While federal law requires schools to provide language services for students classified as English learners, states and local districts have broad discretion in the types of education programming to use in helping them acquire English.
Robust research studies since at least the 1980s have found the most effective programs to be some form of bilingual education, such as dual-language immersion, in which students learn academic content in both English and another world language.
But the Trump administration has moved to downplay multilingualism in education and the federal government.
In March, he signed an executive order declaring English the nation’s official language. In July, the U.S. Department of Justice released guidance for federal agencies on implementing the order, emphasizing English-language education and assimilation over multilingual services. The White House’s federal budget proposal also calls for the elimination of federal dollars dedicated to English learners stemming from previous federal encouragement of bilingualism.
Researchers gathered in June for a webinar hosted by SEAL, a California-based nonprofit advocating for multilingual learners, and New America, a left-leaning think tank, to review the benefits of bilingual education even amid shifting federal language priorities, and what work remains to ensure English learners’ access to programs.
Research backs bilingual education for English learners
Bilingual education is often regarded as an umbrella term for programs that teach academic content in more than one language. These programs vary widely: who can enroll in them, how long the programs run, the balance between English and the partner language, who teaches classes, and what the long-term goals are, said Ilana Umansky, an associate professor at the University of Oregon, said in the webinar.
Research studies on the relative effectiveness of bilingual programs have drawn on methods that allow for causal inference, meaning researchers can identify the direct effects of being in a bilingual program compared with having not been in a bilingual program, Umansky said. Overall, these studies find that while there is variation in the quality and effectiveness of individual bilingual programs—just like there is variation in the effectiveness of any program—on average, bilingual programs benefit students, particularly English-learner classified students, more than being in an English-only program.
Some of the key benefits these studies have found include:
- Better academic outcomes for English learners in language arts, math, social studies, and science.
- Stronger academic outcomes in their home or heritage language.
- English learners becoming more likely to graduate and graduate with a regular diploma.
- English learners becoming more likely to reclassify out of an English-learner status (although research suggests that it can take a little longer, on average, for these students to be reclassified, but more of them eventually do).
- Improvement in students’ academic and personal self-confidence.
- Improved family-engagement opportunities.
But even as decades of research highlight these benefits, researchers in the webinar spoke of the challenges for English learners to access bilingual programs.
Work remains to expand access to bilingual programs
The vast majority of multilingual learners in schools are in English-only educational programs, in spite of an ample research base that supports bilingual education, said Kate Menken, a professor of linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York.
“Even though research evidence is really clear, … language policy decisions are at times more political than they are pedagogical,” she added.
And even as more schools and states invest in bilingual education programs, it’s important to ensure that English learners get a seat in these classrooms, especially as more privileged families seek these programs out for their own children, Menken said.
“We want to make sure that we hold true to the original social-justice aims of those programs,” Menken said.
States also need to think about teacher-training requirements and expectations for all teachers working with English learners, and especially those working in bilingual programs, Chris Montecillo Leider, an assistant professor of multilingual learner education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told webinar attendees.
In a study she conducted in 2020, Montecillo Leider found that many states at the time didn’t have a core requirement like a sheltered English-immersion endorsement for all teachers. Several states also didn’t even have credentials for teaching in a bilingual education setting.
And as districts consider opening more bilingual programs, they should make sure the programs are in neighborhoods where multilingual students can have access to them, Umansky said. That includes making sure that multilingual students who have disabilities and who are newcomer immigrants are not excluded.
All researchers on the webinar also spoke of ways to promote bilingualism in schools with multiple languages, such as relying on community liaisons to help connect with students and families in their home languages, stocking up on bilingual books, and allowing students to engage in translanguaging in classrooms even when teachers don’t speak their language.
