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LEARNING THROUGH BILINGUALISM OR NOT
AN OVERVIEW OF THE U.S AND COLOMBIAN CONTEXT INTRODUCTION
Bilingual education is not a twentieth century phenomena (Baker, 1996) and “has existed in one form or another for 5000 years or more” (Baker refers to Mackey, 1978). In recent years, bilingual education and bilingual programs for language minority students has been the subject of increasing controversy more so than any other educational issue in the U.S, and in other countries around the world. It is a complex and puzzling problem for many, both inside and outside the community of professional educators (Mejia, 2002). The main goals in educating students with a native language other than English are the mastery of English, and the content in the English language of academic areas. Unfortunately, a heated academic and political battle rages over how best to reach those goals and how important it is to preserve the students' original language in the process. Therefore, several issues surface such as linguistic, cultural, important legal and policy issues, and bilingual education academic programs concern the best approach to educate students from non-English speaking backgrounds that have a limited English proficiency.
With all the discussions on bilingual education in the U.S, several questions come to mind. What importance do Americans give in the learning of another language other than English? What opinion do monolingual Americans have on bilingualism or multilingualism? Are they for it, against it or indifferent toward it, and why? What are the views of being bicultural or multicultural? Throughout this paper I will address some other important issues in bilingualism and reasons of acquiring another language in the U.S and in Colombia.
THE US AND LANGUAGE
For the last 30 years there have been some Americans that have expressed their concerns of apathy that most of their citizens have toward foreign language learning (Cutshall, 2004/2005). In 2005, a nationwide public campaign named “The year of the Languages” was developed with the purpose to create awareness in Americans to develop at least one language in addition to English. Cutshall (2004/2005) declares that most Americans are suffering a disease of xenoglossophobia -fear of foreign languages- and are more indifferent toward the topic. It seems that in terms of education, “one in ten students at U.S. colleges major in foreign languages such as French, German, Italian, or Spanish and only nine percent major in Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese, Russian, or Indonesian languages (Cutshall cites Strauss, 2002). These are the most common languages of our world. Cutshall (2004/2005) supports her argument by adding that, the majority of U.S. students do not start studying a foreign language until the age of 14 (Cutshall cites Pufahl, Rhodes, & Christian, 2000). In addition, most of the foreign language study in the U.S. takes place in high school and only six percent of U.S. students study a foreign language in first through sixth grade (Cutshall cites Pufahl, Rhodes, & Christian, 2000). With the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, schools have been forced to narrow their focus on reading, math, and science at the expense of learning languages. The Instruction time is decreasing, particularly in minority school populations (Cutshall cites CBE, 2004).
The report on approaches to language learning by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) compared the U.S. with twenty-two other nations. There findings concluded that seven countries (Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Thailand) had a widespread or compulsory education in additional languages by the age of 8. Other eight countries (Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Morocco, and the Netherlands) introduced a foreign language in the upper elementary grades. Furthermore, a second foreign language was offered or required in the elementary grades in many cases. In addition, the report states that there is a shortage of language teachers in the U.S. because early language learning has not been part of the traditional U.S. education model, and most communities do not have access to foreign languages in elementary schools.
BENEFITS OF BECOMING BILINGUAL
So what are the benefits of being or becoming multilingual? Cutshall (2004/2005) mentions several reasons to consider. To start with, the opportunity to communicate with more people, read more literature, and active involvement when traveling to other countries. This can broaden some people’s view, in the various dimensions of the world. Due to the fact that today’s jobs require employees to interact with those who speak languages and can adapt to a wide range of cultural backgrounds, people can become a great asset to the communities in which they live and work. However, every year more than 200,000 Americans lose out on jobs because they do not know another language (Cutshall refers to Simon, 1980). “English as the international language of business has contributed to a pervasive belief in the U.S. that everyone should learn English and that Americans simply do not need to learn another language” (Cutshall, 2004/2005, p.20). Cutshall points out that the international language of business is always the language of the client or customer. She continues stating that it is a competitive disadvantage if businesses in the U.S. do not speak the language of their customers.
On the other hand, one month before the 9/11 attacks, the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland acknowledged “a critical lack of linguistically competent professionals” across federal agencies and departments responsible for national security (Cutshall cites Simon,2001). Thomas Keith Cothrun, president of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL): claims that “there is clearly a disconnect in the government” (Cutshall, 2004/2005). On one hand the military and intelligence communities decry the lack of language experts. On the other hand, the Department of Education underemphasizes the importance of language learning (Cutshall, 2004/2005).
U.S. EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
In all stages of its history, the U.S. has experienced an inflow of immigrants from all regions of the world. Each year, the U.S. is becoming more ethnically and linguistically diverse (Short, and Echevarria 2004-2005). The U.S. educational system has been forced to accommodate this diversity and reflect in its curriculum a complex web of changing cultures and languages. Like other educational programs, bilingual programs can definitely be improved. However, research into bilingual programs presents problems. There are a variety of bilingual programs with numerous variations among the pedagogies, schools, the students’ backgrounds, and communities being compared. Due to the numerous studies that have documented the benefits of bilingual programs, opposers of bilingual education, find that much of this research has faced methodological criticisms (Rossell, 2004/2005).
