Abstract:

Bilingual education programs in the United States (US) predominantly focus on developing the English proficiency of English Learners (ELs) or those students who are learning English as their second language. This research study examines teachers’ perception of student participation in two different bilingual Spanish/English education programs with different goals. Using a mixed-method research approach, surveys and interviews were conducted with teachers in two classrooms - a fifth grade Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) classroom and in a fifth grade Two-way Immersion (TWI) classroom in a suburban school district outside of a large metropolitan area of the Midwestern United States. In TBE programs, the focus is on developing English proficiency. In TWI programs, the focus is on developing proficiency in both the native language, in this case - Spanish, and in English. Interviews with the classroom teachers in the two different bilingual programs and a survey of bilingual educators at each of the schools were administered and analyzed. The purpose of the study was to compare the teachers’ perceptions of students' classroom participation in the two different bilingual programs. In addition, classroom observations of student participation were documented in both classrooms so that teacher perceptions could be compared to actual student participation.

The hypothesis for this research study was that teachers of students in the TWI program would be more positive about student participation in both Spanish and English compared than the students in the TBE program in which learning English is considered far more important than developing the students’ native language, Spanish. Actual results from student observations in the study indicated that among ELs with low English proficiency, the students in the TWI program demonstrated higher student participation than low English proficiency of ELs in the TBE program. However, among educators in both programs, it was found that there is a misconception that the bilingual education program model has no effect on student participation in the classroom. Quantitative data about teacher perceptions was collected by means of an electronic survey distributed to all bilingual educators at both of the school buildings where the student observations were conducted. The survey consisted of statements about bilingual programs of instruction and the respondents selected if they fully disagree, disagree, were indifferent, agreed, or fully agreed to the statements. This third collection of data served to analyze the perspective of bilingual educators in each of the two bilingual programs (TBE and TWI) and their own observations of EL participation in their classroom.

Qualitative data was first collected through interviews of the classroom teachers. It was deemed important to understand the teacher’s perception of student oral participation. For example, in a classroom in which the teacher valued students that raised their hands in order to obtain permission to participate, student participation consisted of students raising their hands before taking part of a conversation or activity. If the classroom teacher welcomed all participation from all students, then the students were more likely to engage in conversations on free will and the classroom was louder with student-talk based on the academic content.

Keywords:

Multilingual education, bilingual education, teacher perceptions, bilingual education teachers, teacher research.