Bilingual education has been a controversial issue for over 25 years since the government became involved in 1968. That year President Lyndon Johnson signed Title IIV of the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) which encouraged schools to establish bilingual education programs. The main debate has been in the political arena between liberals and conservatives and usually stems from where the financial responsibility should lie and how much native language LEP (limited English proficient) students should retain. Because bilingual education is such a heated issue, it is not difficult to find articles on this topic.
In fact, I have found that there is an abundance of written opinions on either side, for bilingual education or against, to support whichever opinion you may acknowledge as your own. At a 1995 conference in Washington, DC, several experts gathered to discuss bilingual education in depth. The speeches given at the conference were compiled into a book, The Failure of Bilingual Education, and cover many different topics relating to bilingual education. Irma N. Guadarrama, a professor of bilingual education at the University of Texas at Houston, was one of the featured speakers.
She was a bilingual education teacher for many years in the public school system in Texas and also has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Texas, Austin. In her speech, “Realizing Democratic Ideals with Bilingual Education”, Guadarrama attempts to relate bilingual education to democracy. Although the beginning of her article was confusing and difficult to understand, I thought that the majority of 2 Irma’s paper did an excellent job arguing her opinion and counter arguing the opposing opinion in her five main points.
The first couple of pages in Guadarrama’s article attempted to xplain why she believes bilingual education is directly related to democracy. It is difficult for me to describe exactly what she was trying to say because I was so thoroughly confused by her words. She made statements such as, “bilingual education . . . also mirrors democracy in action”, and “we must address . . . it’s political justification in playing an essential role in our democratic society. ” (41) Never in her introductory paragraphs did she fully explain what she meant by these statements or give any support that helped to clarify what she was saying.
In paragraph five, I was completely baffled by her words. She seemed to be trying to define some terms such as cultural democracy, which she said is “freedom of self-expression”, and cultural conformity, which to her was “sacrificing one’s own culture”. She then went on to compare her definitions to other’s opinions, with cultural democracy meaning, “an irresponsible construct that contradicts democratic ideas”, and cultural conformity as “containment within boarders of another’s culture, in which self-expression is inhibited. ” (41) I have no idea what she was talking about.
She expressed herself with large, obscure vocabulary to sound more ntelligent but instead came off as pompous. I found that each paragraph in the first two pages of Guadarrama’s article were very confusing and, instead of appealing to the general public, were written only for other arrogant professors to comprehend. In contrast to the confusing nature of the start of Guadarrama’s speech, I thought that the second part was very well organized and used suitable arguing and counter arguing methods. She broke down each subject by number and proceeded to discuss each topic in depth.
Her first point of discussion was on the research done on bilingual education. She used the counter arguing techniques of acknowledging and refuting perfectly to show the weakness in the 3 opposing argument. She stated that, “opponents of bilingual education still rely on research findings as the main weapon in their efforts to disclaim its legitimacy. However,” she continued, “neither supporters nor opponents of bilingual education are satisfied with the results of the effectiveness of bilingual education research” (42-43).
She then went on to sight specific studies such as Bilingual Education Reform in Massachusetts by Rossell and Baker, and Forked Tongue: The politics of Bilingual Education by Rosalie Porter, that opponents of bilingual education tend to use as support for their opinion. To refute Rossell and Baker’s study, Guadarrama stated that they are “irresponsible and shortsighted (43)” because they used “only circumstantial knowledge (43)”.
In the same vein, Guadarrama said of Porter’s study that “(her) strongest arguments, . . . , are substantiated at an emotional level rather than a factual one. (43) Overall her opinion of bilingual education research was this: “… it’s important to recognize that the serious problem with many empirically- based research designs in bilingual education s their over-reliance on single indices to measure effectiveness, and miss some of the program’s most significant successes, i. e. , the affective gains of students. ” (43) I thought she was successful at poking holes in their methods of research and bringing up sound questions to the validity of their results. The next topic of Guadarrama’s article was on the relationship between learning theory and bilingual education.
