Bilingualism for the Children: Implementing a Dual-Language Program in an English-Only State

Abstract

In November 2000, Arizona voters passed Proposition 203, a law that replaced bilingual education with a 1-year program known as Structured English Immersion (SEI). Although SEI has little support in the educational or applied linguistics research literature, all English-language learners (ELLs) in Arizona are automatically placed in SEI classrooms. This article examines the effects of SEI on the teachers, administrators, and students at an urban school serving a large number of ELLs. The study found that SEI teachers are largely unaware of the model and unprepared to teach it effectively, that training in SEI strategies has been haphazard, that interpretation of the law's waiver system by State education officials has seriously reduced the number of students eligible for the school's dual-language program, and that forcing English learners into SEI is traumatizing some of them and distressing their parents. The study raises questions about the civil rights implications of the law.

Contextualizing Policy Appropriation: Teachers’ Perspectives, Local Responses, and English-only Ballot Initiatives

“…(SEI Teacher, T18) These feelings were based on their daily experiences where they noted the negative emotional, psychological, and academic impact of the waiver requirement on their students. Similar stories of confusion, trauma, and wasted instructional time were observed and continue to be encountered in classrooms for ELLs under Proposition 227 and Proposition 203 (Combs et al 2005;Gándara et al 2000;Gutierrez 2001;Parrish et al 2006;Valdez 2001).…”

“…Given the almost unanimously negative teacher responses noted in the same state (Sánchez Urban Rev (2008) 40:350-370 361 2006) and in the other two states (Combs et al 2005;Valdez 2001), this was a somewhat surprising finding. Teachers noted that the programs under Question 2 addressed the challenge of having to juggle multiple proficiency levels in the previous bilingual program.…”

“…With some exceptions (e.g., Combs et al 2005;Sánchez 2006;Wright and Choi 2006), they have almost exclusively focused on Proposition 227 in California (Gándara et al , 2005Parrish et al 2006; and special issues of the Bilingual Research Journal [2000] and The Urban Review [2001]). These articles collectively highlight the chaotic nature of the initial implementation process in the absence of clear guidelines and the lack of sufficient professional development, collaboration, and resources (including access to native language resources) (Arellano-Houchin et al 2001;Gándara et al 2005;Gándara et al 2003).…”

Teacher preparation for emergent bilingual students: Implications of evidence for policy

“…Thus, Arizona's requirement that teachers "know the basic SEI terminology" (ASBE, 2011) is an improvement from the lack of guidance provided when Proposition 203 (2001) passed, but it remains insufficient to ensure teachers develop best practices for EBs. Given that SEI lacks a foundation in the applied linguistics literature (Combs et al, 2005), improving guidance to teachers with questionable terminology is hardly a robust approach to meet EBs needs.…”

“…The guidance originally provided to schools by the state was limited to an assertion that most instruction should be in English, but that all subject matter should be taught only in English (see Lillie, Markos, Arias, & Wiley, 2012). The limited guidance resulted in capricious implementation and teacher training (Combs, Evans, Fletcher, Parra, & Jiménez, 2005;Grijalva, 2009). In response 7 , HB 2064HB (2006 5 Funding increased from $7.5 million to $68 million.…”