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Strategies: Harmful or Helpful? Extending Biliteracy

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Contents

October 2018 6 8 9 12 14

Strategies: Harmful or Helpful?

Kate Kinsella offers a perspective on the impact of too many versus too few evidence-based strategies when teaching English learners

Balancing Language and Literacy Development

54 58 62

Editorial Letters News Source World as We Speak Indigenous Languages Study Abroad Resource Last Writes

Viviana Hall and Julie Kalinowski of Istation advocate using data and technology to help children learn academic subjects while acquiring more than one language

34 Automated Writing 46

Interdisciplinary Biliteracy Sandra Mercuri and Sandra Musanti, suggest leveraging biliteracy development for all bilingual learners

Corey Palermo explains the benefits of automated writing evaluation in the classroom

The Forgotten Group

Kathryn Lindholm-Leary and Ana Hernรกndez help us understand initially fluent English-proficient students in dual-language programs

Evaluating Competency

Linda Egnatz is impassioned by the expanding reach and motivating power of the Seal of Biliteracy

42 52

Dr. Elizabeth Brooke explains how to obtain the right information to improve data-driven instruction

Seal of Biliteracy Goes Global

German Focus

Whatever plans you may have for the future, knowledge of German will increase your options

October 2018 Vol. 18, No. 2 The Journal of Communication & Education Publishing Editor Daniel Ward Assistant Editor/ Creative Director Leanna Robinson Design Jane Drapkin Proofreading Stephanie Mitchell Office Manager Ashley George Book Reviews Karen Russikoff Last Writes Richard Lederer The Word Peter Sokolowski

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Contributors Elizabeth Brooke Ana Hernández Linda Egnatz Viviana Hall Julie Kalinowski Kate Kinsella Kathryn Lindholm-Leary Sandra Mercuri Sandra Musanti Corey Palermo Marketing Emma Sutton

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Cultivating Multilingualism

ccording to the latest data from the Census Bureau (see p15), only 8% of the U.S. population in rural areas speaks a language other than English at home, whereas nearly half the residents of the country’s five largest cities converse in another language when they get home. Anti-immigrant groups and their mouthpieces were quick to jump on the urban statistics as an example of the disintegration of American society resulting from mass immigration, but their reports failed to mention that over 60% of these speakers of other languages also spoke and understood English “very well.” They also ignored the data that clearly shows that the highest percentage of those without a good command of English is found among the elderly—individuals over 65 of all heritages were about three times less likely to speak English very well than those under 25 years old. There are very few immigrants to the U.S. who don’t want to learn English—after all, it’s clearly in their self-interest to do so. But I think it’s safe to assume that learning English becomes less of a priority with age, not only because it accrues fewer benefits in terms of career and social progress but also because learning any new language gets harder for most of us as we age. Once the spin is taken out of the report, these latest statistics are encouraging. They show that about 30% of the residents of our largest cities @languagemagazine are fully bilingual. However, these bilinguals are heritage speakers of other languages, and history has shown that by World Language Teachers the second or third generation, the majority of such bilinguals lose their heritage language. To preserve bilingualism, we facebook.com/ must promote initiatives like LanguageMagazine the Seal of Biliteracy (see p49), while boosting the status of world languages throughout our education systems so that @langmag monolingual English speakers

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no longer believe that ending their formal education speaking just one language is adequate. In major cities with diverse and itinerant populations, it’s much easier to see the practical value of multilingualism and language learning resources are much more accessible, but in rural areas, languages are often regarded as unnecessary and access to trained language educators, or even speakers of other languages, is much more limited. Access to high-speed internet may help with the provision of

“ About 30% of the residents of our largest cities are fully bilingual. “ teachers and programs for rural students looking to expand their language capacity, but online learning requires considerable motivation where, at the moment, there is little. To be motivated to learn another language or even retain a heritage language, rural populations have to be given the opportunity to see that the benefits of globalism are not the sole preserve of city dwellers and that understanding other languages also confers many personal benefits. The current rallying call against globalism is disincentivizing for many would-be language learners who are persuaded that multilingualism is somehow contrary to their interests and even unpatriotic. The reality is that our communication systems have already made globalism a reality and there’s no going back from that now. So, it’s in all of our interests, be we urban, rural, suburban, or nomadic, to work with our reality by endeavoring to understand cultures beyond our traditional enclaves. And, at the same time, understand ourselves better.

