Bilingual education - advantages & disdvantages

As someone who teaches biology to English language learners, and who is in favour of inclusive science education, I am interested in the debate around the various advantages and disadvantages of bilingual education. 

One of the major obstacles when considering bilingual education starts with defining what actually constitutes bilingual education. Maria Brisk has defined bilingual education as the use of two languages as the media for instruction. However, within this broad definition lies a wide variety of approaches to bilingual education, especially in non-Western settings. For the purposes of this post I will focus mainly on English language learners in Thailand. (It should be noted that there are additional issues for speakers of minority dialects in Thailand - see, for example, Draper, 2012). 

Within Thailand there are a number of approaches taken to bilingual education, although ways to describe these are not well defined. Broadly speaking there are two types of English Program in Thailand: Mini English Programs, where students receive 8-14 hours per week of English medium classes, and English Programs, where students receive at least 15 hours per week of English medium classes (Keyuravong, 2008, cited in Bax, 2010). My school falls into the latter category. In addition to English Programs there are bilingual schools, which have more variety in the number of hours devoted to English-medium teaching.  

Advantages of bilingual education

In the past actual cognitive advantages of bilingual education were difficult to ascertain. In fact, at times the arguments around bilingual education tended to suggest there were cognitive disadvantages for learners. This argument has now shifted somewhat, with bilingual education no longer regarded as necessarily disadvantageous: 'Current studies that report no difference between groups present themselves as a challenge to claims of bilingual advantages rather than to claims of bilingual disadvantages...' 

Further evidence for the cognitive benefits of bilingualism come from neurological studies, for example bilingual learners may have better information processing skills. In science this may help these learners get to grips with scientific language more quickly, because they already have the skills with which to assimilate a new language. These neurological studies also suggest that bilingualism affords neurological benefits that extend beyond the fact of their being bilingual, for example bilingualism being protective against neural decline in older age. 

Other advantages that a bilingual education may confer are global competitiveness and global engagement. Being bilingual is highly likely to increase an individual's employment opportunities in today's globalized world. For example, the recent further integration of the ASEAN countries, of which Thailand is one, and that organization's adoption of English as its official working language, means that citizens of member states who are bilingual will have a competitive advantage. In addition, by pursuing a bilingual education, individuals may become more globally engaged, globally competent citizens. This could lead to them possibly becoming actively involved in human rights issues, or championing environmental issues, for example.

Disadvantages of bilingual education

If there are disadvantages to a bilingual education, these may be sociocultural rather than cognitive. Firstly, bilingual education may exacerbate social divisions, with only the wealthy elites able to access it, something that Hu (2008) argues is happening in China. Obviously, if only the wealthy can access bilingual education then this will have a negative impact on those learners who cannot. Secondly, bilingual education may privilege one language over a learner's first language, leading to a loss of cultural capital and a weakening of their first culture identity. This second disadvantage may then lead to poor learner outcomes by fostering a negative attitude to school and learning more generally.  

Summary

Clearly, the disadvantages of bilingual education are important factors that should be taken into consideration, but are not in and of themselves arguments against bilingual education - rather they are an argument for a more egalitarian approach to the way societies and their education systems are structured. Taking these disadvantages into account then, I continue to feel that the benefits offered by bilingual education outweigh the negatives. I would be interested to hear others' views on this topic. 

Three reasons behind common misconceptions in biology

Recently I saw a link to an interesting news article about biology students' misconceptions of the subject. When I read the article I noticed that many of the misconceptions identified chimed with observations I have made of my own students' misconceptions. Intrigued, I downloaded the original research article on which the news item was based, which can be found here. The authors identify three common underlying causes, or cognitive construals, for these misconceptions, each of which I will look at in turn.

