Bilingual Education and Program Models Flashcards

A teacher notices that an EL student mixes Spanish and English within a single sentence during class discussion. This behavior is best understood as:

Answer: Code-switching, a normal and sophisticated bilingual behavior

Code-switching is a rule-governed bilingual competency, not a deficit; it demonstrates metalinguistic awareness and communicative flexibility.

According to research on bilingual program effectiveness, which model has shown the strongest long-term academic outcomes for English learners?

Answer: Long-term bilingual or dual language programs

Longitudinal studies by Ramírez, Thomas and Collier, and others show that long-term bilingual programs produce the highest academic achievement for ELs over time.

In a dual language program, the term 'language allocation' refers to:

Answer: The planned distribution of instructional time between the two languages

Language allocation is the deliberate scheduling of which language will be used for which content areas or at which times of the day.

Which of the following instructional practices violates the principle of language separation in dual language classrooms?

Answer: Translating a lesson word-for-word into the other language immediately after teaching it

Concurrent translation (teaching the same lesson back-to-back in both languages) undermines language separation and reduces students' motivation to attend in either language.

Heritage language learners in bilingual programs are students who:

Answer: Grew up in homes where a language other than English is spoken and have varying proficiency in that language

Heritage language learners have home exposure to a non-English language but often have stronger oral than academic literacy skills in that language.

When evaluating a bilingual program, which data source best measures whether the program is achieving its biliteracy goals?

Answer: Literacy assessments administered in both languages across grade levels

Biliteracy goals require assessment of academic language proficiency in both languages; English-only data captures only half of the program's outcomes.