studies on bilingual education

The Benefits of Bilingual Education and Its Impact on Student Learning and Growth

Approximately 5 million students in the United States are English language learners, and the number of English language learners (ELLs) in the US public school system continues to rise steadily, especially in more urbanized school districts.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), students who speak English as a second language are more likely to struggle with academics, and only about 67 percent will graduate from public high school in four years—whereas the average for all students is 84 percent. ELL students can better develop their English proficiency and close the gap in achievement by participating in language assistance programs or bilingual education programs, the NCES explains.

The benefits of bilingual education can begin with students in elementary school and follow them throughout their lives. Education’s impact can lead to a variety of outcomes depending on whether ELL students learn English in a monolingual or bilingual environment. Educators in diverse classrooms or working as school leaders should consider the benefits of bilingual education when creating curricula and establishing desired student learning outcomes.

What Is Bilingual Education?

While bilingual education can take many forms, it strives to incorporate multiple languages into the process of teaching. For example, since there is such a large Spanish-speaking population in the United States, many primary and secondary school students can benefit from educational environments where they are learning in both English and Spanish.

Bilingual education can often be the most effective when children are beginning preschool or elementary school. If children grow up speaking Spanish as their primary language, it can be difficult for them to be placed in English-speaking elementary schools and be expected to understand their teachers and classmates. In a bilingual classroom, however, young students can further establish their foundation of Spanish as well as English, better preparing them for the rest of their education.

Of course, this works for students who begin school speaking any language as their primary language. Children whose parents have come to the United States from another country may have limited English skills when they first begin elementary school. Teachers working in bilingual education classrooms will balance their use of two languages when teaching math, science, history, and other subjects to help these students develop a stronger foundation of their first language as well as English as their second language.

Academic Benefits

Students can benefit in many ways from participating in bilingual education programs or classrooms. Some of the benefits of bilingual education relate to intellect. For example, research has shown that students who can speak and write in multiple languages have cognitive advantages over their monolingual peers. Those who learn a second or third language from a young age are able to develop communication skills and a higher degree of literacy. Children who grow up in bilingual environments develop a keen awareness of how language works and have a stronger foundation for learning additional languages in the future.

Students can also benefit academically from bilingual education. Students who pursue higher education are typically required to take a foreign language at the collegiate level, so those who have been exposed to bilingual educational environments before college—and speak two or more languages—have an advantage over their peers. They can advance in their studies and feel comfortable with multiple communities of students on their campuses.

Students who are exposed to multiple languages throughout high school and college can also have long-term career benefits. Their proficiency in multiple languages is an advantage when they graduate and enter the workplace as professionals. Every industry has a need for effective communicators who can speak multiple languages to meet the needs of the growing number of English language learners in the United States. International operations also have a great need for professionals who can speak multiple languages and represent US-based organizations and companies.

Growth beyond Academics

While there are many benefits of bilingual education related to school and work, bilingual education programs also have a huge impact on students’ cultural and social growth. Children who grow up speaking English as a second language often come from culturally diverse backgrounds. Incorporating cultural education in the classroom can help create enriching academic experiences for all students.

Exploring multiple languages in the classroom provides a foundation for cultural education that allows students to learn and grow alongside classmates from a different cultural background. As a result, students learn to become more adaptable and more aware of the world around them.

To encourage the academic and cultural development of students in bilingual education settings, teachers should have a strong foundation in education and leadership. They should demonstrate a passion for teaching as well as an understanding of how language and culture work together in their students’ academic journeys. Educators should be aware of the role that policies play in the educational environments they cultivate and have an understanding of how to best represent their students’ cultural backgrounds.

Pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching or Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership

To implement the best teaching practices in bilingual education classrooms, teachers should be equipped with a foundation in transformational leadership and cultural awareness. To that end, teachers looking to have a meaningful impact on the lives of their students can further their own education and pursue an advanced degree in education policy and leadership. Through programs like American University’s Master of Arts in Teaching and Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership , educators can broaden their worldviews, engaging in topics such as education law and policy, quantitative research in education, and educational leadership and organizational change.

Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies: Importance, Benefits & Tips

EdD vs. PhD in Education: Requirements, Career Outlook, and Salary

Transformational Leadership in Education

Bilingual Kidspot, “5 Amazing Benefits of a Bilingual Education”

Learning English, “Number of English Learners in US Schools Keeps Rising”

National Center for Education Statistics, “Digest of Education Statistics”

National Center for Education Statistics, “English Language Learners in Public Schools”

Pew Research Center, “6 Facts About English Language Learners in U.S. Public Schools”

USA Today, “More US Schools Teach in English and Spanish, But Not Enough to Help Latino Kids”

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5 Million Voices

6 potential brain benefits of bilingual education.

Anya Kamenetz

Part of our ongoing series exploring how the U.S. can educate the nearly 5 million students who are learning English.

Brains, brains, brains. One thing we've learned at NPR Ed is that people are fascinated by brain research. And yet it can be hard to point to places where our education system is really making use of the latest neuroscience findings.