This section was probably the weakest of all of her arguments. Although she has some personal experience with bilingual education as a student and a teacher, she had no utside, concrete evidence to support her opinion on this subject. Guadarrama believes that “Native-language-based instruction is aligned with learning theory, and a crucial component of bilingual education, contributes to the pedagogy that encompasses both the students’ culture and language … “. In other words, she believes that non-native speaking 4 students need to be proficient in reading their first language before a second language is introduced.
The problem with her theory is that it takes several more years for students taught in their native language to learn English than for the students who are taught in English. In Rosalie Porter’s speech, The Politics of Bilingual Education Revisited, which was also given at the bilingual education conference, she confirms this idea when she said that “[Complaints over bilingual education are typically voiced in these terms], ‘We have been using native-language teaching for our LEP kids for eight, ten, or twelve years, with bilingual teachers and textbooks, but it is working very poorly.
Our students are not learning English for years . . ‘” (Porter 36). Guadarrama did concede that for bilingual education to be truly effective the teachers must have the proper ducation with adequate knowledge and experience (44). Unfortunately, Guadarrama really had no evidence to support her opinions and therefore, this section’s argument was very weak. Section three, “Understanding the Role Others’ Perspectives of Language Play in Bilingual Education” and four, “Understanding the Basic Premises of Bilingual Education and Beyond”, of Guadarrama’s article, I believe, were successful in using both examples and counter arguing to support and clarify the topics.
Section 3 began with Guadarrama’s opinion that “those who oppose bilingual education, . . . reflect a misconstrued nderstanding of language” and that there are several ways to gain a “better understanding of language and second-language learning” (44). I liked how she used an example from history to prove her point that “people shape the language, not the other way around” (45). She cited information from historians regarding Quebec citizens’ struggle for an “identity” in the 18th century after the English gained domination over the French in North America.
What many observers fail to see,” Guadarrama suggested, “is that people’s identity is not only a way of life but a way of defining oneself in historical terms . . . “(45). I thought that in section four, on the other hand, Guadarrama used the 5 counter arguing technique of refuting successfully when she stated, “The issue is not so much whether students will learn English, because we know they will, but rather whether they will achieve academic success and engage as contributing members of our society in meaningful, productive ways” (45).
These methods of arguing and counter arguing definitely helped clarify her opinion and helped me to follow these topics more effectively. Finally, in the fifth section of this article, Guadarrama brought clarity to her original subject, bilingual education in relation to emocracy. This portion, unlike the introduction, was much more clear especially when she said: “But (bilingual education’s) goals and objections are deeply rooted in the democratic ideals in our institutions of education.
It helps students learn English and facilitates their academic success; it nurtures and promotes bilingualism; it promotes harmony among people by fostering understanding; and in the long run, it cuts government costs because students who receive a meaningful education say in school, graduate from high school, and perhaps even college. Bilingual education affords tudents the opportunity to participate as fully as possible in our democracy. (46)
In this section, she also conceded to the fact that there are still many flaws in implementing many bilingual programs, but she felt that these problems where more closely related to operational aspects rather than philosophy. (46) This last part of Guadarrama’s article brought her opinion into focus for me because of the clear and simple examples she used to support her argument. In conclusion, my main complaint about this article was Guadarrama’s use of large, academic vocabulary in the introduction that made her sound ore pompous than intelligent.
But after wading through her arrogant overture, I thought that her thoughts came across more 6 clearly within her five main points. Also, in the introduction, she seemed to use more personal opinion and conjecture, but as her main points unfolded, she began using examples and statistics as well as her personal, authoritive experience to aid her argument which left me with a better overall perspective and knowledge of her subject. In my opinion, Guadarrama should stick to writing for other academic scholars or , at least, learn to simplify her word choices to appeal to a broader audience.
