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. 

Education towards global competence in the 21st century

Background

Last week saw the inaugural education conference at my school's parent university, the first Srinakharinwirot University Conference in Education (SWUICE). The theme of the conference was 'Education towards global competence in the 21st century'. 

The keynote speech on the first day was given by Professor Roger Moltzen, Dean of Education at Waikato University, New Zealand. Professor Moltzen gave a very interesting address, outlining what he considered to be the necessary elements for an education that would provide learners with the opportunity to become globally competent citizens. Although there were some other interesting speakers and sessions at the conference, in this post I would like to reflect on Professor Moltzen's keynote address, because he touched on some points that I think are at the heart of a number of debates in education at the moment. 

Professor Moltzen outlined what he considered a globally competent citizen might look like. Some of the attributes of a globally competent citizen which he identified are I suspect attributes which many educators have been instilling in their learners for many years. However I think there are some ideas, especially those relating to globalisation and technological advances, which are going to become increasingly important for learners in the 21st century. Therefore I think it is worth reproducing his ideas here. 

What does a globally competent citizen look like?

• Can understand and appreciate, but also critique, their own culture, language & history
• Is informed & engaged with matters of social justice equity & inclusion
• Looks for and finds purpose in their lives
• Their disposition towards learning is more important than their hard knowledge due to rapid changes in knowledge & information
• Is prepared to take a stand & take a road less travelled
• Is opinionative & prepared to be contentious (we should be actively encouraging students to develop their own points of view)
• Is able to make appropriate decisions about when, where & how to express their views & act on their convictions
• Is ethical, behaves with integrity & takes responsibility for their actions
• Is aware, curious & interested in learning about the world & it's peoples
• Is committed to environmental sustainability, both locally & globally
• Understands the why, not just the how, of social, cultural, ethnic, linguistic & religious diversity
• Is cross-culturally sensitive, informed & confident
• Speaks at least two languages
• Has well developed people skills - emotional intelligence (how do schools deal with this?)
• Thinks & acts critically, creatively, & caringly
• Has well-developed problem solving skills, & approaches tasks innovatively & laterally
• Is open to new ideas & seeks out multiple opinions, perspectives & approaches
• Listens & observes
• Can accommodate ambiguity, recognise complexity & is able to suspend judgement
• Realises that they can make a difference
• Is community-minded with a service orientation
• Understands the world through disciplinary & interdisciplinary eyes
• Is resilient 
• Identifies & creates opportunities for personal or collaborative action to improve conditions

Professor Moltzen further suggested that education is increasingly no longer about the right answers, but about asking the right questions. He described an example of an assignment he sets with his students, where the students submit a question of their own, which they then have to answer. The assignment is then assessed both on the quality of the question and of the answer. He stressed the key factor for him when assessing these assignments was the need for original thinking in the development of the question and the way in which it was answered. He also noted that students had initially liked this approach (thinking it was easy!), but as they moved into it more deeply, became aware that it wasn't as simple as it might have seemed at first. 

He finished with two key questions for us as the audience:

• How well do we as educators model global competence?
• How do we develop the attributes that produce globally competent citizens?

Analysis

A number of interesting points appear in this list, but I'll focus on two that stood out for me. The first is the idea that a disposition towards learning will become increasingly more important than storing knowledge within the individual. This resonates with connectivity theory, a theory of learning proposed by George Siemens in 2005 which incorporates both individual knowledge and knowledge contained within networks. As knowledge and information continue to increase exponentially, learners cannot possibly store these data within themselves, but need to know how to access, evaluate, and analyse them. 

The second point I found compelling was the idea that an interdisciplinary orientation will become increasingly important. This is something that various approaches in education are seeking to address, for example project-based learning and STEM/STEAM initiatives. However, with the confines of national curricula and high stakes examinations it is not always easy to incorporate these pedagogies. 

Summary

I think that in his keynote speech, Professor Moltzen identified some of the key issues that many of us as educators are increasingly thinking about. I certainly found myself agreeing with the attributes of a globally competent citizen which he described. The question I find myself asking, from a classroom practice perspective, is how to reconcile the need for content knowledge, curriculum requirements, and examination-style assessments, with the need to enable learners to become globally competent citizens. Are these two approaches even compatible, and if they are, in what ways can we best help our learners become globally competent citizens? 

What should a teacher do if they don't like parts of their curriculum?

This post was originally inspired by an email conversation with @GuardianTeach earlier this week, about a high school English teacher who said she no longer wanted to teach Shakespeare because she felt it wasn't relevant to her students. Also, she happened personally not to like Shakespeare. I found this latter point more disturbing; considering what is or isn't relevant for our learners is one thing, but picking and choosing curriculum based on our personal preferences is quite another. The teacher's original comments can be found on the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet blog here. There is a response by the blog's editor here, which I find myself more in agreement with. 

Any teacher will naturally have some sections of their curriculum that they prefer over others. They will also have opinions as to which aspects of their curriculum are more relevant, and those that are less relevant to learners' lives. These opinions, however, may be based on assumptions about learners which turn out to be incorrect. There are also different preferences among learners from year to year. 

As a biology teacher my curriculum encompasses a wide range of topics. Do I like them all equally? No. Do I feel that they are equally relevant to all of my students? No. For example, the thorny issue of teaching botany. (Who said plants aren't fun!) I personally find plants fascinating, but in my experience many learners don't see plants as being particularly relevant to their daily lives. This is not helped by a curriculum which demands a detailed knowledge of the intricate aspects of the reproductive strategies of the four major plant groups (non-vascular, seedless vascular, gymnosperms, and angiosperms). Then there are the pages and pages of dry details about each of the various plant phyla. In a pre-Google world maybe it was worth memorising these discrete facts - it isn't anymore. These sections of the course could usefully be done away with. Fundamental processes on the other hand, such as photosynthesis and transpiration, play an important role in cultivating an understanding of how the natural world operates, and these should remain as part of a high school biology course. 

Many educators will agree that curricula around the world are in need of, or are already undergoing, change to make them more relevant to the current generation of learners. This is clearly a step in the right direction. I would happily see several chunks removed from my curriculum, even those sections that I prefer, if it would give more time and space to what was really useful and relevant to today's learners. However, I don't think that can necessarily be achieved simply by jettisoning what we ourselves happen not to like.  

It is up to us as educators to try to find ways to make a topic relevant. This could be by extending learner voice and choice, or by tackling current issues such as genetically modified crops. What this does not mean, though, is that we should be simply dropping those topics we don't like from the curriculum, using as a smokescreen the argument that they are not relevant for our learners.