But there is one happy nexus where research is meeting practice: bilingual education. "In the last 20 years or so, there's been a virtual explosion of research on bilingualism," says Judith Kroll, a professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Again and again, researchers have found, "bilingualism is an experience that shapes our brain for a lifetime," in the words of Gigi Luk, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

At the same time, one of the hottest trends in public schooling is what's often called dual-language or two-way immersion programs.

How We Teach English Learners: 3 Basic Approaches

Traditional programs for English-language learners, or ELLs, focus on assimilating students into English as quickly as possible. Dual-language classrooms, by contrast, provide instruction across subjects to both English natives and English learners, in both English and in a target language.

The goal is functional bilingualism and biliteracy for all students by middle school.

New York City, North Carolina, Delaware, Utah, Oregon and Washington state are among the places expanding dual-language classrooms.

The trend flies in the face of some of the culture wars of two decades ago, when advocates insisted on "English first" education. Most famously, California passed Proposition 227 in 1998. It was intended to sharply reduce the amount of time that English-language learners spent in bilingual settings.

Proposition 58 , passed by California voters on Nov. 8, largely reversed that decision, paving the way for a huge expansion of bilingual education in the state that has the largest population of English-language learners.

Bilingual Education Returns To California. Now What?

Some of the insistence on English-first was founded in research produced decades ago, in which bilingual students underperformed monolingual English speakers and had lower IQ scores.

Today's scholars, like Ellen Bialystok at York University in Toronto, now say that research was "deeply flawed."

"Earlier research looked at socially disadvantaged groups," agrees Antonella Sorace at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. "This has been completely contradicted by recent research" that compares more similar groups to each other.

So what does recent research say about the potential benefits of bilingual education? NPR Ed called up seven researchers in three countries — Sorace, Bialystok, Luk, Kroll, Jennifer Steele, and the team of Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier — to find out.

It turns out that, in many ways, the real trick to speaking two languages consists in managing not to speak one of those languages at a given moment — which is fundamentally a feat of paying attention.

Saying "Goodbye" to mom and then " Guten tag " to your teacher, or managing to ask for a crayola roja instead of a red crayon, requires skills called "inhibition" and "task switching." These skills are subsets of an ability called executive function.

People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function. "[Bilinguals] can pay focused attention without being distracted and also improve in the ability to switch from one task to another," says Sorace.

Do these same advantages accrue to a child who begins learning a second language in kindergarten instead of as a baby? We don't yet know. Patterns of language learning and language use are complex. But Gigi Luk at Harvard cites at least one brain-imaging study on adolescents that shows similar changes in brain structure when compared with those who are bilingual from birth, even when they didn't begin practicing a second language in earnest before late childhood.

Young children being raised bilingual have to follow social cues to figure out which language to use with which person and in what setting. As a result, says Sorace, bilingual children as young as age 3 have demonstrated a head start on tests of perspective-taking and theory of mind — both of which are fundamental social and emotional skills.

Reading (English)

About 10 percent of students in the Portland, Ore., public schools are assigned by lottery to dual-language classrooms that offer instruction in Spanish, Japanese or Mandarin, alongside English.

Jennifer Steele at American University conducted a four-year, randomized trial and found that these dual-language students outperformed their peers in English-reading skills by a full school year's worth of learning by the end of middle school.

Such a large effect in a study this size is unusual, and Steele is currently conducting a flurry of follow-up studies to tease out the causality: Is this about a special program that attracted families who were more engaged? Or about the dual-language instruction itself?

"If it's just about moving the kids around," Steele says, "that's not as exciting as if it's a way of teaching that makes you smarter."

'Invisible' Children: Raised In The U.S., Now Struggling In Mexico

Steele suspects the latter. Because the effects are found in reading, not in math or science where there were few differences, she suggests that learning two languages makes students more aware of how language works in general, aka "metalinguistic awareness."

The research of Gigi Luk at Harvard offers a slightly different explanation. She has recently done a small study looking at a group of 100 fourth-graders in Massachusetts who had similar reading scores on a standard test, but very different language experiences.

Some were foreign-language dominant and others were English natives. Here's what's interesting. The students who were dominant in a foreign language weren't yet comfortably bilingual; they were just starting to learn English. Therefore, by definition, they had much weaker English vocabularies than the native speakers.

Yet they were just as good at decoding a text.

"This is very surprising," Luk says. "You would expect the reading comprehension performance to mirror vocabulary — it's a cornerstone of comprehension."

How did the foreign-language dominant speakers manage this feat? Well, Luk found, they also scored higher on tests of executive functioning. So, even though they didn't have huge mental dictionaries to draw on, they may have been great puzzle-solvers, taking into account higher-level concepts such as whether a single sentence made sense within an overall story line.

They got to the same results as the monolinguals, by a different path.

School performance and engagement.

Wayne Thomas and Virginia Collier, a husband and wife team of professors emeritus at George Mason University in Virginia, have spent the past 30 years collecting evidence on the benefits of bilingual education.

"Wayne came to our research with skepticism, thinking students ought to get instruction all day in English," says Virginia Collier. "Eight million student records later, we're convinced," Wayne Thomas chimes in.

In studies covering six states and 37 districts, they have found that, compared with students in English-only classrooms or in one-way immersion, dual-language students have somewhat higher test scores and also seem to be happier in school. Attendance is better, behavioral problems fewer, parent involvement higher.

