Research Proposal
Effectiveness of Bilingual Education
Bret Hart
Professor Tanesha. Thomas
SBCC
Table of Content
Ⅰ. Introduction
Ⅱ. Literature Review
Ⅲ. Methods
Ⅳ. Analysis
Ⅴ. Discussion
Ⅵ. Reference Cited
Ⅶ. Appendices
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of bilingual education on bilingual student’s academic performance in comparison to bilingual students who do not receive bilingual education. In order to do this study 120 Chinese and Spanish bilingual students, their academic performances will be observed through the course of one year. Throughout the year I will be collecting notes on how the students are doing in their in-class assignments, in-class quizzes, and tests, how well they comprehend the work, and how well is the communication between the teacher and students, and finally how well they scored on their state tests. Other measurements that will be incorporated are survey responses as additional information to support the study.
Key Terms
Bilingual Education, Bilingual Students, Academic performance, NYC State Test Results
Ⅰ. Introduction
In the U.S. we have many immigrants as of right now and maybe more coming in the country. Often these immigrants are families with children and many of the times neither the parents nor the children know little to no English and it can be difficult for the children to adjust and transition into a new culture and learn the language. Providing bilingual education is very important for bilingual students because they then can receive a smooth and equal opportunity at Education. This research is unique, crucial and interesting because we are not only exploring children of different ethnicity, culture, and language but also because we will be able to look at how well they learn if given the proper resources. In doing this experimental research both qualitative and quantitative research method seems to be suitable because although looking at test scores and survey results which are quantitative measures will possibly allow me to support my hypothesis it is important to see how the children learn on a daily basis for which I will have to observe them in their learning environment.
Ⅱ. Literature Review Many researchers have found that Bilingual Education is beneficial for Bilingual students and some researchers have found that it may not make a significant difference in academic achievement. Fernie Baca Moore and Gerald D. Parr research compared effectiveness of three different Bilingual programs which were transitional, maintenance, minimal and a nonbilingual program. Overall they have found that bilingual programs do not make a significant difference in their Hispanic student's academic achievement in terms testing scores (1978). In contrast, Moore and Parr have also found that maintenance programs which offer 50% of the class instruction in Spanish scored significantly higher than the students in a transitional program which offers Spanish only when absolutely needed (1978). Therefore Moore and Parr’s findings partially support my hypothesis that bilingual education does allow students to succeed academically especially if students native language is used the majority of the time. Similar to Moore and Parr Perry A. Zirkel did research on bilingual education and the purpose of his research was to assess different models of bilingual education. Zirkel’s research suggests that bilingual education is an effective way to teach Spanish-speaking bilingual students especially if it is they are instructed in native language majority of the time “bilingual programs in two of the cities which provided a major part of the instructional day in Spanish … were found to have generally positive results in comparison to the regular all-English instructional program” (1975). Zirkel’s research not only supports my proposed research but the methods that he used are ones that I will be incorporating in my research such as having an experimental group and control group. Gary A. Cziko research reveals that students in the late exit program in which substantial part of the instruction is in the native language and slowly introduced to English showed noticeable academic growth than those who are not a part of the program similar to Moore and Parr’s findings on maintenance program (1992). Cziko found that bilingual programs that give more importance to the native language have students that are at the same level of academic achievement as their monolingual peers (1992). Therefore Cziko findings appear to be supportive of my hypothesis. Although Marry B. Harris and Santiago Jim Stockton’s research is about bilingual education it is slightly different than the other research studies that were previously mentioned because Harris and Stockton do not mention any specific type of bilingual program and their focus is on physical education instruction. In their research, the participants were a mix of Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking elementary students who were divided into 2 sections a monolingual and bilingual section. Harris and Stockton used both tests scores and anecdotal evidence to express some of their findings. Harris and Stockton looked at the test scores on technical athletic vocabulary and it revealed that “bilingually taught children had higher scores than those monolingually taught” (1973). One of the student’s attitude and participation improved significantly and expressed that it was because she understood better in Spanish. This directly relates to my proposal because it supports my hypothesis that bilingual education helps bilingual students comprehend their tasks better. Melisa Cahnmann's research on bilingual education is a lot different from the rest of the researchers because she did an ethnography which consisted of a lot of hours of observations, note-taking, and recording which I intend to incorporate in my research method. Cahnmann’s purpose was to express that bilingual education goes beyond just translating the English language to the student’s native language it is also finding mediums to teach bilingual students that they can relate to (2005). Cahnmann observed Ms.Maria who is a bilingual teacher not just merely translate instructions and what other monolingual teachers wanted to communicate but she used words that the students can relate to. Ms.Maria’s technique of inviting monolingual teachers to try to communicate with the bilingual students using whatever knowledge they had in Spanish allowed both students and the teacher to learn each other’s language without just simply translating. Cahnmann findings express that bilingual education can be effective if teachers find ways to communicate with their students that are better suited for their specific group of students, for example, Ms.Maria used Spanish vocabulary her students would understand and can relate to (2005). In the majority of the bilingual education studies that I have discussed the researchers used test score to determine if bilingual education was effective or not and one researcher who used observations. I intend to use both test scores and observations for my research. Overall most of these research studies express how bilingual education is an effective way to teach bilingual students in some way especially if the programs prioritize the student’s native language. Moore and Parr, Zirkel, and Cziko’s findings are the most effective in demonstrating that bilingual education is an effective way of teaching bilingual students and how it is an effective way.
