The Acquisition of Academic English by Children in Two-Way Programs: What does the Research Say?

Senesac, B. (2002). Two-way bilingual immersion: A portrait of quality schooling. Bilingual Research Journal 26 (1), 1-17.

Sugarman, J. & Howard, L. 2001. Two-way immersion shows promising results: Findings from a new study. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Thomas, W. P., & Collier, V. (1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. Washington, DC: NCBE. Available:
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/resource/effectiveness/thomas-collier97.pdf.

Thomas, W. P. & Collier, V. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students' long-term academic achievement. Final Report: Project 1.1. University of California, Santa Cruz: Center for Research, Education, Diversity and Excellence.
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Endnotes

In Christian, Montone, Lindholm, and Caarraza (1997), test scores were combined for minority and majority language children. In addition, many of the Spanish speakers entered school with significant English competence; 45% of entering students at one school (Inter-American) were considered “bilingual” and half of the Spanish speakers at another (River Glen) were classified as fluent in English in grade one. Lindholm and Fairchild (1990) cover progress only to grade one and the comparison group included English and Spanish dominant children. Senesac (2002) reported that Spanish speakers in a two-way program performed at grade level in grades three through eight, but approximately half the sample were never classified as limited English proficient (Senesac, 2002, p. 4).

Stipek, Ryan and Alarcon (2001) is another “two-way” program that had tremendous emphasis on English: For children in preK and K, teacher talk was in English 57% of the time to Spanish-dominant children, mixed 19%, and in Spanish 24% of the time. For grades 1 and 2, teacher input was in English 77% of the time, 9% mixed, and 14% in Spanish. Pre-K and K Spanish-speaking children responded in Spanish (with no mixing) only 11% of time, and those in grades 1 and 2, only 12%