1

Sarah Aldrich

Elizabeth Williamsen

ENG381

25 April 2016

Spanish-English Bilingualism in Regards to Dual Immersion Schooling

As once stated the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, The limits of my language are the

limits of my universe. With each language comes a unique view of the world. Learning more

than one language gives a person access to understanding multiple cultures and a new lens

through which to view the planet; it is a way to expand ones universe. Considered a country

with many races, ethnicities, and spoken languages, the United States is a dynamic place to live,

with opportunities to connect with people from many walks of life. To learn a language is to

learn about the cultures which speak that language. Because Spanish is a common minority

language in the United States, which increases in its amount of speakers each year (MLA

Language Map), it is important to consider the opportunities which would arise if a student

learns the language. This essay will explore second language acquisition in young children, with

attention to the characteristics and benefits a Spanish-English dual immersion schooling

technique has on students in the United States.

In the United States, as of the year 2010, there are 35, 437, 985 speakers of the Spanish

language, which increased from the amount in 2005 by seven million individuals. According to

the Modern Language Association Language Map, although it is still a minority language,

Spanish is a language of widespread use in the United States (MLA Language Map). In

relation to the rest of the languages spoken in the United States, Spanish is spoken by about

twelve percent of the population and outnumbers all other minority languages put together
 2

(Field 10-11). Especially in the west coast of the country, near the Mexican border, and in

Florida, Spanish is a dominant language, with many counties having anywhere from no speakers

to 97.84 percent. Areas of high concentrations of Spanish speakers are focused in Texas, near the

Mexican border (MLA Language Map). These states were areas which were once governed by

Spain for centuries and then Mexico (Field 2). According to the MLA website, the state with the

most Spanish speakers is California at over nine million, with Texas following closely behind at

eight million (Spanish Data Center). These numbers reflect native, fluent Spanish speaking

individuals whose language spoken in home is Spanish. This essay seeks to answer the

following question: Will these numbers of Spanish speakers be raised due to immersion

programs in the United States?

Additionally, one must consider the perceptions of native Spanish speakers which the

dominant culture in the United States has. Recently, as the presidential election nears, there has

been an increased amount of scrutiny placed on Spanish-speaking individuals. For example,

Donald Trump has stated that there should be a wall erected to divide Mexico from the United

States, and his view of Spanish-speaking natives as less-than is quite apparent. This view is not

only false but also extremely corrosive to what it means to be living in America. America is

supposed to be diverse and all-inclusive, not a place where people would want to hide an

instrumental part of their lives: their language and culture. Going with this, there was a study

conducted to look at perceptions native English speakers in the United States have of native

Spanish speakers speaking English as their L2. According to this study, the comprehensibility

and intellect of a speaker coordinated to how pronounced of an accent he/she had (Behrman and

Akhund). The question then raised could be: Is it fair to rate someone as less intelligent because

he/she has an accent and does not have a perfect command of the language? However, as states
 3

Bilingualism in the USA: The Case of the Chicano Latino Community, the view of bilingual

individuals tends to fluctuate from one side of the spectrum to the other (Field 153). Perhaps

dual-immersion schooling could lead the spectrum to a positive side.

Before exploring the benefits of Spanish-English bilingualism and immersion programs,

it is important to consider the factor of how a person acquires a second language. Because this

essay focuses on the dual immersion system, this interest in language acquisition will be viewed

from a young students perspective. In terms of learning a second language, it is believed that

after the age of three, it is expected that the rate at which a child learns will slow down (Field

29). However, in the case of dual immersion schools, teaching children in two languages at a

young age is still much better than waiting. Moreover, one text states that Others hold that

psychological and social factors, such as attitude, motivation, and social distanceor,

collectively, the degree to which someone acculturates to the target language groupdetermine

success and failure (Menn). Since young children are less perceptible to recognizing these

negative connotations, it could be hypothesized that they are able to learn a second language, in

this case of Spanish, with more ease. In considering second language acquisition, one can look

at the order of acquisition. When does a learner learn certain traits of a language and gain

command of it? The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics shows how learning each new

skill in the language is a process. For example, when learning to negate, a Spanish ELL student

will go through four different phrases. Transfer from the Spanish language into the English

language may occur, as students will place negation words before verbs, as is done in their native

language (Menn). Another characteristic of acquiring a second language mirrors how children

learn their first language: speakers will often start out using one-word phrases, and then move

into using more complex word patterns and structures (Fisher). Teachers in the dual immersion
 4

Spanish-English setting should remember, Not just differences but also similarities between

languages can cause learners difficulty (Menn). Learners may assume that if two structures are

similar, another related structure may behave the same way when in reality it does not.

Next, there is much to consider with bilingual children in comparison to monolingual

children. Bilingualism relates to many topics having controversial roots: race, immigration,

national identity, civil rights, education and human cognition: all issues which weave together

(Field xvii). One essay argues that students who know more than one language do better than

students speaking one language on tasks involving executive control (Bialystok 229).