Rafflesia, a parasitic plant (Photo credit: Dick Culbert)

1. Teleological thinking

The first common underlying cause of misconceptions, teleological thinking, refers to our need for causal stories behind the observation of phenomena, based on the assumption of goals, purposes, or functions. An example of this underlies one of the most common misconceptions I come across from students when teaching evolution. Here is a sentence I might commonly see from a student who is explaining the evolution of the body form of dolphins:

'The ancestor of dolphins walked on land but lived near water. Eventually dolphins adapted themselves so they could swim in the water'. 

Here, the student is assuming a purposeful effort from a dolphin ancestor to change itself into a form more suited to a life aquatic. Clearly this represents a fundamental misconception of natural variation, natural selection, and changes in the makeup of a population over time. Individual organisms cannot 'adapt themselves' to their environment. Natural variation in a population means that some individuals may be better suited to their environment and are therefore more likely to survive and reproduce. The traits that make them more fit for their environment therefore become more prevalent in the population. 

This is a tricky concept for native speakers to express correctly, and would seem to be linked to the underlying teleological misconception that evolution is a purposeful process. For my students, who are ELLs, they have to cope with both the difficulty of the concept and the use of language to correctly express it. Knowing the nature of this misconception, however, will enable me to help learners address these issues when they encounter them in the future. 

2. Essentialist thinking

The second type of misconceptions are related to essentialist thinking - a set of assumptions an individual may make about concepts, such as the idea that a particular feature of a system is solely responsible for defining its overall identity. In biology, an example of this would be the misconception that all plants are photosynthetic. Rafflesia, the plant which produces the largest flower in the world, is parasitic and does not make carbohydrates through photosynthesis. In fact, in biology there is frequently an exception to every 'rule'. Thus we need to help move students' understanding away from the idea that systems or processes need not be defined by a particular characteristic most of them share. 

3. Anthropocentric thinking

The third misconception occurs when biological phenomena are viewed through an anthropocentric, or human-centred lens. A common anthropocentric misconception which I have been battling for a long time now, and remember being used as an example of science undergraduates' misconceptions during my MAEd, is that plants take in food from soil via their roots. This misconception can be addressed simply by asking students if this were the case, why then are there not enormous holes in the ground at the base of every tree on the school grounds? However, knowing that the underlying, anthropocentric reason for this misconception - that all organisms, including plants, must 'eat' food in a similar way to humans - is helpful, and provides a means for approaching similar anthropocentric misconceptions. 

Summary

The insights afforded by understanding the underlying causes of common misconceptions among biology students are both interesting and helpful. Interesting, in that these misconceptions would appear to be widespread, irrespective of culture or language (although there may of course be some communities where they may not be present. Helpful, in that by understanding the underlying causes of these misconceptions, it can provide biology teachers with a means with which to address them. In turn, once learners become more aware of these causes, they too may be able to spot them more easily and avoid falling into these common traps. 

I would love to hear others' experiences of common misconceptions and ways of dealing with them. 

Essay submission day

I usually get a chorus of cheers at the start of the first semester from my Grade 12 biology students when I announce that there will be just one major homework assignment for the whole semester. Strangely these cheers soon change to groans when I tell them that the assignment is a 1500 word fully cited and referenced academic essay!

The rationale

I am aware that there is a continuing debate going on around whether teachers should be setting homework at all, and a few of the opposing viewpoints are summarised nicely here. Some research suggests that whilst homework may not have much effect on achievement for younger students, for high school students it can have beneficial effects on achievement. I will return to homework in a future blog post - for now I will focus on these essays & why I assign them. The rationale for this activity is that my students will shortly be going to university, and many of them will need to use academic writing skills, whatever degree subject they choose to pursue. They will also need to carry out independent research and find relevant articles and background information for themselves. Thus this essay task gives them an opportunity to gain some experience in these areas. This is not an easy task for my students since they are Thai and therefore learning (and writing) in their second language. 

The work

Before setting the essay itself, I assign three very short pre-essay tasks to give my students the opportunity to practice three important skills: paraphrasing, summarising, and the correct use of in-text citations. These tasks are awarded a simple completion grade; the main purpose is to get learners familiar with these skills. 