Diversity and integration.

American public school classrooms as a whole are becoming more segregated by race and class. Dual-language programs can be an exception. Because they are composed of native English speakers deliberately placed together with recent immigrants, they tend to be more ethnically and socioeconomically balanced. And there is some evidence that this helps kids of all backgrounds gain comfort with diversity and different cultures.

Several of the researchers I talked with also pointed out that, in bilingual education, non-English-dominant students and their families tend to feel that their home language is heard and valued, compared with a classroom where the home language is left at the door in favor of English.

This can improve students' sense of belonging and increase parent involvement in their children's education, including behaviors like reading to children.

"Many parents fear their language is an obstacle, a problem, and if they abandon it their child will integrate better," says Antonella Sorace of the University of Edinburgh. "We tell them they're not doing their child a favor by giving up their language."

Protection against cognitive decline and dementia.

File this away as a very, very long-range payoff. Researchers have found that actively using two languages seems to have a protective effect against age-related dementia — perhaps relating to the changes in brain structure we talked about earlier.

Specifically, among patients with Alzheimer's in a Canadian study, a group of bilingual adults performed on par with a group of monolingual adults in terms of cognitive tests and daily functioning. But when researchers looked at the two groups' brains, they found evidence of brain atrophy that was five to seven years more advanced in the bilingual group. In other words, the adults who spoke two languages were carrying on longer at a higher level despite greater degrees of damage.

The coda, and a caution

One theme that was striking in speaking to all these researchers was just how strongly they advocated for dual-language classrooms.

Thomas and Collier have advised many school systems on how to expand their dual-language programs, and Sorace runs " Bilingualism Matters ," an international network of researchers who promote bilingual education projects.

This type of advocacy among scientists is unusual; even more so because the "bilingual advantage hypothesis" is being challenged once again. A review of studies published last year found that cognitive advantages failed to appear in 83 percent of published studies, though in a separate meta-analysis, the sum of effects was still significantly positive.

One potential explanation offered by the researchers I spoke with is that advantages that are measurable in the very young and very old tend to fade when testing young adults at the peak of their cognitive powers.

And, they countered that no negative effects of bilingual education have been found. So, they argue that even if the advantages are small, they are still worth it.

Not to mention one obvious, outstanding fact underlined by many of these researchers: "Bilingual children can speak two languages! That's amazing," says Bialystok.

Multilingual education: A key to quality and inclusive learning

Language is more than a tool for communication; it’s a very specific human cognitive faculty and the foundation of our shared humanity. It enables the transmission of experiences, traditions, knowledge and identities across generations.

Languages play a crucial role in promoting peace, fostering intercultural dialogue and driving sustainable development. They permeate every facet of our lives—from family and work to education, politics, media, justice, research and technology. Our values, beliefs, knowledge, identities and worldviews are intricately shaped by language, reflecting the richness of the human experience.

Languages are at risk and must be championed

But languages are under significant threat. UNESCO data indicates that around 600 languages have disappeared in the last century. If current trends continue, up to 90 per cent of the world’s languages may become extinct by the end of this century.

International Mother Language Day, observed annually on 21 February, underscores the urgent need to champion linguistic diversity and multilingual education rooted in mother tongues.

For more than seven decades, UNESCO has promoted mother language-based and multilingual education as fundamental to achieving quality, inclusive learning.

Why multilingual education matters

Enhanced learning.  First, and most obviously, students learn best in a language they understand. Yet UNESCO data shows that 40 per cent of the world’s population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand. Our research documents the benefits of being taught in learners’ native languages: in upper-middle- and high-income countries, children who speak the language they are taught in are 14 per cent more likely to read with understanding at the end of primary, compared to those who do not.

In France, children who speak French at home are 28 per cent more likely to be able to read with understanding at the end of primary than children who do not. This share rises to over 60 per cent more likely in countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Slovakia, South Africa and Türkiye.

At the end of lower secondary, adolescents speaking the language of instruction are over 40 per cent more likely to be able to read with understanding compared to those who did not. This ranges from a 4 per cent gap in Canada to around 40 per cent in Germany and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and over 60 per cent in Thailand.

Improved access and inclusivity through mother tongue education.  Adopting a mother language-based, multilingual education improves access to and inclusion in education, particularly for population groups that speak non-dominant, minority and indigenous languages. Studies have shown that such approaches can boost classroom participation, improve retention rates and encourage family and community involvement in education. They also play a vital role in mitigating the challenges faced by migrant and refugee learners, promoting a sense of safety and resilience. Yet—at a time of record displacement—over 31 million young people who have fled war or crisis situations are learning in a language that differs from the official language of their country of origin.

Contributing to peace and sustainable development.  The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is intricately linked to linguistic diversity and multilingualism. The  Global Action Plan of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) , spearheaded by UNESCO, underscores the importance of language choice for human dignity, peaceful coexistence and sustainable development. Commitment to these ideals drives UNESCO support for building inclusive and equitable, quality education opportunities in indigenous languages in both formal, non-formal and informal educational settings.

Helping mother language education thrive

The potential of multilingual education is enormous, but realizing its full benefits requires a commitment to lifelong learning and a deeper appreciation of the value of linguistic diversity.