Daniel Ward, Editor

October 2018

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Dear Editor

Multilingual Students Succeeding in the U.S. (July 2018) I found this article interesting because, first of all, it once again debunks the myth that American education is broken. Secondly, the study shows very positive results for English learners in terms of academic achievement in the last 15 years. What attracted my attention most in this article was the quote: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The data cannot identify the specific sources for the change in achievement but suggests that a bundle of policy changes which occurred between 2003 and 2015 may have moved schools in the right direction in serving multilingual students.â&#x20AC;? No Child Left Behind was undoubtedly the most significant and impactful education reform in effect during those years and that shaped the face of the American education system we see today. It was also a highly debated and criticized reform. Dr. Diane Ravitch, an education historian and a research professor at New York University, has been a vivid critic of NCLB and its high-stakes testing and test-based accountability. Well, if we believe this study, the children who were left behind ten years ago have been doing significantly better, and indeed reduced the achievement gap. I am an ESOL teacher, and I am not a supporter of either NCLB or ESSA, which replaced it in 2015, but I have to agree that despite all its flaws, NCLB was the first educational

reform that drew serious attention to the EL student population and brought about some fundamental changes including funding and a new monitoring system for academic performance. So what was NCLB: a disaster or a booster for ELs? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to say, but I want to believe that it helped more than it harmed. -Marina Alvarez Standardized Testing Detriment to Minority Children (August 2018) Thank you for this editorial. We have to do better in our over-reliance on standardized testing and better understand the impact of this reliance on the education of minority children in general. I would add that ELP can also be part of this problem. ELP tests are often seen as benign and informative instruments that help linguistic minorities. They are often not scrutinized as much as other testing regimes. However, these tests are often gatekeepers for student access to courses, programs, etc. Therefore, there needs to be more attention and scrutiny of the construct and use of these ELP measures and the potential negative impact these tests have on education for our children. - Mark Nigolian

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October 2018

NEWS

Trust in Confidence, Not Accent

ccording to a recent study from Canada’s McGill University, people are less likely to believe someone who speaks with an accent unless they speak in a confident tone of voice. And, interestingly, as the listener makes this decision, different parts of the brain are activated depending on whether the listener perceives the speaker to be from his or her own “in-group” or from some type of “out-group” (e.g., someone with a different linguistic or cultural background). Marc Pell, from McGill’s School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, the senior author, explained the rationale for the study (“Neural Architecture Underlying Person Perception from In-Group and Out-Group Voices”), which was published in NeuroImage: “There are possibly two billion people around the world who speak English as a second language—and many of us live in societies that are culturally diverse. As we make decisions about whether or not to trust people who are different from us, we pay a lot of attention both to visual cues and to a person’s voice. Here, we wanted to better understand how we make trust-related decisions about other people based strictly on their speaking voice.” Overall, the researchers found that making trust-related decisions about accented speakers is more difficult due to our underly-

