Affect? or Academic?

Last night Dr. Mandy Menke challenged my thinking. She stated: "Students who struggle in Reading & oral language in Immersion programs are benefited from having interventions in both their native language as well as the target language." Although there has not been nearly enough research conducted in this area, she did have a couple of studies that substantiated this conclusion. But neither has there been nearly enough research conducted to see if  early 2nd language learners are benefitted by having interventions in their target language. Which brings most of us educators to rely on our own experiences (including data on specific students who are struggling in our classrooms) & bias to make decisions.

I have been on the other side of the fence until now, urging, pleading that our K & 1st graders not receive interventions in English until English is re-introduced in the Immersion program; in our school that occurs in the middle of 2nd grade. I have felt strongly about this as I have read about other teacher's challenges, and as I have watched some of my own students' families choose to have their child tutored in English before the 2nd grade English program begins. The results I have seen from this have been that the child does make progress in English, but not in the target language. When the native language thus becomes easier (not necessarily "easy") for students to read & express themselves, the interest and motivation for the target language seems to wane. Resistence sometimes follows, and parents may decide to pull their child out of the Immersion program to avoid further conflict with their child.

When I raised this question/scenario to Dr. Menke, she reminded me that what I am describing is an "Affect" not an "Academic" response, and that there have not been any studies to show how that can effect the immersion student's success in the program. I love getting clarity! I needed that word, affect, to help me align my observations and experiences with what some of these other studies have shown regarding the academic results of this type of intervention.

I'm currently re-reading the book that Dr. Menke assisted on, Struggling Learners & Language Immersion Education, by Tara Fortune with Mandy R. Menke, and I see the struggle that researchers have in nailing down this issue. For example, Fortune states that "decades of research carried out on immersion programs with typically developing language majority children clearly and consistently show that initial literacy development and full (100%) immersion in an L2 do not jeopardize English language or literacy development or subject matter achievement" (Genesee, 1987; Swain & Lapkin,m 1982; Turnbull, Lapkin & Hart, 2001).  She goes on to state, "it is argued that if a learner is already struggling to keep pace with the content and language, reducing the amount of instructional time learning through the immersion language by offering intervention in English, may result in the learner falling further and further behind." (p. 81)

However, on a following page, Fortune states, "While there is limited empirical evidence that strongly supports the use of one language or the other, many practitioners recommend that intervention be bilingual if at all possible." (Genesee et al., 2004; Gutiérrez-Clellan, 1999; Kohnert, 2008; Kohnert / Derr, 2004). (p. 83)

So which direction do we choose? I don't mean to write a new thesis here, but I am always open to exploring more intensely and intentionally what the best practice is for our students. I'd love to hear from others of you, too. What has been your experience? If you were at the WMAIE meeting last night, what were you most challenged by?

I will leave you with some final thoughts from Fortune's book, "It is important to remember when considering the intervention plan that choosing one language or another for intervention will not automatically solve the problem. Demers (1994) suggests that learners not only need language remediation but also need to be instructed in 'how to learn' skills and concepts. (p. 83)

Get the book! I don't think it's out in a movie yet!!

~Sheryl René

Naysayers

I admit that when we are given a new curriculum for our District, I am often one of the first to start saying, "but for Immersion we can't...,  or we need to change...."  Sometimes these are valid complaints, and sometimes I find myself renegging on that argument after I try it out & find that it DOES work for Immersion students. Of course there are certain absolutes, like, talk to me all day about how important it is for students to learn short vowel words first, but there is no such thing in Spanish, so I won't be teaching that rule for Spanish. However, the Lucy Calkins teaching series for Writing is one change that I have enjoyed teaching this year more than ever! The new emphasis on non-fiction writing is actually a gift for 2nd language learners, as their initial vocabulary has to be very real and concrete.

Teachers aren't the only ones who have to confront new teaching & uncharted waters. Our parents are often called on to help their children at home for a language that they have never studied. I don't even try to argue with them when they tell me "I/We can't"... or  "I don't know how..." or  "But my child doesn't want to..."  But I really appreciate it when they take the recommendation & run with it.

This week I was very inspired by a parent who loves her child (as we all do!), and is willing to at least TRY the teacher recommendation. I recommended that these parents ask their 1st grader to read aloud to their 6th grader (also an Immersion student), and then retell the story in her own words. (The idea being that the 6th grader could understand & help the 1st grader in the retelling process more fluently than the parents). As she related the story to me, this mom said that they had tried that before, but that the younger child had never liked reading to her older sibling. The next part was the part was what grabbed me.."But I told my daughter, you know what? This is Sra. Dalman's homework for you, so we're going to try it! We want you to learn to read & retell even better!"  I LOVED THAT! Thank you to all you moms & dads out there who take up that challenge & put in the extra time to help your child achieve the dream!

Oh, I'll still be defending best practices for Immersion education, and you can hold me to that!

Still learning,

Sheryl René