Bilingual education was featured in several presentations and a luncheon speech at a 鈥渟ummit鈥� meeting last week on English-language learners sponsored by the Department of Education鈥攁 departure from the previous five such conferences, in which the educational method got little attention.
At last year鈥檚 Education Department conference on English-language learners, for example, a panel of researchers presented findings for a 鈥減ractice guide鈥� for teaching ELLs commissioned by the department that deliberately avoided bilingual education, according to the researcher who headed the panel. (鈥淕uides Avoid Bilingual vs. English-Only Issue,鈥� Nov. 8, 2006.)
At a 2002 ELL meeting, then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige never mentioned the words 鈥渂ilingual education鈥� or 鈥淓nglish immersion,鈥� even while announcing that a name change for the federal office serving ELLs, from the office of bilingual education and minority-languages affairs to the office of English-language acquisition.
Kathleen Leos, the official from that office who has planned the six annual meetings on ELLs, said bilingual education was squarely addressed in this year鈥檚 session, held Oct. 29-31 in Washington, because the conference was designed to be 鈥渕ore comprehensive鈥� than previous such meetings.
For the first time, Ms. Leos added, enough solid research was available to warrant presentations on 鈥渞esearch-based鈥� methods for teaching ELLs, which she contends wasn鈥檛 the case before.
Included in the research, she said, is an ongoing study by the department鈥檚 Institute of Education Sciences comparing four approaches to teaching ELLs: transitional bilingual education, two-way bilingual immersion, maintenance bilingual education, and structured-English immersion.
Ms. Leos herself didn鈥檛 attend the conference. She resigned as the director of the Education Department鈥檚 office of English-language acquisition on Oct. 26, the Friday before it opened.
Ms. Leos said she doesn鈥檛 have any policy conflicts with the Bush administration, but quit so she can lead an effort in the private sector to provide language development to ELLs in classrooms.