Ⅲ. Method
A. Participants
Stratified random sampling will be used to gather the samples for this study which will be 120 bilingual students of elementary school from the borough of Manhattan and the Bronx. There will be 30 Chinese bilingual students from Yung Wing Elementary School P.S. M124 a non-bilingual school, and 30 Chinese students from a Chinese bilingual school P.S. M020 Anna Silver. Then 60 students from the Bronx, out of those sixty Spanish speaking students thirty will be from P.S. X085 The Great Expectation a non-bilingual school then 30 thirty Spanish speaking students from P.S. X161 Ponce De Leon a bilingual school. The majority of the population is Asian, in the neighborhood where P.S. M124. Also, the majority of the population in the neighborhood of P.S. M020 is mixed races but Asian population alone is more than any other race population alone. As for the two schools in the Bronx P.S. X085 and P.S. X161 are both in neighborhoods of which majority of the population is Hispanic.
B. Instrumentation and Procedure
The primary instrumentation for this study would be NYC state English Language Arts and Math test. ELA test consists of three components one section is multiple choice questions based on a reading passage that test comprehension of the story, the second part is a short answer question based on another reading passage that test critical thinking, the final part is a short essay on another reading passage. Overall the ELA exams test the students on their reading and writing skills. The Math also consists of multiple choice section and short answer questions in which the students are required to show how they got their answers. Overall the Math exam tests how well they comprehend math units, the math word problems, and if they are strategically able to come up with the correct answer. Other secondary instrumentation would be surveys, in class assignments, and in-class test. The beginning of the school year the teachers will be given survey questionnaire regarding their perspective on bilingual education. The students will be given a pre-test using NYC state practice test in the very beginning of the school year to see what they know and do not know, and to see how well they do before the treatments. During the school year, I will be observing and examining academic performances of both the treatment group that will be receiving bilingual education and control group that will not be receiving bilingual education, by looking at their activities, responses, and results of in-class assignment and test. My focus is going to be on how responsive the students are when they are asked questions and directed to do activities in English during my observations and how well they comprehend the directions. In order to see how responsive they are, I will note whether or not they are answering verbal questions accurately and if they are asking relevant questions to the teacher. I want to see if the students are learning new English vocabulary and applying them to sentences when they speak or write. I will also look at whether they are trying to communicate with each other and the teachers and how well they get their message across in English throughout the months. At the end of the year, they will also take the NYC state test and the results from those tests will be recorded. To ensure there are no issues before starting this study I will be sending out letters to the district administrators, and also the parents of the students for permission. I also suspect minimal ethical issues in my experiment because I’ am not actually administering any treatment, my instrumentation and treatments are what the students are already normally expected to do in a school year. As for confidentiality, all the participants will be given pseudonyms if they are going to be discussed in the report.
Ⅳ. Analysis
Both qualitative and quantitative analysis will be done when reporting the results of the experiment. After the completion of the year, all the notes from the observation will be reported. Patterns such as increase or decrease in participation of the students will be taken into consideration from both the treatment and control group. Other patterns that will be looked at of both the treatment and control group are whether grades of assignments are decreasing or increasing. Also, the results from the surveys the teachers were given will be converted to a pie chart that will allow us to interpret what percentage of the teachers think that bilingual education is effective versus how many think it is not. At the end of the year, the results of the state tests will also be taken into account. The scores of both the treatment group and control group will be reflected on a line graph which will give us a visual of the difference between students who received bilingual education and those who did not.
V. Discussion
I expect to find that bilingual education will aid bilingual students to comprehend their task better allowing them to complete their task successfully which will result in good academic performance. Based on previous research I expect to find that bilingual education is an effective way of teaching when the student’s primary language is prioritized to teach the students. This research will lend reasons to support bilingual education and possible funding towards bilingual education. This research is also important because of the current political condition in the country. Throughout the end of 2016 to now, it has been particularly hard for immigrants in this country because they have been targeted by Trump and his administration. Bilingual education is particularly important now more than ever because we need to educate our immigrant members of the country so they know their rights, can fight back, and take advantage of resources that are available for them to use. In order for immigrants to take full advantage of resources, it is important for them to comprehend English at least to some degree and bilingual education will make that possible even if it may only be immigrant children. If we provide bilingual education to the children of immigrants we are essentially strengthening current and future immigrant community. Limitations of the study may include the funding, resources, and staff availability to do this study. Although I include bilingual students of two different ethnicities, 120 students may be a small sample size to represent all bilingual students. Therefore further research may need to be done to represent the general k-5 bilingual student population.
References
Moore, Fernie Baca., Gerald D. Parr. 1978. “Models of Bilingual Education: Comparison of Effectiveness.” The Elementary School Journal 79(3):93-97.
Zirkel, Perry A. 1975. “Bilingual Education Programs At The Elementary School Level: Their Identification”. Bilingual Review. 2(1/2):13-21.
Cziko, Gary A. 1992. “The Evaluation of Bilingual Education: From Necessity and Probability to Possibility” Educational Research. 21(2):10-15.
Harris, Marry B. Santiago Jim Stockton. 1973. “A Comparison of Bilingual and Monolingual Physical Education Instruction with Elementary School Students”. The Journal of Educational Research. 67(2):53-54.
Cahnmann, Melisa.2005. “Translating Competence in a Critical Bilingual Classroom.”Anthropology & Education Quarterly 36(3):230-249.
Appendices
Timeline:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fhIKTrSe2qK0WYe74teWQa0nqzGWjEF5HBSJ1bg6m-E/edit?usp=sharing
Survey Questionnaire:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WOVDUoNlEWkOAMmA3mNXmWkxtJ12lZKM-fSzEMcokEo/edit?usp=sharing
Budget:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hkbYN6kZMfM_s8vBtK7Sq8N0yn2spNBbT3NQW4S1K6Y/edit?usp=sharing
Consent Form:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZRldwiD4Z9RC-0AcbtH3KX75llDxFLokLFz18Ka9twY/edit?usp=sharing