How much do parents know about bilingual education and immersion? Reasons for optimism

Augustine Garcia and Stephen Krashen
Multilingual Educator (in press)

Do those with more positive attitudes toward bilingual education know more about it? If they do, it is cause for optimism: It suggests that if we can inform the public of the facts about bilingual education, we have a chance of regaining lost ground.

In this study, we present some reason to be optimistic. We asked two groups of parents of limited English proficient children if they understood some of the basic differences between "structured English immersion" and bilingual education. One group of parents had opted for bilingual education, that is, they requested waivers that would allow their children to stay in bilingual education programs after the passage of Proposition 227. The other group did not request waivers.

Subjects were 360 parents of limited English proficient children in three school districts with high numbers of Spanish-speaking limited English learners in different parts of California (see Garcia, 2000, for additional details).

Subjects were questioned in an interview situation. We present here only a part of the results (for additional details and discussion, see Garcia, 2000). As presented in table 1, parents who requested waivers were somewhat better informed about the nature of both bilingual and immersion programs than were parents who did not request waivers: they had a clearer understanding that Prop. 227 generally allowed only one year of immersion before mainstreaming (question 2), that children in bilingual programs first learn to read in the primary language (question 3), and that bilingual programs utilize sheltered subject matter teaching (question 4).

Table 1: Knowledge of details of bilingual education and immersion

	Immersion	Bil. Ed.
1. In a structured English immersion program, children are expected to learn to read in English without first learning to read in their native language.	2.77 (1.22)	2.95 (1.27)
2. Normally, students in structured English immersion programs will be moved to regular classrooms after just one year.	2.54 (1.21)	2.28 (1.07)	*
3. In a bilingual program, children learn to read in Spanish first, then English.	2.03 (.99)	1.56 (.64)	*
4. Once students in a bilingual program begin to master English, they are taught subject matter in English through special methods which use simple English.	2.13 (1.06)	1.83 (.83)	*

1 = Strongly agree; 5 = strongly disagree
standard deviations in parentheses
*= difference statistically significant

It must be pointed out, however, that a substantial number of subjects in both groups were uninformed. There was only mild overall disagreement with the statement that children in immersion do not learn to read in their first language (question 1), and many parents were unaware that under Prop. 227 immersion allows only one year before mainstreaming (question 2); parents who preferred immersion were actually neutral on this question (mean = 2.54).

The responses to an open-ended question, "what is the best way to acquire English?" are presented in table 2.