In the 1960s, psychologists and educators believed that bilingualism was linked to lower intelligence and cognitive impairment.  They believed that children who spoke or were exposed to multiple languages were three years behind in cognitive development compared to their English-speaking peers, that they had lower IQs, and were at greater risk of mental impairment.  Parents were encouraged not to teach their children the home language.  Of course, we know that there is nothing further from the truth.  Children who are learning multiple languages are strengthening their executive functioning skills and building additional synapses in their brains which in turn increases their cognitive reserves, lowering their risk of cognitive impairment.

Nevertheless, our education system has not seemed to catch up.  States still label emergent bilinguals as “at-risk.”  Middle school principals are still trying to deny them world language classes because they “can’t learn another language when they are already balancing two.” And teachers are still trying to water down the curriculum because they have all ostensibly and indiscriminately “experienced trauma.”    

And the reality is that still, in our education system, students who are emergent bilinguals or who were once classified as such, are suffering from an opportunity gap.  They continue to have lower scores and less frequently enroll in higher education.  While this phenomenon fuels the ongoing cycle of believing that students who speak more than one language are less capable, the real culprit is not a lack of intelligence but rather a lack of challenging, grade-level academic instruction.

Students who know another language should receive appropriately scaffolded, grade-level instruction regardless of how strong their English is.  Let me repeat this – students who know another language should receive appropriately scaffolded, grade-level instruction regardless of how strong their English is.  If they are never exposed to grade-level content, they will always be in a state of constant catch up.  Scaffolding will often include text engineering, text deconstruction and reconstruction, graphic organizers, vocabulary instruction, chunking, and visuals.  You might choose to build their schema first by introducing easier text, but then you have to present students with grade-level text.  You may provide less text or chunk text.  However, the content should be at grade level.

Furthermore, not all students will need scaffolds or the same scaffolds.  The objective should be to slowly remove the scaffolds as students’ linguistic abilities in the language of instruction increase.  My own daughter entered school as an emergent bilingual, but although she had been proficient in English and reading above grade level for many years, her middle school teachers still tried to give her scaffolds to understand grade-level text because she had been an English learner at one point and was in a class school with a large number of emergent bilinguals. This didn’t help her grow nor does it help any child grow when we do not take their individual proficiency levels into account.  Scaffolds should provide access points for students without taking away the challenge.  

But supporting kids at their level requires believing in our kids.  It’s not enough to love them… you have to believe they can accomplish great things.  And when you don’t believe they can accomplish great things, they cease to believe in themselves, causing this endless loop of students who have an amazing asset of being bilingual not experiencing academic success.
So let’s ensure that we believe in our students.  And if you are wondering how to provide support for your emergent bilinguals, consider checking out my Seven Sides of Dual Language Instruction or reaching out to me through Language & Equity for support at arm977@mail.harvard.edu.