AIS Hosts Language Acquisition Researchers
Language researchers Fred Genesee and Kathryn Lindholm-Leary with PS Head Dal Sohi.
Within the International Baccalaureate curriculum at AIS, dual-language teaching is proving to have a positive impact on academic performance, as measured by standardized national testing. As part of a taskforce review of language acquisition at the school, two internationally renowned researchers were invited to assess the school's pedagogical approach to dual-language learning and to present some of their previous research findings to school faculty.
Dr. Kathryn Lindholm-Leary is a professor of child and adolescent development at San Jose State University, where her research interests focus on understanding the cognitive, language, psychosocial and societal factors that influence student achievement, with a particular emphasis on culturally and linguistically diverse students. She has worked with two-way immersion programs for 20 years and has helped to establish programs in more than 50 school districts in 10 states. She regularly consults with various state departments of education and the U.S. Department of Education. Her research was used by previous U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley to establish Title VII funding and program priorities for two-way immersion programs. She has authored or co-authored four books and many chapters and journal articles on the topics of dual-language education and child bilingualism, and presents regularly at national and international conferences.
Fred Genesee is a professor in the psychology department at McGill University, Montreal. He has served as a consultant on second/foreign language and bilingual education in countries such as Japan, Spain, Germany, Estonia, Hong Kong, Latvia, Russia and Italy. He has conducted extensive research on alternative forms of bilingual and immersion education. His current research interests include language acquisition in pre-school bilingual children, and the language and academic development of at-risk students in bilingual programs. He is the author of numerous professional and scientific research reports and books, including Learning Through Two Languages: Studies of Immersion and Bilingual Education (Newbury House, 1987).
As part of their two-day visit to AIS, the researchers presented a review of previous, related research to AIS faculty. Professor Genesee began his presentation by talking about the history of research on language and content acquisition in Canada. Forty years of dual-language research has shown that content-obligatory language skills are required for comprehension and mastery of each academic area; for example, students need to learn math-specific grammar and vocabulary in both languages. Learning in this way results in mastery of both the language and each academic subject, and has resulted in students who are competitive in a bilingual market when they leave school.
Dr. Lindholm-Leary introduced statistics from research in California schools showing that dual-language programs resulted in higher testing scores for English language arts programs across all socioeconomic groups. Results disprove the myth that students in dual-language classrooms perform less well than students in single-language classrooms. Native English speakers in dual-language programs perform at higher levels than their English-only peers in the state. English-proficient students (who were formerly Spanish-only speakers) in Spanish/English dual-language programs achieve at similar levels as other English-proficient students in the state, and both outscore English-only speakers in the state. Strong reading skills in Spanish or English were found to have a positive correlation with reading skills in the other language. Similar research results also applied to Chinese/English dual-language programs.
These research findings support those noted by teachers and administrators at AIS:
- AIS students in dual-language programs consistently score higher than independent school norms on standardized English reading, writing and verbal tests and mathematics tests.
- Gaining proficiency in a native language is an important prerequisite for academic success.
- Dual-language students develop respect, understanding and a positive attitude toward other cultures within their community.
- Students recognize that their perceptions and thinking may differ as a result of their bilingualism, and often use cross-language knowledge to help them solve problems.
Professor Genesee and Dr. Lindholm-Leary will return to Atlanta in the spring of 2008 to present at the Global Language Convention to be hosted at AIS.