For the essay itself, there are some important points to note. Firstly, although it is first and foremost a biology essay, students have complete freedom to choose any topic with a biological focus. Many students choose to do a 'pure' biology essay. Other students, who may be less interested in biology, are able to choose a different approach, for example bioengineering or biochemistry. Another popular choice is to take a psychology-oriented approach, for example I have previously received essays about the psychology of sleep, and one about how the teenage brain affects teen behaviours. I think it is important for students to have this level of choice since this is a major piece of work which they will need to spend some time with - hopefully if they choose to write about something they are already interested in it will increase their engagement with the task. From my point of view it also makes the task of grading the essays far more enjoyable by having a set of completely different essays, rather than the same topic appearing repeatedly. 

The second point to note is that I give my students a time frame of three months to write the essay. They are free to submit their essay at any point during these three months, although they are informed that it will not be graded until everyone has submitted their work. This is an attempt by me to minimise deadline bottlenecks for my students at the end of the semester. Of course, being teenagers, I generally get fewer than ten percent of the essays submitted earlier than the deadline!

Thirdly, I make it very clear to students that plagiarism will not be tolerated. Very occasionally I have had to return work to students ungraded, and ask them to re-submit an essay that has not been extensively copied and pasted. I even had a student submit work that came from a website that claimed it wasn't a cheat site, but a collaborative one, when it clearly was simply in the business of selling complete essays. Fortunately these cases are rare, and the vast majority of students do a good job and are careful to fully cite and reference their work. 

Some examples

Each year I look forward to seeing the diversity of topics chosen by my students. The range of diversity can be seen in some of this year's list of essay titles, which, in no particular order, are: 

• Life in the underwater world
• Why do we die?
• Bird migration
• Infectious disease
• Stem cells
• The fatal Ebola
• Viruses
• Biodegradable plastics
• The digestive system
• Biological weapons
• DNA profiling
• Cancer treatment
• The meaning of animal behaviour
• Plant diversity and evolution
• The classification and evolution of dinosaurs
• Coronary surgery
• How does Golden Rice help vitamin A deficiency?

Summary

As already mentioned, my students are Thai and therefore a task such as this is particularly challenging for them. However, it is clear from the generally high standard of essays that I receive from my students that they put a lot of time and effort into these essays, and I am frequently pleasantly surprised at the insights and thoughtfulness displayed in some of their work. Although there is some (generally!) good-natured grumbling about the task, I think in the end my students can see the benefits of doing this work.  

Reflections on teaching and learning during an urban biodiversity project

This semester my Grade 10 students conducted projects which contained a number of elements considered to be important for project based learning (PBL). In this post I will describe the various activities carried out by learners as part of these projects, along with reflections on how I implemented each activity. This will be followed by a summary of learners' own reflections on the projects. 

A screenshot of the front page created by students.

1. Driving question

The driving question for these projects was 'What biodiversity can we find around us, when we live in a large urban centre like Bangkok?' On reflection, next time I would spend longer having students developing their own driving questions related to the theme of urban biodiversity. In this way learners would have more voice and choice over the direction their project took. 

2. Opening event

Groups of students were asked to take photos of various wildlife that they spotted around Bangkok. Back in class the following week, I asked learners to upload their photos to the biodiversity monitoring website Project Noah. I have blogged previously about how Project Noah is a great way to introduce learners to citizen science. This was the opening event for these projects, and aimed to give learners a sense of how their own photos and observations may be used to inform real-world science. 

An example of Bangkok's biodiversity.

3. Creating authentic products

In order for learners to exercise some creativity, and make good use of the photos they had taken, I asked for each group to create a web page for their photos within Google Sites. This was also where students were able to reinforce what we had been learning in class about scientific naming and classification of organisms, habitats, and community interactions. 