To foster thriving multilingual education, we need robust policy support, advocacy and innovation. This includes adopting policies that promote mother language education from early childhood, as seen in diverse countries such as Ghana, Peru, Singapore and South Africa. It also involves recruiting and training teachers and community members competent in learners’ mother tongues, as well as exploring innovative solutions, such as partnerships with digital platforms, to meet diverse language needs.

Partnerships and cooperation at all levels, including across universities, academic centres and institutions that support language development, can also enhance capacity, and expand access to teaching and learning materials in local languages in both print and digital forms. This must be accompanied by formative and summative assessments that are appropriately designed to monitor the learning outcomes of multilingual learners.

Mother language-based, multilingual education must be part of our efforts to address the learning crisis and learning poverty facing many countries around the world.

In an increasingly globalized world, UNESCO remains committed to promoting multilingual education and cultural and linguistic diversity as cornerstones for the sustainability of our societies.

This article by UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, Stefania Giannini, was originally  published in the UN Chronicle on 20 February 2024, ahead of International Mother Language Day. 

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Bilingual Education Is America’s Future

New report published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project makes the case for bilingual education as the standard of instruction

Synthesizing rigorous research illustrating the benefits of bilingual education and citing growing interest in and demand for bilingual and biliteracy education programs for all students, a new report published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles advocates for the establishment of bilingual education as the standard program of instruction for students classified as English learners (EL) and outlines federal, state and local policies needed to achieve that standard.  

At a time of growing interest and support for bilingual education opportunities, the paper,  “Bilingual Education and America’s Future: Evidence and Pathways,”  underscores the reality that the United States lags behind most other nations where bilingual education is the norm and that many English learner-classified students in the U.S. are underserved. These students are enrolled in schools that often do not provide full, equitable access to the standard curriculum, nor the opportunity to develop the language they already know, two problems that bilingual programs address. The report offers strong evidence of the benefits of bilingual education and a growing commitment to education policymaking that addresses barriers to opportunity experienced by EL students. The report's authors contend that now is an opportune moment to expand bilingual education and establish bilingual and biliteracy education as the standard for instruction for all students, but especially for those who arrive at school with a language other than English.

• Patricia Gándara

“Careful and sophisticated studies produced over the last decades consistently find that bilingual education yields numerous advantages for the students who are fortunate enough to receive it,” says Patricia Gándara, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles.  “Given increasing interest and support, from both families and policymakers, this is the  moment to expand bilingual education and build a stronger foundation for these programs.”  

The report's call for more expansive access to bilingual education is grounded in evidence of the benefits of bilingualism and biliteracy for students and the larger society. The researchers detail the academic benefits of bilingual education, including superior achievement outcomes. These include English language development benefits, such as a greater likelihood of reclassification or exit from English Learner services. The report also highlights the benefits of home language literacy and proficiency and cites a growing body of research that bilingual education supports more positive social-emotional and sociocultural outcomes for EL-classified students. Importantly, the study shows evidence of greater family engagement in school, success in secondary schools and readiness for higher education. 

The research also highlights the growing grassroots momentum and political support for bilingual education, including increased demand for programs that can serve all students who want it. 

At the same time, the paper also identifies key challenges to expansion, including a shortage of bilingual educators and the need for sustained funding to build capacity. The authors recommend specific policy supports at the federal, state, and local levels to establish bilingual education as the standard program of instruction for English learner-classified students.

“Bilingual education is the best way to support EL-classified students and it's up to educators and policymakers to ensure all students receive this support, "  said Manuel Vazquez Cano, a principal researcher at Education Northwest and a co-author of the report. 

“Expanding access to bilingual education, to the point where bilingual education becomes the standard service for English learners rather than an exception, is grounded in research on what works for the nation's multilingual learners and aligned with national priorities of promoting bilingualism and biliteracy,” adds Lorna Porter ,  a research associate at WestEd and co-author. “While the change will not happen overnight, coordinated local, state, and federal actions can begin to move towards an education system that values, celebrates, and fosters bilingualism and biliteracy for all students.“

“ Bilingual Education and America’s Future: Evidence and Pathways,”  is published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, as part of a new series of research papers,  A Civil Rights Agenda for the Next Quarter Century . The report’s authors include  Lorna Porter,  a Research Associate at WestEd,  Manuel Vazquez Cano , a principal researcher at Education Northwest and graduate student at the University of Oregon, and  Ilana Umansky,  an   associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Oregon.  The full report and executive summary  can be found on the website of the Civil Rights Project at https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/language-minority-students/bilingual-education-and-americas-future-evidence-and-pathways.

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The Magic of Bilingual Education

Seven educators and one former student on how learning another language can change lives, 1923: the right to let children learn a foreign language, một kỷ niệm yêu quý khi là giáo viên song ngữ, my favorite memory as a bilingual teacher.

