In this article, teacher trainer Jade Blue reflects on a report on bilingualism, written by Jessica Soltys, for the Cambridge University Press ELT Research Team, discussing what we know about bilingual education, and how we can better inform our decisions surrounding it.
English is the most commonly studied foreign language worldwide and is rapidly becoming a global lingua franca – an international language. Parents, educators, and politicians alike recognise that new generations will require a stronger command of the English language. Traditional ELT methods (with limited classroom hours) fail to deliver the desired levels of proficiency, but bilingual programmes offer a means of increasing classroom hours in English without sacrificing the teaching of core subjects.
The typical ELT classroom revolves around a single aim – the acquisition of the English language. Teachers are often specially trained in language instruction, and materials tend to focus explicitly on language, with lessons built around grammar, vocabulary, and occasionally, second language (L2) culture.
In bilingual education programmes, English has a much larger and more complex role. The English language is used – either instead of or alongside the students’ L1 – to teach traditional school subjects, like maths, geography, history, science, and art. This approach is commonly known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). CLIL classes have a dual focus on content (for example, biology) and language (in most cases, English).
Through the medium of English-language instruction, the students learn subject-specific material while broadening their exposure to English – a foreign language that would otherwise be relegated to the ELT classroom. Teachers are typically experts in their subject area but may have limited knowledge of the English language and ELT principles and techniques. Along with the CLIL classes, students take subjects taught exclusively in the L1 and, in some cases, may continue to take traditional ELT courses.
In terms of the benefits of bilingual education programmes, research (Dalton-Puffer, 2001) suggests that students in bilingual education:
- have a larger and more diverse vocabulary
- do much better in spontaneous conversation
- are better able to use complex writing structures
- report greater confidence in speaking English.
These successes are partly due to exposure: research in the Netherlands, for example, found that secondary school students in bilingual programmes were exposed to 6 times more English than their peers in ELT-only programmes (Education Programme, 2013). Another factor may be motivation: a survey of Spanish secondary school students found significant differences between CLIL and ELT groups in terms of interest in the English language, attitudes about language learning, and effort invested in the learning process (Lasagabaster, 2011).
Learners in bilingual programmes often perform as well as (or better than) their peers in both subject area classes and in their language development. Being bilingual may help learners to develop social and cognitive skills that can contribute to overall academic success, including:
- better memory, attention, and decision-making
- increased awareness of language appropriateness
Bilingual Education/CLIL: What’s involved?
Coyle’s 4Cs CLIL framework takes a holistic view of integrating content and language learning and identifies four building blocks:
Bilingual education programmes also typically involve two types of language learning – implicit and explicit.
Most students in bilingual education programmes have a background in English, often from traditional ELT classes. When we are preparing subject-specific material for these students, we need to determine the appropriate level of English to use. The language that learners use and experience can be divided into three types. The terms that are often used to describe them are: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), Classroom Language (CL) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). BICS is the ability to language appropriately in social situations, CL takes the form of teachers’ instructions, and CALP is the academic language that learners need in order to understand the content of the lesson.
Examples of CALP Skills might include:
- Identifying key information in news articles, summarising the main ideas
- Writing a scientific report, explaining hypotheses, data, and conclusions
- Reading and analysing texts from a range of literary genres
- Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of academic arguments
- Comparing and contrasting different perspectives and approaches
- Interpreting numerical and graphical data
- Understanding and using analogies and abstract or non-literal language
Read Jade Blue’s last article on Learning Oriented Assessment.
References & Further Reading:
Coyle, Do. (2005). Planning and Monitoring CLIL: Presenting 3 Tools for Teachers. The University of Nottingham: School of Education.
Cummins, Jim. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and Theoretical Status of the Distinction. In B. Street & N. Hornberger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Volume 2: Literacy (pp. 71–83). New York: Springer Science.
Dalton-Puffer, Christiane. (2011). Content and Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 182–204.
European Platform. (2013). Bilingual education in Dutch schools: a success story. Haarlem, The Netherlands: Sally Hill, Scientific Translations.
Lasagabaster, David. (2011). English achievement and student motivation in CLIL and EFL settings, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 5(1), 3–18.