Parents' lack of understanding of their children's bilingual education program

Bilingual Research Journal, Summer 2003 by Sheffer, Cherie Satterfield

Abstract

This study provides information about 19 families that have children enrolled in a bilingual kindergarten class in the Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, Texas. This paper concerns the parents' understanding of the bilingual program their children attend. The study revealed that a miniscule number of parents are familiar with the practices and policies in place at their children's school and that their expectations for English-language instruction vary widely from what is actually happening in the classroom.

Introduction

I am a first-year teacher of a bilingual kindergarten class in Houston's Spring Branch School District. I have 19 students, all of whom took the Idea Proficiency Test (IPT)-a test of oral language skills that can be given in English or Spanish-to determine eligibility for the program, and their parents had to sign a consent form for their participation in a bilingual education classroom. Before I began teaching, I was given training on the bilingual model adopted at my school. Our bilingual model is a late-exit maintenance model. This implies that the focus is to develop the student's native language, using it as the primary language of instruction. English is introduced slowly, and children are not transitioned until they have attained cognitive academic language proficiency in English. Our model begins in pre-K and remains in place until fifth grade, when students should be prepared to learn in an all-English environment in middle school. The English as a Second Language (ESL) component in kindergarten is to constitute 30% of daily instruction at least 4 days a week, while the remaining 70% is taught in Spanish. Again, all of the content-area subjects (i.e., reading, writing, math, social studies, and science) are taught in Spanish. Kindergarten students are not expected to read and write in English; thus, teachers' primary focus in ESL is on developing students' oral competency in English. During this time, the ESL component can take any shape; it can be a formal 45-minute block, or it can be integrated into other content areas. However, we are provided with a comprehensive ESL scope and sequence that must be met each year so that the students will be prepared for the following year.

Goldenburg's (1989) research reveals the importance of parental involvement in the school. Children whose parents are involved in school have more positive attitudes about school, have improved attendance, and show better homework habits than children whose parents are not involved (Epstein, 1985). The parents at my school are not involved in their children's schooling. This may be attributed to a number of reasons: their low socioeconomic status, low academic achievement, and other factors that make the school an undesirable place for my students' parents. Perhaps some are deterred from participating because they had bad experiences in school (or possibly never attended school), are not legally in this country, or do not speak English or write English or Spanish.

Regardless of the reason, there is a gap in communication and understanding of school programs that must be bridged so these at-risk kindergarten students can meet their full potential. Therefore, I feel it is very important to find out what parents' expectations are for their children's education in the bilingual program. The purpose of my study was to determine parents' preconceived notions of the program so that I can devise a plan to get parents informed about and involved in their children's education. In this study, I found that my students' parents were not involved and were not educated about the program.

Method

Because I am primarily concerned with the situation at my school for the purposes of this study, all of the participants came from my own class and the class of the teacher next door, Mrs. Hilda Melkus, another bilingual kindergarten teacher. All of the children live in apartments near the school. All of the students in both of our classes receive free lunch, and they are all Hispanic.

To conduct the study, I sent home questionnaires with the 39 students in the two classes (my 19 students and the other teacher's 20 students). Nineteen families responded with completed questionnaires. The questionnaire included a letter (see Appendix A), in Spanish, with an explanation and directions, the questionnaire itself, and an envelope with my name and room number. The questionnaire was designed to be completely anonymous. The questions were formulated to gather background information on each family and to discern parents' attitudes toward the English language and its usefulness to their child. It was also important to find out what the parents thought was actually happening in the classroom and what they thought should be happening in respect to literacy and English-language acquisition. (See Appendix B for the questions posed to parents.)

Results

As I expected, I found that all of the parents are immigrants to this country. Seventeen of the nineteen families who responded are from Mexico, one is from Nicaragua, and one is from El Salvador. Ten of the students were born in the United States, and nine were born elsewhere. All of the subjects reported that they speak primarily Spanish at home.