Bilingual education for me has been a validation of my language, culture and identity that I did not receive as a child of public education. I grew up in a time when English was the sole focus of language acquisition. For my students, our school system’s Vietnamese dual-language program opens the door of access for their present and future. Most of the students have been with the program since kindergarten; those now in high school have reached notable achievements that are recognized at the state level and can be put on résumés for work or higher education. A more personal triumph for me is seeing how dual-language education affects students’ present lives. The most impactful memory I carry is the deep gratitude a grandmother once shared at an end-of-year celebration. She thanked me for giving her 7-year-old grandson the ability to communicate with her. It was, she said, the first time that she was able to get to know her grandson.

Tu Dinh is a language learning specialist at the district office of Highline Public Schools in Washington state. He spent five years at White Center Heights Elementary School as the first-grade Vietnamese dual-language teacher and two years as a Vietnamese instructional coach and dual-language facilitator.

Les programmes d’immersion linguistique enseignent bien plus qu’une autre langue

Language immersion programs teach much more than another language.

During my senior year at Spelman College, I applied to become a Peace Corps volunteer. Soon after graduation, I boarded a plane with 35 others for training in Senegal. Most of us only spoke English and had not previously traveled outside the United States. Our training focused on intercultural education, adjusting to different living conditions — and intensive language immersion.

After six weeks, I began my assignment as a high school English teacher in a village in Guinea. Although Guineans speak many languages, French is the national language. My French had to be strong enough to work and survive — sink or swim.

Over my two years in Guinea, I swam and survived. I learned that the ability to communicate in French and other languages enabled me to make genuine connections with my students, colleagues and neighbors. I witnessed my students’ English acquisition make a similar impact. I became a firm believer in the importance of language immersion as a way to better understand others.

After a decade-long career in international development and education policy, I began working for the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School, a 25-year-old language immersion elementary school in Washington (which was founded by my mother and named after my grandmother). It was the first charter school in D.C. to offer Spanish and French immersion. This year I celebrate 20 years of working at the school and 10 years as the head of school. I have seen hundreds of children enter prekindergarten and graduate from the fifth grade with the ability to speak, learn, read, write and communicate in two or more languages.

Pre-pandemic, as a culminating event for their language immersion studies, our graduating students would travel to Panama or Martinique for a week-long international study tour. During their travels, not only would they explore a new country and connect with local students, they also participated in radio interviews in French and presidential palace tours in Spanish. The experience of traveling abroad and communicating in French or Spanish has changed the trajectory of many students’ lives. This school year, we look forward to completing our first international study tour since the pandemic.

Erika Bryant is executive director of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School.

Apoyemos a todos los niños multilingües a mantener su lengua materna

Let’s support all multilingual children in keeping their home language.

My family immigrated to California from Mexico in 1992 when I was 3 years old. My parents immediately enrolled me in Head Start, where I was lucky to have access to bilingual education, which supported and used my home language (Spanish) to help me develop proficiency and literacy in English. I was enrolled in bilingual classes until second grade, and I credit this experience as the reason I am bilingual and biliterate today. My mom still likes to talk about how I read 500 books in kindergarten in both languages. Bilingual education was crucial to my development and enabled me to communicate with and stay connected to my family both in Mexico and California. In 1998, California eliminated bilingual education, which means that — until 2016 when it was reinstated — generations after me were denied the opportunity to maintain their home language.

Leslie Villegas is a senior policy analyst at New America, where she focuses on improving equity for English learners in pre-K-to-12 education.

Nuwôpanâmun

We are wampanoag.

In our community, the bilingual education that our Weetumuw School students receive is meaningful on a much larger scale. Wôpanâak, the language spoken by the Indigenous people of eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, was a sleeping language for generations, and it is only in the past couple of decades that it has begun to come back to us.

Weetumuw is an independent school founded in 2016 that serves roughly 25 students in Mashpee, Mass. Today, with dedication from teachers, students and their families, as well as linguists who contribute to the school’s language content, we are able to see Wôpanâak reemerge as a language of children. And it is children who give life to the language. It is Wampanoag children who will allow Wôpanâak to thrive as they learn and grow.

With their language learning comes cultural understanding, and with both of these things providing a firm foundation from a young age, we are creating a generation of Wampanoag children who have a steadfast and invaluable sense of pride in their identity.

Nitana Hicks Greendeer is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She is the head of the Weetumuw School as well as the mother of five current and former Weetumuw students.

El renacimiento también existe en español

The renaissance exists in spanish too.

My mom grew up in Mexico, my dad in the United States, and this meant I had access to both English and Spanish from childhood. My formal study of Spanish didn’t start until high school, when I learned for the first time to read and write in Spanish and acquired the vocabulary to better get to know some of my family. While I knew I loved Shakespeare early in life, I had no exposure to the Renaissance writers I teach today until I learned about them in college: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, María de Zayas. Teaching and learning Spanish connects me to the rich cultural and political histories of Spanish in the United States, Latin America and Spain, past and present. The most gratifying part of my job is affirming the home languages of my students and advocating for early access to multilingualism and language learning. This means teaching my undergraduates about the value of their language stories, and partnering with local K-12 schools to recognize these biliteracies and strengthen second-language learning for all students.

Margaret Boyle is director of Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx studies and associate professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Bowdoin College. She directs the Multilingual Mainers program for early elementary students and educators.

三者三様-日本語を学ぶ意義とは ～ 公立学校の三人の日本語教師が語る

One school system. three teachers. many reasons to study japanese..