Bilingualism is an ability which is both intense and sustained over a long period of time;

both languages of the speaker are used consistently in his/her brain because of interference

(Bialystok 229). From this idea of having two active languages at all time, it presents the unique

challenge to these speakers of choosing the language in which he/she will respond. One study

was done with 25 monolingual children and 25 bilingual children of similar memory levels and

nonverbal communication at the age of six in which there were shapes or letters the children had

to name. The trials could be congruent or incongruent, with mixed shapes or letters (and sizes of

either one). There were consistent patterns shown for bilingual children: they had faster reaction

times than the monolingual children with either type of trial, congruent or incongruent. It is

interesting to note that although in the control trials, all students were similarly scored, but in the

more difficult trials which required more concentration, the bilingual students outperformed the

monolinguals. In a study with eight year old children, the participants had to first identify

pictures as being of an animal or musical instrument and then second listen to a sound clip and

identify that as being of an animal or musical instrument. These preliminary trials were

performed with similar accuracy by both types of children. To make the task more complicated,
 5

pictures and sound clips were overlapped, and participants had to classify them. The bilingual

children, as in the previous experiment, had faster reaction times as well as were more accurate

(Bialystok 229-331). These studies show that bilingual individuals have flexible minds able of

storing a lot of information regarding not just one language, but two.

While the benefits listed above can apply to learning any second language, it should be

considered why Spanish is a beneficial second language to learn for native English speakers.

Not only will an individual fluent in both Spanish and English be able to communicate with

American Spanish speakers, but also have the opportunity to travel the world, learn about

Spanish-speaking cultures, be versatile as an employee and share the American culture. As the

numbers show an increase in the amount of fluent Spanish speakers in the United States

(Spanish Data Center), it is worthwhile to note the possible shift of Spanish becoming not a

minority language, but a main language. While not all Latinos in the United States are fluent in

Spanish, language is an integral part of culture and maintaining that should be a joint effort. If

more people in the United States learned to speak Spanish, in the way proposed of dual

immersion, it would create a gateway to understanding many cultures around the globe.

Moreover, using dual immersion for enabling children to be fluent Spanish and English

speakers has important characteristics to consider. The younger this process is started, the higher

a chance the child will have of acquiring a native-like proficiency in his/her second language

(Field 36). A dual immersion program is considered to be synonymous with a two-way bilingual

immersion program. As Potowski states, In dual immersion classrooms, students from different

language backgrounds are immersed in the minority language for large portions of the school day

with the expectation that they will become equally proficient in their first language (L1) and in

their second language (L2) (Potowski 75). The goal of programs such as these is not only to
 6

help students achieve fluency in two languages, but for borders that exist between the different

cultures to be taken down so that feelings are positive between the two. The success of dual

immersion programs depends on different factors, which will be explored in the following

paragraph (Potowski 75-76).

Next, it will be explored the effectiveness of dual immersion programs. One critique of

the system is that students may not verbally practice their second language as much as is desired.

Although students of different language backgrounds will be grouped together in a classroom

and will be instructed in English and Spanish, students, for example, who are native English

speakers, may not choose to use Spanish during work time or to communicate with their peers.

Therefore, critics say that students will not develop their second language as well. One study of

a dual immersion classroom setting with two Spanish native speakers and two English native

speakers found that during school the children chose to use Spanish 56 percent of the time. It is

important to note that although students were using English almost half the time, sometimes it is

necessary to use ones native language in order to fully grasp a concept. If a student does not

understand a concept because of a language barrier, explaining it in his/her first language will

allow for him/her to discuss it better in his/her second language. Along with this statistic, there

were four overarching commonalities of the Spanish use in the dual-immersion classroom. First,

no matter what the students native language, the girls tended to use Spanish more than the boys.

Second, students used more Spanishby twice the amountwhen talking to their teacher than

when talking to their peers. Third, Spanish was more commonly used when there was a specific

task at hand. Finally, English was used for a wider variety of functions than was Spanish

(Potowski 75-76).
 7

In conclusion, bilingualism in Spanish and English should be viewed as an asset.

Although a minority language in the United States, Spanish is widely spoken in many parts of

the country. Negative connotation has been attached to this language by some individuals, and a

way to dispel that stigma could be using dual immersion programs. Starting by changing the

mind of young children will lead to a more inclusive, understanding generation. Learning a

second language will open many opportunities for those individuals and create people who are

global citizens.
 8

Works Cited

Menn, Lise, Marilyn May Vihman, Cynthia Fisher, Muriel Saville-Troike, Eve V. Clark, Elissa

L. Newport, and Michael H. Long. International Encylopedia of Linguistics. Ed. William

J. Frawley. 2nd ed. Oxford UP, 2003. Print.

"MLA Language Map." Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. Web.

<http://arcmap.mla.org/mla/default.aspx>.

"Spanish Tabular Data." Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. Web.

<https://apps.mla.org/cgi-shl/docstudio/docs.pl?map_data_results>.

Bialystok, Ellen. "Reshaping the Mind: The Benefits of Bilingualism." Canadian Journal of

Experimental Psychology. 65.4 (2011): 229. Web.

Field, Fredric W. Bilingualism in the USA: The Case of the Chicano-Latino Community. 44;44.;

Vol. Amsterdam;Philadelphia;: John Benjamins Pub. Co, 2011. Web.

Behrman, Alison, and Ali Akhund. "The influence of semantic context on the perception of

Spanish-accented American English." Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing

Research 56.5 (2013): 1567+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

Potowski, Kim. "Student Spanish use and Investment in a Dual Immersion Classroom:

Implications for Second Language Acquisition and Heritage Language Maintenance."

The Modern Language Journal 88.1 (2004): 75-101. ProQuest. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.