Additionally, I asked each group of students to create a video based on their observations and photos. They had a choice of approaches here: a series of their photos put together as a movie, a filmed piece to camera, a video with a voiceover etc. These videos were then posted to YouTube (for example here), and so represent an authentic, public product.

5. Learners' reflections

At the end of the project I wanted students to have the opportunity to reflect on their learning throughout the projects. This would also act as feedback for me, affording me insights into what could be improved about the projects in future. These reflections were recorded by having students complete a questionnaire created using a Google Form.

All but one student (27/28) completed the reflections questionnaire. 25/27 students responded that they had learned something new about biodiversity in Bangkok. Many students expressed surprise at the range of biodiversity they discovered in and around Bangkok. 

A number of students expressed the opinion that going out finding wildlife of which to take photos of was fun, not boring, and in the words of one student '(felt) free, not like doing work'. Some students enjoyed making the videos, while others stated that they enjoyed putting their web pages together. 

When asked what was the most important thing they learned from the projects, many students noted that they had learned a lot about biodiversity and the relationships between living things. Other students highlighted team working skills as an important aspect they had learned from the projects. Some students talked about specific technical skills they had learned, such as building web pages and editing videos. 

When asked what they would change about the project, many learners responded that they wouldn't change anything. A few students suggested that there may be better options than Google Sites for building the web pages, since it is somewhat limited in the choices available. A couple of students also noted technical difficulties when it came to making the videos. 

Summary

My own personal feeling about these projects is that they were successful in many respects, most importantly that the majority of students felt that they had learned something new from them. I think next time I would spend longer in the driving question development phase, giving students more opportunity to have their input. Also, I would consider ways to give learners more say in the choice of what their final product should be. I still like the idea of having a website so that the whole group can collate their work in one place, but within that there could be a wider range of ways to display their findings. 

I would be interested to hear other views on these projects, along with suggestions for improving them. 

Extended scientific writing with EALs

This week I will be assigning the major piece of coursework for my Grade 12 students this semester – a 1500 word scientific essay, on a biology topic of their choice. This is a challenging activity for my learners, given that they are EALs. However, I feel it’s a great way to have them practice important transferrable skills that will be invaluable to them when they go to university next year. Some of my learners will go on to study in the UK or the US, while many others will take up places in international programmes in Thai universities where the medium of instruction is English. Academic writing, paraphrasing, and the correct use of citations and referencing, are skills that most, if not all of them, will likely be facing in the coming years.

Image: Graham Holliday via Flickr http://bit.ly/1FHA65t

I hope that by giving learners free reign in terms of choosing their topic, it goes some way to lightening the burden of this task. They can choose any topic they like relating to biology. For those who may be less interested in biological sciences as a subject, or will not be pursuing a degree in that field, I will accept essays with a biology angle. For example, in previous years I received essays based on biomechanical engineering and sleep deprivation studies, which obviously lean more towards engineering and psychology, respectively.

Before getting started on the essay itself, I set a couple of pre-essay activities. These give learners an opportunity to review and practice a number of key skills I am hoping to reinforce with this assignment. The first pre-essay activity involves the correct use of in-text citations and references. The second gives learners a series of short extracts from primary scientific literature that they must summarise and paraphrase. They are also expected to find an example of a recent research article of their own and write a two or three sentence summary of it.

Grade 12 students here in Thailand have an awful lot of pressures piling up on them during this, their final year of school. Many of them will be preparing for and sitting multiple exams, for example SATs and university entrance exams. Therefore I do not assign a lot of homework, with this essay being their one major task to be done outside of class time. As a result, the deadline for this work is two months from now, in early September. I also make it clear to my students that they are free to submit their essay at any time between now and the deadline. This is partly to help them avoid the typical bottleneck of deadlines that build up at the end of term. However, teenagers being teenagers, I can count on one hand the number of essays that have been turned in much before the deadline in the past!