Bilingual education is my passion and life work. In my school’s Japanese immersion program, 90 percent of students’ first language is English, which means they experience what it feels like to be a language minority at a young age. Through struggles and frustration in communicating in another language, they develop empathy for speakers of languages other than English, greater resiliency and a growth mindset. They are supportive of each other and also understanding when I stumble with English. Bilingual education fosters sensitivity to other people’s needs along with language proficiency and cultural competency, and I believe it has a significant impact on creating a caring society.

Noriko Otsuka is a Japanese immersion teacher at Fox Mill Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

I began taking Japanese in middle school. Learning the language required me to see beyond the Japanese pop culture I was familiar with and provided opportunities to meet new people and hear new perspectives. I decided that one of the most valuable skills we can learn is how to communicate with more people through languages. Now, as a teacher, I get to see my students learn to appreciate differences and similarities between cultures, and to reserve judgment about practices different from their own. Language learning has expanded my world, and the reason I teach is to pass that opportunity on to my students.

Cynthia Rinehart is a Japanese immersion teacher at Great Falls Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

My journey to becoming bilingual started with my daily English lessons in kindergarten in Japan. My father taught Chinese at Japanese colleges, and many international students and professors visited us at our home — giving me the opportunity to try my English. I was timid at first, but the excitement I felt when they understood me is still a precious memory. Learning English taught me important life skills. Communicating in another language is difficult. It requires patience, perseverance and creativity. If one way to express yourself is not effective enough, then you have to try again. As a Japanese immersion teacher, I wish my students a rewarding journey as they become lifelong language learners.

Lili Kennington is a Japanese immersion teacher at Great Falls Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va.

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Impact of bilingual education on student achievement

Language development programs should focus on quality rather than the language in which instruction is provided

University of Houston, USA, and IZA, Germany

Elevator pitch

More than 4.4 million students enrolled in US public schools participate in English language learner programs because of linguistic barriers to learning in regular classrooms. Whether native language instruction should be used in these programs is a contentious issue. Recent studies, using credible research designs for estimating causal impacts, find that bilingual education programs (which use some native language instruction) and English-only programs are not significantly different in their impact on standardized test performance. This finding suggests that it is time to change the focus from use of the native language to program quality.

Key findings

Bilingual education may help limited English proficient students keep up in other subjects while they learn English.

Bilingual education helps limited English proficient students develop language skills in their native (non-English) language.

Skills in students’ native language may facilitate their development of skills in English.

Bilingual education supports cultural inclusion and diversity.

By reducing exposure to English, bilingual education may slow the acquisition of English language skills.

A shortage of certified bilingual education teachers makes it difficult to implement bilingual education programs as intended.

Appropriate teaching and learning materials may not be available in all native languages.

Bilingual education segregates limited English proficient students from other students, which may have social and academic impacts.

Author's main message

Discussions about how to educate limited English proficient students often focus on the language of instruction. However, convincing recent evidence that bilingual education programs and English-only programs in US public schools are similarly effective in their impacts on student achievement suggests that it could be more productive to shift the focus from the language of instruction to the quality of instruction. Instruction should be of adequate intensity, provided by teachers qualified to teach limited English proficient students, and supported by appropriate teaching and learning materials, regardless of the language of instruction.

Many children attend schools that teach in a language in which they are not proficient, and this trend is growing due to rising international migration. Linguistic barriers to learning in regular classrooms put these students at risk of poor education outcomes. A variety of education programs are proposed to improve outcomes. Evidence on their effectiveness can guide parents, educators, and policymakers. The US has many limited English proficient students, and several rigorous evaluations of bilingual education exist for US programs, which is why the US is the focus here.

Enrollment of limited English proficient students in US public elementary and secondary schools (as measured by number of students participating in English language learner programs) reached 4.4 million in 2011/2012, or 9% of total enrollment, and is growing much faster (6.6% between 2002/2003 and 2011/2012) than enrollment of other students (2.4%). Enrollment was flat in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, and Arizona (the top six states by number of limited English proficient students) but grew 29% in the other states over the decade, reflecting the increasing geographic dispersion of immigrants. In 2011/2012, 74% of US public schools had at least one limited English proficient student. Many schools are making decisions about how to educate their limited English proficient students.

Discussion of pros and cons

Scores on the grade 4 mathematics test on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the largest nationally representative assessment of what American students know) show a persistent achievement gap between limited English proficient students and other students ( Figure 1 ). At 25 points, the gap is large (0.8 standard deviations) and greater than the gap between poor and non-poor students. Other measures of academic performance show a similar gap. Lower test scores indicate that limited English proficient students are less proficient in core academic skills, which may make later classes more difficult, cause placement in less rigorous tracks of study, and raise dropout rates, lowering eventual educational attainment and human capital.

Because lack of proficiency in English is a barrier to learning in regular classrooms, US civil rights laws require schools to offer additional instructional services to limited English proficient students. Programs fall into two broad categories: those that use the student’s native language for at least some of the instruction (bilingual education), and those that use only English for instruction. As the emphasis of all these programs is English language development, both programs devote time to this, typically using English as a second language (ESL) methods. Also, there is considerable variation in how much the native language is used in bilingual education programs. Thus, the contrast between bilingual education programs and English-only programs is less stark in practice than in theory.

