Is All-English Best? A Response to Bengtson

TESOL Matters 12.3, 2002. P. 5.

Stephen Krashen

In her commentary on Judd (2001), Bengtson (2002) maintains that use of the heritage language holds back English language development, that families that "refuse to teach their native language to their children" are helping their children acquire English, and that using the heritage language "makes it harder for us to live and work together."  None of these claims are supported by research.

How the first language can help the second in school

Properly organized bilingual education programs use the first language in ways that accelerate and facilitate second language development.

First, when teachers provide students with solid subject matter in the first language, it gives the students knowledge. This knowledge helps make the English children hear and read much more comprehensible.  A child who speaks little English who is knowledgeable about history, thanks to education in the first language, will understand more in a history class taught in English than a limited English proficient child without this knowledge.  The child with a background in history will learn more history, and will acquire more English, because the English heard in class will be more comprehensible.

Second, developing literacy in the first language is a short-cut to literacy in the second language. It is easier to learn to read in a language you understand; once you can read in one language, this knowledge transfers rapidly to any other language you learn to read. Once you can read, you can read.  This phenomenon has been confirmed in many studies and is well-known to many teachers (Krashen, 1996, 2002)

The published research on bilingual education is consistent: Children in properly organized bilingual education programs acquire English at least as well as, and usually better than children in all-English programs. A recent review of research on the effectiveness of bilingual education is Greene (1997), who concluded that the use of the native language in instructing English learners has beneficial effects and that "efforts to eliminate the use of the native language in instruction ... harm children by denying them access to beneficial approaches"  (p. 115). The most recent study of the effectiveness of bilingual education was done by a research team headed by D. K.Oller and Eilers (2002).  At grade five, students in a bilingual program  (60% English, 40% Spanish) did as well as comparisons in an all-English program (with an optional 10% of the day in Spanish) on tests of English literacy, and did far better on tests of Spanish.

The heritage language in the home

Contrary to Bengston's claim, there is clear evidence that home use of the language of the country can actually accelerate second language acquisition.  Dolson (1985) examined school performance among fifth and sixth graders in one Los Angeles school who came from families that spoke only Spanish at home when the child entered elementary school. Children from families that kept using Spanish at home significantly outperformed children from families that switched to English at home on tests of mathematics and had higher grade point averages. There was also a tendency for those who kept using Spanish at home to excel in English reading.  A plausible explanation for this effect is that use of the first language at home encourages more and higher quality parent-child interaction, which has positive consequences for cognitive and affective development.

Refusing to use the first language may simply result in less parent-child communication, a tragedy for everybody.

 Does multilingualism make it harder for us to get along?

Fishman (1990) analyzed the impact of 230 possible predictors of civil strife and economic well-being in 170 countries. His results suggest that multilingualism is not to blame for political or economic problems.

In Fishman’s study, civil strife was defined as a combination of factors, such as “magnitude and frequency of conspiracy against the established government ... internal warfare ... (and) internal turmoil (riots, strikes and protests).” Fishman found thirteen significant predictors of civil strife, but linguistic heterogeneity was not one of them. The simple correlation of linguistic heterogeneity and civil strife was a low .21, which meant that it accounted for only 4% of the variation in civil strife. When other factors were considered, it had no predictive value at all.

Similarly, Fishman found ten significant predictors of per capita gross national product. Once again, linguistic heterogeneity was not among these predictors. The simple correlation of linguistic heterogeneity and gross national product was -.32, which means that it accounted for about 10% of the variation in gross national product, but when other factors were considered, it again had no predictive value.

There are, to be sure, multilingual countries with problems; there are also monolingual countries with problems. Fishman’s study strongly suggests that multilingualism cannot be blamed for civil strife or lack of economic development.

One can also argue that encouraging the use and development of heritage languages is in the national interest: Tse (2001) points out that, "learning English while maintaining the heritage language is perhaps the easiest and most efficient way to achieve bilingualism, and being bilingual carries advantages in many domains" (p. 48).  For the individual, bilingualism improves school performance, provides access to wider sources of information, and has career advantages. Bilingual citizens contribute to society economically, through improved trade and improved national security (Krashen, 1998; Tse, 2001).

No English crisis.

Immigrants are acquiring English rapidly and well. Mexican-Americans are typically accused of not acquiring English, but according to the most recent census, 74% of Spanish-speakers said they spoke English "well" or better, and only 8% said they could not speak English at all.  This is nearly identical to the figures for speakers of other languages. Among children of families that spoke another language, only 2.3% spoke no English. These figures are quite impressive and are even more impressive when one considers that they include newcomers. (data available at http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/language/table5.txt and http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/language/table2.txt).

According to a Rand Corporation report (McCarthy and Valdez, 1985), over 90% of Mexican-Americans born in the United States say they are proficient in English, and among those born in Mexico who are permanent residents of the United States , over 75% said they spoke some English and nearly half said they spoke English well. The Rand researchers concluded that "the transition to English begins almost immediately and proceeds very rapidly." (See Tse, 2001, for additional evidence showing that immigrants and their families are acquiring English.)

One does, of course, run into immigrants who don't speak English. The Rand Corporation results suggest that these are usually new arrivals or those who have not been able to find the time or opportunity to acquire English. 

Conclusion

Bengston and  I (and I assume nearly all readers of this paper) agree that acquiring the language of the country is essential and is a key to understanding the morals and values of the people of that country. Our disagreement is not about ends, it is about means.

References

Bengtson, B. (2002). Polarizing an issue: Response to "U.S. Language policy: Before and after the tragedy," by Elliot L. Judd. TESOL Matters.

Dolson, D. (1985) The effects of Spanish home language use on the scholastic performance of Hispanic pupils. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 6 (2),135-155.

Fishman, J. (1990). Empirical explorations of two popular assumptions: Inter-polity perspective on the relationships between linguistic heterogeneity, civil strife, and per capita gross national product. In G. Imhoff (Ed.) Learning in Two Languages. New Brunswick , NJ : Transaction Publishers. pp. 209-225.

Greene, J. (1997). A meta-analysis of the Rossell and Baker review of bilingual education research. Bilingual Research Journal, 21 (2,3),103-122.

Judd, E. (2001/2002). U.S. language policy: Before and after the tragedy. TESOL Matters, 12(1), 11.

Krashen, S. (1996). Under attack: The case against bilingual education. Culver City : Language Education Associates.

Krashen, S. (1998). Heritage language development: Some practical arguments. In S. Krashen , L. Tse, and J. McQuillan (Eds.) Heritage Language Development. Culver City : Language Education Associates. pp. 3-13.

Krashen, S. (2002). Does transition really happen? Some case histories. The Multilingual Educator, 3(1), 50-54.

McCarthy, K. and Valdez , R.B. (1985). Current and future effects of Mexican immigration in California. Santa Monica , CA : The Rand Corporation.

Oller, D.K.  and R. E. Eilers, R.E. (2002). Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children. Clevedon , England .

Tse, L. (2001). "Why don't they learn English?" Separating fact from fallacy in the U.S. language debate. New York : Teachers College Press.

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