Analyzing the curricularization of language in two-way immersion education: Restating two cautionary notes

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on two-way immersion (TWI) education and restates two previously expressed cautionary notes about the unexpected costs of such programs for the Latino community and for children who are racialized speakers of nonmainstream varieties of English. Utilizing an analytical framework focused on the process of curricularizing language, it calls for increased attention to the numerous mechanisms that affect instructional arrangements in which the teaching and learning of additional languages is the goal. It examines the ways that current visions of TWI are: (a) aligned with contemporary theoretical perspectives on the teaching and learning of languages; and (b) sensitive to current concerns about equity and opportunity for vulnerable children whose backgrounds, experiences, and culturally informed expressive norms often profoundly differ from those of mainstream children.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. According to W. Wright (2015), bilingual education models include: Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), Developmental Bilingual Education (DBE), Dual Language or Two-Way Immersion Programs (TWI), and Bilingual Immersion Programs (BI). TBE programs are generally compensatory, designed for early exit and implemented in the early grades for students new to English. DBE programs are late-exit bilingual programs for English language learners that, in addition to English language acquisition, also have minority language maintenance and both bilingualism and biliteracy as a central goal. TWI programs (the focus of this article) are designed as enrichment, additional language programs for both middle-class and minoritized English-speaking students and as English-acquisition programs for minority English language learners. Finally, BI programs are enrichment programs, most analogous to French Immersion programs in Canada, and designed as additional language programs for English-speaking students.

2. In December, 1996, the Oakland, California, School Board passed a resolution seeking the recognition of the African American variety of English spoken natively by Oakland children as a separate language. According to Baugh (2000, pp. 43–45), the original resolution sought to use the Federal Bilingual Education act (20 U.S.C.1402 et. seq.), which mandated that local educational agencies ‘‘build their capacities to establish, implement and sustain programs of instruction for children and youth of limited English proficiency’’ to argue that African American students required the implementation of an academic program that met their language needs. Informed by the Ann Arbor Decision of 1979 (Freeman, 1982) (F.Supp. 1371 (E.D. Mich. 1979)), which ruled that educators needed to take appropriate action to prevent “black English” from becoming a barrier that impeded African American children from equal participation in instructional programs, the Oakland educators went further and argued that these children had unique language needs because they spoke Ebonics, a language other than English. They used the term Ebonics, rather than African American English (AAE) or African American Vernacular English (AAVE) because they also contended that, as speakers of a separate language (rather than a dialect), Black children had a right to special educational services focusing on the acquisition of standard English. They thus proposed the implementation of a bilingual/bicultural language pedagogy (Smitherman, 2000a). Very specifically, the Oakland educators sought to build on the efforts carried out on bilingual education by Latino educators and scholars on behalf of non-English-background children beginning in 1968.

Unfortunately, the fundamental statement about the language needs of African American children went unheard. Debates about Ebonics took center stage. Many in the country had an opinion about Ebonics, Black English, and the varieties of English spoken by African Americans. The question of whether African American students had a right to bilingual education services was settled when the Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, made it clear that Ebonics was not a language other than English and thus Black children did not have a right to Title VII funding reserved for bilingual education programs.

The Ebonics controversy was important to the discussion of two-way immersion programs in a number of ways. First, it established that the African American community was deeply concerned about the relationship between the acquisition of standard English and academic achievement. Second, it argued for special services designed to support children who were not speakers of standard English in acquiring the desired variety. Finally, it revealed that there were, and continue to be, serious tensions surrounding the exclusive availability of language-support resources for limited-English-proficient children of immigrant background.

3. African-American English (AAE) is, like all other language varieties, systematically patterned and rule governed. Referred to by various labels, e.g., African America Vernacular English (AAVE), African American Language (AAL), and Ebonics,it is spoken by some African American adults and children. Reaser, Adger, Wolfram, and Christian (2017) point out that while it shares may features with other varieties of English (e.g., Southern Vernacular English), it is one of the most stigmatized and misrepresented vernacular varieties of English. For an extensive description of AAE, the reader is referred to Green (2002).

4. This figure is based on Valdés & Parra (2018).

5. Segments of this section draw extensively from Valdés & Parra (2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Guadalupe Valdés

Guadalupe Valdés is the Bonnie Katz Tenenbaum Professor of Education at Stanford University. Working in the area of applied linguistics, much of her work has focused on the English-Spanish bilingualism of Latinos in the United States and on discovering and describing how two languages are developed, used, and maintained by individuals who become bilingual in immigrant communities.