Community Language Resources in Dua...

Community Language Resources in Dual Language Schooling1

Abstract

This ethnographic case studious mood was concerned with the part of community-based, minority-language resources in dual language schooling, and their influence onward the use of Spanish by means of children from English-speaking and Spanish-speaking place of abodes Integrating theory from the fields of language planning, language revitalization, community participation, and stores of knowledge, the study triangulated data from participant observation in classrooms; interviews with educators, parents, and community members; and document and archival analysis. Examination of minority-language use at an established, highly regarded dual language educate and of the shifting paterns of language dominance in the Mexican American neighborhood surrounding it revealed that the minority-language resources most numerous immediately available-held by fluent bilingual seniors and recent immigrants from Mexico-were les likely to be incorporated into planned curriculum than the knowledge and experiences of majority-language parents and elite bilinguals. This finding is attributed to the social distance between educators and neighborhood families, the ambivalence of Mexican American parents and seminary staff toward the use of non-standard varieties of Spanish in schooling, and the ne for greater awareness of processe of language shift and los Implications for dual language practice and further research are discussed.

Introduction

Public schooling in the U has been characterized at loss of minority languages and by means of widespread failure to achieve high on a levels of proficiency in languages other than English (Evans, 1994; Hakuta & Pease-Alvarez, 1994; Wong Fillmore, 1991) Bilingual education programs have been criticized for isolating minority-language children upon the basis of language dominance, thereby depriving them of access to linguistic and cultural archetypes (Sanchez, 1997). Dual language (henceforth DL) programs are unusual because they attempt to address what educates have traditionally regarded as separate wants through a common solution.2 on joining majority-language and minority-- language children in classrooms where the pair languages are used for make easy instruction and literacy development, DL programs are organized to provide one as well as the other groups access to native-speaking companions By challenging the stigma of bilingual education as ethnic entitlement and (conversely) the perception of native language schooling as inferior education for minority-language children (Crawford, 1995) DL programs are regarded by way of many as a politically viable form of bilingual schooling.

The number of DL programs in the United States has grown dramatically in the past decade (Howard & Loeb 1998) freshly former U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley has called for the creation of united thousand new DL programs throughout the next five years, approximately four times the instant number of programs (Riley, 2000) learners of the history of bilingual education will note parallels with passage of the original BEA in 1968 in which experimental programs were permanent funded without the benefit of prior research (Schneider, 1976) If the DL type is to live up to its promise, careful documentation of the conditions underlying auspicious programs is sorely needed (Valdes, 1997)

A secondary interest of this cogitation involved understanding how dual language education was conceptualized at the research site. This entailed examination of connections between the historic part of Tucson educators in the progression in a continuously ascending gradation of bilingual education nationally and the progressive growth of DL schooling as practiced at the case subject of attention school. The study also sought to understand the specific nature of Spanish language and cultural resources within the community. In brief, it was rest that the DL program has been shaped on long association with pioneering bilingual educators in Tucson3 The neighborhood continues to be predominantly bilingual, albeit with dwindling numbers of child speakers of Spanish. Adult Spanish-fluent speakers were concentrated in pair groups: bilingual elders and Spanish-dominant speakers lately immigrated from Mexico (Smith, in press)4

The primary interest of the cogitation and the focus of this article was the involvement of these adult minority-language speakers in an established, highly regarded DL program. This research was undertaken with the assumption that DL programs should contribute to conditions necessary for stable bilingualism. The studious mood was conducted to critically examine a case of DL schooling in the words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following of a vital minority language community, and to understand the way educators make use of the linguistic resources held therein. Theoretical Background From a theoretical perspective, the meditation sought to test the explanatory power of combined perspectives from language planning, language revitalization, community contributions to bilingual schooling, and permanent funds of knowledge. These combined perspectives were used as tools for understanding the part of minority language and agriculture within dual language programs. Each of these perspectives is briefly discussed below.