October 2018

ing bias favoring members of our own group. an accent that was different from their own. When making decisions about whether They also discovered that different regions of to trust a speaker who has the same accent the brain are activated to analyze whether to as the listeners, the researchers discovered believe speech from in-group and out-group that the listeners could focus simply on tone members. Indeed, the brain needs to enof voice. The areas of the brain that were gage in additional processes to resolve the activated were those involved in making conflict between our negative bias toward inferences based on past experience (the the accent (don’t believe!) and the impressuperior parietal regions). However, when sion that the speaker is very sure of what he it came to making similar decisions for or she is saying (it must be true!). out-group speakers, the areas of the brain Researchers discovered that when involved in auditory processing (the tempospeakers with a regional or foreign accent ral regions of the brain) were involved to a use a very confident voice, their statements greater extent. This suggests that as listenare judged to be equally believable to stateers made decisions about whether to trust ments by native speakers of the language. “What this shows me is that, in future, if I accented speakers, they needed to engage in a two-step process in which they paid atwant to be believed, it may be in my interest tention both to the sounds that an accented to adopt a very confident tone of voice in a speaker was producing and to his or her tone whole range of situations,” says Xiaoming Jiang, a former post-doctoral fellow at McGill of voice. and now associate professor at Tongji University, who speaks English as a second language and is the first author on the paW H E R E T H E WO R L D per. “This is a finding that potentially has CO M E S TO G E T H E R repercussions for people who speak with an accent when it comes to everything ranging from employment to education and the judicial process.” Earlier research has shown that people are more likely to believe statements produced in a confident tone (voiced in a way that is louder, lower THE MEETING FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFESSIONALS. in pitch, and faster) than those spoken in a hesitant manner. The researchers wanted to see whether the same areas of the brain were activated as liswww.tesolconvention.org teners made trust-related decisions about statements made in

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NEWS

Senate Moves to Reach English Learners

ast month, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) introduced the Senate version of the Reaching English Learners Act, which would create a grant program under Title II of the Higher Education Act to enable colleges and school

districts to develop curricula for aspiring English language learner (ELL) teachers and thus help to alleviate the national shortage of qualified ELL teachers. A similar bill has stalled in the House since it was introduced by Democrats and was referred to committee in January, despite having more than 20 co-sponsors. Co-sponsors of the Senate bill include Dianne Feinstein (D-California), Kamala Harris (D-California), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who was an ELL. The act would establish grants to help train educators to react to the social-emotional needs of ELLs, identify and teach ELLs with disabilities, and promote family engagement. TESOL International’s executive di-

rector, Christopher Powers, pledged the association’s support for the bill in a letter to Cortez Masto, which included the following paragraph: “With a growing population of more than 5 million English learners in U.S. schools, and a critical shortage of qualified English language teachers, this bill will go a long way in helping to improve the readiness of future teachers, as well as the educational experiences of some of our most vulnerable students. “The high school graduation rate for English learners continues to lag too far behind that of native English speakers, and we must work to close this gap. The demand for qualified English language educators is not only higher than ever before but also extends beyond the classroom and into local communities, which depend on young English learners to become knowledgeable and productive members of society. Action by Congress is sorely needed, and we applaud your efforts in introducing this bill.”

Codeswitching Easier to Turn On

511, RUE SAINT-JOSEPH EST, BUREAU 200 QUÉBEC, CANADA (QUÉBEC) G1K 3B7

esearch into the neurological activity required to switch between languages is providing new insights into the nature of bilingualism. “A remarkable feature of multilingual individuals is their ability to quickly and accurately switch back and forth between their different languages,” explains Esti Blanco-Elorrieta, a New York University doctoral candidate and the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our findings help pinpoint what occurs in the brain in this process—specifically, what neural activity is exclusively associated with disengaging from one language and then engaging with a new one.” “Specifically, this research unveils for the first time that while disengaging from one language requires some cognitive effort, activating a new language comes relatively cost-free from a neurobiological standpoint,” notes senior author Liina Pylkkänen, a professor in NYU’s Department of Linguistics and Department of Psychology. Previous research has linked language switching with increased activity in areas associated with cognitive control (i.e., the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices). However, it was unknown whether it is disengaging from the previous language or engaging in the new language that drives this activity. This is largely because these two processes happen simultaneously when those who speak two languages switch from one to the other (i.e., when participants switch from speaking Spanish to speaking English, turning Spanish “off” and turning English “on” happen at the same time). To untangle this dynamic, bilingual individuals fluent in English and American Sign Language (ASL) were studied. “The fact that they

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October 2018