Potential effects of bilingual education on student outcomes

Potential benefits of bilingual education.

When limited English proficient students are still learning English, it may be better to teach other subjects in their primary language. To the extent that the course content is more accessible when taught in the native language, limited English proficient students will not fall (as far) behind in these other subjects while they are catching up in English.

Receiving instruction at school in the native language may also improve students’ skills in their native language. Additionally, parents of limited English proficient students, who themselves typically lack proficiency in English, may be better able to assess their children’s school progress, help with schoolwork, and communicate with teachers in a bilingual education setting.

Instruction in the native language might develop general language skills that facilitate learning new languages. For example, some strategies developed for reading in the native language may be applicable for reading in English.

Potential drawbacks of bilingual education

Because some instruction is in the native language, bilingual education students receive less exposure to English at school than students in English-only programs. This might delay and weaken their acquisition of English language skills, which could in turn affect the academic tracks they can pursue later.

Sometimes the inputs needed for bilingual education programs are not available. First, it is difficult to recruit enough certified bilingual education teachers for some districts, languages, and grades. While teaching in English-only programs also requires special training, there is a larger pool of candidates since proficiency in a non-English language is not necessary. Second, teaching and learning materials are not available in many native languages, subjects, and grades. Thus, implementing bilingual education programs as intended becomes more difficult.

Because bilingual education programs provide some content instruction in the native language, limited English proficient students with the same native language and in the same grade tend to be grouped together in self-contained classrooms, unlike in most English-only programs. On average therefore, limited English proficient students placed in bilingual education programs have less exposure to other students as well as to limited English proficient students of other native languages, and there could be peer effects associated with this.

Who receives bilingual education?

Although more than 200 home languages are reported among limited English proficient students in US public schools, in practice bilingual education programs are available only for a few languages, with Spanish–English programs by far the most common. This is primarily because Spanish-speaking limited English proficient students are the most numerous (they made up 77% of limited English proficient students in 2001/2002; the next largest group was Vietnamese speakers, at 2.4%) [1] . Moreover, Spanish-speaking limited English proficient students are more likely than other limited English proficient students to be placed in bilingual education programs: 38% compared with 17% [1] .

This highlights that student placement in bilingual education is not random. Whether a student participates in bilingual education depends on many variables, including characteristics of the student (such as home language, grade, English proficiency), parents (such as income, education, whether they take up the program if it is offered to their child), neighborhood (such as community preference for bilingual education, having enough limited English proficient students with the same native language and in the same grade), and state (some states mandate bilingual education while some ban it). Researchers do not have data on all the variables that affect participation, and because some of these variables also affect student achievement, conventional estimates of participation in bilingual education will suffer from omitted variables bias. Besides the problem of non-random selection into bilingual education, there are also complications in measuring education outcomes for limited English proficient students . Thus, estimating the causal impact of bilingual education on student achievement is a challenge.

Empirical evidence on the impacts of bilingual education

Studies can be cited to support either side of the debate on whether bilingual education programs work better than English-only programs; early meta-studies are [2] , [3] . Many of the studies fail to deal with the non-random selection of limited English proficient students into bilingual education programs. Students who participate in bilingual education are systematically different in observed and unobserved characteristics from students who do not, so the achievement difference between participants and non-participants could not be causally attributed to bilingual education. In addition, some of the studies are limited in sample size or several decades old. In the past few years, however, several large-scale studies have used experimental or quasi-experimental methods to obtain convincing estimates of causal impact.

Evidence from a recent randomized experiment

A recent study that randomly assigned limited English proficient kindergartners in six schools to bilingual education or structured English immersion finds no statistically significant differences in English skills by grade 4 as measured on standardized tests [4] . In earlier grades, though, difference in English test scores between students in the two programs were larger and sometimes statistically significant. In grade 1, the deficits for bilingual education students were over one-third of a standard deviation and statistically significant. By grades 2 and 3, the deficits had diminished, and only two of the eight scores (four for each grade) were statistically significant. On the other hand, in all four grades, students randomly assigned to bilingual education had significantly better performance on the tests measuring Spanish skills.

The treatment effects, estimated as far out as five years after the randomization of treatment status, are not confounded by attrition bias as the attrition rate, and the baseline test scores of those who left the study, did not differ significantly between students in bilingual education and those in structured English immersion. Thus, although students in bilingual education initially had worse English skills than students in structured English immersion programs, their later English skills did not differ significantly [4] .

These estimates of the causal impact of bilingual education relative to structured English immersion have internal validity, but external validity is limited by the small number of students and schools. Thus, it is of interest to look at studies covering more students and in other contexts.

Evidence from analyses of the impact of policy changes

The official evaluation of Proposition 227, a California voter referendum banning bilingual education, finds that the share of limited English proficient students receiving bilingual education dropped from 30% in 1997/1998 (the last year before implementation) to 8% in 2003/2004, with limited English proficient students shifting to structured English immersion programs [5] . A comparison of the change in mathematics and reading test scores for limited English proficient students with the change for students who had never been identified as limited English proficient (difference-in-differences analysis) finds a small, statistically insignificant change in the gap between the groups.