THE YEAR OF THE LANGUAGES
Another important issue that “The year of the Languages” addresses is the support for internal diversity (this means the diversity of cultural and linguistic backgrounds). Although monolingualism in English has been a standard of U.S. citizenship for immigrants, it is often at the expense of heritage languages. Education, international relations, global competiveness, support for internal diversity and national security are important issues and reasons why the U.S priorities should shift its focus and find new and better ways to persuade and support language learning.
COLOMBIA AND EDUCATION
In contrast, there are other countries around the world, such as Colombia, that may be aware of some of the issues discussed. Some schools in Colombia offer bilingual education to children at a very young age. Most students who have the opportunity to learn through this type of education are not the majority of the population, but the higher economical classes. Today, it is not just a luxury, but a real necessity and an advantage focused on gaining greater opportunities, which will eventually lead to a better quality of life. Leading to the question, how is Colombia facing bilingual education today?
BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN COLOMBIA
Colombia has several bilingual issues as well. There are various indigenous groups, the hearing impaired, and the poor who are either imposed the majority language or lack the opportunities to acquire a second language. Both the indigenous groups and the hearing impaired community are imposed directly or indirectly by society to speak the majority language, which in this case would be Spanish. The reasons are very similar to the U.S. minority groups, but at a smaller scale. This does not mean that they are not important, but they or their family members, may see the advantages they can gain from Spanish. It provides these groups better possibilities to communicate; it may open borders, understand other contexts, acquire information and transmit it, to be enriched and play a decisive role in the development of the country. To be bilingual is to gain knowledge and opportunities to be more competent and competitive and to better the quality of life of all citizens (Ministerio de Educación, 2005).
On the other hand, the poor do not have the income to pay bilingual education. Therefore they do not have access to this type of education. Thus, they miss out on the likelihood to better their quality of life, possibilities to communicate, understand other contexts and acquire information.
There are other issues to address in bilingual education in Colombia, such as monolingual teacher fears of losing their jobs, no integration within the different subject areas and the many non effective methodologies still practiced. Fortunately today, the planning and the designing of the curriculum in many schools are not only done by the members of the institution, but the administrative personnel as well as by the teachers who take an active role in developing it. There is an emphasis in most Colombian schools to make the curriculum more interdisciplinary by adapting topics, problematic situations and projects to the schooling (Mejia and Oviedo 2002).
NATIONAL BILINGUAL PROGRAM IN COLOMBIA
Since being bilingual is essential for today’s globalizing world and Colombian citizens need to develop at least one foreign language, the Ministry of Education developed a National Bilingual Program for 2004-2019 (Ministerio de Educación, 2005). The Common European Framework was used as a point of reference to set the levels of dominance of the language that needs to be accomplished. The goal is to have the majority of Colombian citizens, in the next 15 years competent in the English language. However, there have been some controversial arguments about applying the European Framework to the Colombian context. Teachers from this framework will be training the Colombian school teachers with materials that will be applied to the learning process. But they do not take into account the Colombian culture and many of the trainers may not be acquainted with it. Another reason for criticism is that there are native Colombians who have been schooled in this country and/or have continued there studies abroad and have come back to enrich “and play a decisive role in the development of the country” (Ministerio de Educación, 2005), but are not given the opportunity for this particular program to develop a curriculum and materials appropriate for the students that are based on their social cultural context, without excluding other social cultural practices.
The Ministry of Education based several important reasons to develop such a program, but unfortunately it does not apply what it preaches. There are experienced educators-researchers, who are aware of the strengths and weakness that can develop in the implementation of a Bilingual Education Program. These Colombian professionals can use there knowledge to benefit the country’s bilingual education and save the nations plenty of money, but if only they where given the chance to be an active part of it.
CONCLUSION
Colombia could benefit with a year of the languages, so that its citizens can become aware not only on the importance of acquiring another language, but of how it is important to integrate the acquisition of another language through intercultural exchanges (Mejia and Oviedo 2002). This means that the social cultural and linguistic contents are present in all subjects and the curriculum is related with the languages and the culture of the educational Colombian context. Colombia can educate “Colombian citizens for the world, able to manage with respect and cope with self-reliance various situations” (Mejia and Oviedo 2002 p.19). We need to support those Colombians who are willing to enrich the development of the country. For some Colombians these may be opportunities to develop and grow bilingually, but for others shut doors.
REFERENCES
Baker, C (1996) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cummins, J (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy Bilingual children in the
Crossfire Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Cutshall,S. (December2004/January 2005) “Why We Need “The Year of Languages”
Educating Language Learners 62 (4) 20-23.
Mejia, A.M. and Oviedo, R. (2002) Nuevos Caminos en Educación Bilingüe en
Colombia. Cali: Universidad del Valle.
Ministerio de Educación Nacional Republica de Colombia (Octubre-Diciembre 2005)
Bases para una nación bilingüe y competitiva El tablero Altablero 37 http://www.mineducacion.gov.co/1621/article-97498.html
Rossell,C. (December2004/January 2005) Teaching English Through English
Educational Leadership 62 (4) 32-36.
Short, D. and Echevarria, J. (December 2004 / January 2005). Teacher skills to
support English Language Learners. Educational Leadership 62 (4) 9-13.
Mejia, A.M. (2002) Power, prestige and Bilingualism International Perspectives on
Elite Bilingual Education. Cleveland: Multilingual Matters.
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