5	0.284	0.112	0.175	0.286	0.455
6–10	0.185	0.058	0.107	0.154	0.25
11–15	0.219	0.052	0.176	0.2	0.321
16–20	0.114	0.052	0.061	0.077	0.175
20+	0.198	0.034	0.152	0.2	0.294
% Teachers	0.799	0.059	0.714	0.8	1
% Licensed teachers	0.705	0.123	0.575	0.714	1

Note: Possible scale score ranges on Las Links Español varied depending on the language domain and the grade-level band. For example, possible score ranges for Reading were 215–560 for K-1, 280–630 for 2–3, and 330–720 for 4–5; for speaking, the ranges were 290–590 for K-1, 290–610 for 2–3, and 290–675 for 4–5.

Table 8. Overall Spanish proficiency levels and differences across program type.

	Speaking			Listening			Reading			Writing
Program	2018	2019	Diff	2018	2019	Diff	2018	2019	Diff	2018	2019	Diff
ESL	3.24	3.28	0.03	2.80	2.93	0.12	1.51	1.48	−0.04	1.27	1.13	−0.14
DLBE 50/50/2T	3.64	3.52	−0.12	2.93	2.72	−0.21	1.39	1.60	0.21	1.14	1.12	−0.02
DLBE 90/10/1T	3.98	3.65	−0.33	2.94	3.07	0.13	1.70	2.35	0.65	1.72	1.87	0.15

Table 9. Summary of multivariate outcome, multilevel results modeling speaking, listening, reading and writing test scores.

Explanatory variable	Speaking	Listening	Reading	Writing
Female				22.352*
				(9.513)
Age			0.105***	0.075***
			(0.011)	(0.009)
Grade		27.810*
		(10.953)
Free or Reduced Lunch	32.080***		−44.192*
	(6.910)		(17.923)
DLBE 90/10/1T	19.910**			23.402**
	(6.211)			(9.055)
DLBE 50/50/2T			−26.916***	−27.018**
			(7.235)	(8.623)

Level	Variance	Expl	Variance	Expl	Variance	Expl	Variance	Expl
Teacher	17%	0.964	30%	1.000	28%	0.658	45%	0.831
Student	47%	0.018	24%	0.000	24%	0.000	19%	0.000
Time	36%	0.000	46%	0.231	51%	0.358	36%	0.189
Total variance explained		0.172		0.406		0.367		0.442

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Note: The bold is used to bring light to the findings of importance.

Table

Grades	Mean	SD	Median
Speaking
K	485	46.91	492
1	503	49.61	509
2–3	512	53.75	508
4–5	532	69.02	525
Listening
K-1	406	70.27	409
2–3	469	61.34	470
4–5	498	66.74	501
Reading
K-1	376	69.73	374
2–3	469	58.90	472
4–5	488	67.25	488
Writing
K	378	58.43	368
1	454	60.47	461
2–3	488	62.98	495
4–5	503	72.04	504

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