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. 

Taking science projects beyond the laboratory

At my school, Grade 11 students in the maths-science programme are required to work in small groups to undertake year-long science projects. Often these projects are laboratory-based, experimental-type projects, which are obviously important since science is a very practical subject. However, as the coordinator of these projects, I am also keen for students to engage in other types of projects that may not be quite so lab-based. This year provided a good example of how much learning may be achieved via a project that was not a lab-based experiment. 

The group prepares for their project presentation.

The group in question came to see me at the beginning of the year to ask me if they could do a project based around the Ebola and MERS viruses, both of which were very much in the news at the time. Obviously, this would not make for a suitable lab-based project for high school students! However, I was keen to let them pursue the topic of their choosing, and spent some time thinking of a way for them to undertake a suitable project. I then proposed to the students that they should carry out the following:

• Background research into the aetiology and epidemiology of Ebola and MERS viruses
• Develop a questionnaire to investigate the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes around these diseases
• Undertake a pilot study to test their questionnaire
• Revise their questionnaire based on the findings of the pilot study
• Carry out a larger survey of other students, as well as members of the general public
• Develop a website, based on their research, in order to publicise their findings and raise awareness, as well as providing them with a tangible product at the end of their project

Overall I was extremely pleased with the students' effort and attention to detail during this project. They worked hard on it throughout the school year, and consulted with me regularly for advice. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked them how many individuals they planned to interview for their main survey, and they told me 300 people. In the end they actually interviewed over 500 people, an impressive undertaking!

At the beginning of the project, when I suggested that they design a website to display their results, the group was initially sceptical since none of them had any web design experience. However, they took the plunge and, using Google Sites, created a very nice website which can be found here. 

A screenshot from the students' website.

Towards the end of their project, the group was very happy to be selected to display their work for a visit by the Royal School Award committee. To top things off, following the end of year project presentations their group was declared joint winners! 

The group's display for the Royal School Award visitors.

My feeling is that this project was a great success and has reinforced my view that science projects need not be lab-based in order to provide students with a valuable science learning experience. Additionally, the students themselves gave very positive feedback regarding the project. I would be happy to supervise similar projects in the future. 

Six findings from students' evaluation of their science projects

This year's Grade 11 science projects have come to an end, and once again I asked the students to complete an anonymous evaluation questionnaire to assist me with improving the projects next time around. Here are six key points arising from this evaluation.

Happy students having finished their final project presentations!

1. Scientific understanding

In terms of improving their general understanding of science, the majority of students agreed that this was the case. However, a significant minority reported they had no opinion about this, which is something I hope to improve with next year's projects.

2. Enjoyment and teamwork

More students reported that they enjoyed the science projects this time around, which may in part be due to the fact that they chose their own groups. There was also a big improvement in the number of students reporting that their group worked well as a team this year, compared with last. Again, this may reflect the fact that the groups self-selected their members. 

3. Project advisor

Each project group has a science teacher who acts as their advisor throughout the year. Groups overwhelmingly reported that their advisor had been helpful. This is encouraging because students and their advisor must work together closely for these projects, and a good relationship between them is important for the projects to be a success. 

4. Laboratory facilities

For those students who carried out a laboratory-based project, they reported that the time after school and at lunchtimes allotted for this had been useful. 

5. Project resources

Project resources, such as guidelines and templates, are made available to students via our school's LMS, Moodle, and increasingly through Google Classroom. The majority of students reported that these resources were useful, although 30% had no opinion about this, so there is definitely room for improvement here. 

6. Areas of concern

As in previous years, one of the main criticisms from students was the lack of dedicated class time for the projects. Unfortunately, given the already packed curriculum, there is little scope for this to change in the future. A number of students also commented that there was too much pressure towards the very end of the projects, with a number of deadlines occurring simultaneously across different subjects. Again, there are limited options for addressing this. However, one of the changes planned for next time is for clearer delineation of project milestones throughout the school year, which will hopefully go some way to distributing the workload more evenly.

Overall then, it would appear that students were generally satisfied with the science projects and what they learned from them. However, as always, there is scope for refining the projects and their administration, in an on-going cycle of improvement, based on the students' own thoughts and opinions. 

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. 

A global classroom collaboration

Over the last month or so my students have been participating in a global classroom collaboration. This has been an exciting foray into my first proper collaboration of this sort, and was initiated via a Twitter conversation with a colleague, Jodie, in the USA. 

A screenshot from the Flipgrid web app.

The plan for the initial lesson can be found here. Briefly, we each had our classes do research about our respective local biomes, surroundings, and cultures. The students then developed clues relating to their research. I had my students write the clues out as scripts which would form the basis of video messages they recorded using the Flipgrid app. The students in my colleague's class then viewed the videos, and my students viewed theirs. The students then submitted written questions to each other using Padlet, with which to try & glean more information in order to guess the location of each other's school. The great thing about this approach is that it can be done asynchronously, avoiding any difficulties arising from being in very different time zones. 

I was very impressed with the level of engagement my students showed during the development of their clues, and they put a lot of thought into them. Since they are English language learners I assisted them with the development of their scripts, mainly just to remove words or phrases that would give away our location too easily.

The next lesson I had students download the free Flipgrid app onto their smartphones and enter the hashtag for our collaborative grid. This had been set up previously by Jodie, using her paid Flipgrid account. Once the grid has been set up, anyone can be invited to upload short video recordings to it via the app. These subsequent users do not pay any additional sign up fees. We experienced no problems downloading the app or accessing the class grid. 

I let my students find somewhere quiet to record their videos, and made sure they used areas where there were no distinguishing features that would have given their location away. They rehearsed their scripts briefly, then recorded and uploaded their video messages to Flipgrid. This was a very straightforward process, with no technical difficulties presented by using the app to record the videos. 

My students spent a number of periods working on this project, and were very engaged and actively participating throughout. Overall, their feedback from an evaluation questionnaire they completed following the project was extremely positive, as exemplified by the following comments (verbatim):

• I learned a lot from the Flipgrid project, one of them being to not use the country or places you live as a barrier for your learning
• I learned about biology in other country, such as climate and biomes. I also got to know their culture and lifestyle which is very interesting. 
• I learned both of biodiversity in Thailand and Texas that I've never known before.
• This project should continue. I really enjoyed it and I'm sure other students will enjoy it too.

The one drawback to this project was its timing, in that we began just before the Christmas/New Year break, and one of my students noted in their evaluation feedback following the project that this had had a dampening effect: 'May be not to use during the holidays? It was so exciting at first but then they had their holidays followed by our breaks so we kinda forgot about it'. This was a fair point, but as we all know the reality of school schedules means that we can't always fit things in where we would like. In the future, though, I would try to avoid spreading an activity such as this over an extended break. 

I have seen some educators criticise global classroom collaborations as being undertaken simply because technology now allows this. However, based on my students' own comments, together with my observations, this approach does seem to have positive learning outcomes. I feel that the main content-driven learning occurred during the initial lesson, when students were developing their clues relating to their local environment, such as which biome they are located in. The learning which took place in subsequent lessons related more to language skills, for example my ELLs trying to understand native English speakers talking at normal speed. It also offered students in their different countries cultural insights to see what their differences were and also their similarities - would the US teenagers have guessed that Thai teenagers' favourite foods were pizza and pasta for instance!

Overall, I feel that this was a successful activity, both in terms of the content learned and the level of student engagement. I would be happy to hear others' views on this, or similar undertakings that they have done.