Under the assumption that in the absence of the policy change, the gap would have been unchanged, this finding suggests that bilingual programs are as effective as English-only programs for limited English proficient students. However, the authors point out that there were other policy changes around the same time that might make the assumption less plausible, including changes in national accountability standards (such as fewer exemptions from state assessments) and the introduction of the California English Language Development Test in fall 2001 to measure the English proficiency of limited English proficient students. It is likely that these other policy changes affected limited English proficient students and other students differently, making it difficult to disentangle the effect of Proposition 227 from these other changes using a difference-in-differences method with non-limited English proficient students as a comparison group.

Two other studies also use Proposition 227 to learn about the effect of bilingual education, but with a different comparison group. Their insight is that schools in California with a higher prevalence of bilingual education before Proposition 227 would have to move a larger share of limited English proficient students out of bilingual education to comply with the ban on bilingual education than would schools with lower prevalence. Comparing changes over time for limited English proficient students in schools with higher pre-policy prevalence to changes in schools with lower prevalence gives an alternative difference-in-differences estimate of the impact of a reduction in bilingual education. Since this analysis uses data on limited English proficient students only, other policies that differentially affect limited English proficient students are controlled for (because everyone, even the comparison group, is exposed to them).

One study using 1990 and 2000 US Census microdata finds that Proposition 227 increased the self-reported English-speaking ability of children aged 5−18 who immigrated to the US within the past three years from a non-English-speaking country, who are likely to be placed in programs for limited English proficient students [6] . The post-policy year of 2000 is only two years after Proposition 227 was implemented, so the finding is consistent with English speaking ability developing faster when children are placed in structured English immersion instead of bilingual education programs. Left unanswered are impacts on academic English skills and longer-term English language skills.

The other study uses scores from the California English Language Development Test, a richer measure of English proficiency [7] . Because these scores were available beginning only in 2001, there are no pre-policy data; however, the broad intuition behind the empirical strategy is similar. It uses the change in a school’s bilingual education prevalence predicted by perfect compliance with Proposition 227 as an instrumental variable for a student’s actual participation status in bilingual education and controls for a rich set of school characteristics to address the concern that schools with higher and lower pre-policy bilingual education prevalence rates differ systematically. For Spanish-speaking limited English proficient students in grades 1 and 2, bilingual education, relative to English-only approaches, has significant large negative associations with English listening and speaking proficiencies, but the associations are small and positive in grades 3–5 (and insignificant in grade 5). English reading and writing proficiencies are measured in higher grades, and there is no evidence of significant differences in grade 5, with mixed results in grades 3−4.

Massachusetts voters passed a similar initiative banning bilingual education beginning in 2003/2004. A difference-in-differences analysis compares the cohort difference (between the post-policy cohort that took the grade 3 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exam in spring 2006 and the pre-policy cohort that took the exam in spring 2003) for limited English proficient students with the cohort difference for students who had never been identified as limited English proficient students [8] . The study finds small, statistically insignificant differences in reading scores. The finding of no effect of the policy reducing bilingual education holds for both Spanish-speaking and other native language-speaking limited English proficient students.

Evidence using policy rules

Texas requires school districts to offer bilingual education when 20 or more limited English proficient students are enrolled in a particular grade and speak the same native language. A study using a regression discontinuity design exploiting this policy rule finds no statistically significant difference in state standardized mathematics and reading test scores for grade 3–5 students whose native language is Spanish in districts that are above the 20-student cutoff (more likely to be exposed to bilingual education) and those in districts that are below the cutoff (more likely to receive only ESL instruction) [9] . Since most of these students would have been limited English proficient students in an earlier grade, this finding suggests that bilingual education programs and ESL programs, as implemented in small, less urban schools in Texas, have similar impacts on later student achievement. However, these effects of bilingual education may not necessarily generalize to larger, more urban districts or to limited English proficient students whose native language is not Spanish.

A study in a large north-eastern urban district also uses a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of bilingual education [10] . It finds little difference in achievement between students who scored just below the English skills assessment cutoff (and are eligible to participate in bilingual education or ESL programs according to the district policy rule) and those who scored just above (ineligible and placed in mainstream classrooms) [9] . Thus, instruction that uses some native language is no more effective than the all-English instruction occurring in mainstream classrooms. Because the study focuses on students near the cutoff score, the results for the impact of limited English proficient programs apply only to the most English-proficient among limited English proficient students.

Evidence outside the US

A few studies estimate the effect of changes in language of instruction policies. In Morocco, a reform that changed instruction from Arabic in grades 1–5 and French in grades 6–12 to Arabic only is found to decrease French writing skills but not to affect French reading, Arabic, and mathematics skills [11] . In Latvia, a reform that changed instruction from Russian only to 60% Latvian and 40% Russian in secondary schools lowered the high school exit exam scores of ethnic Russians [12] . In South Africa, instruction is in the native language in early grades, and English or Afrikaans in later grades, and a reform increasing the grades providing native language instruction has led to higher literacy and educational attainment [13] . These studies emphasize that school quality changes are coupled with the changes in the language of instruction, and all the studies find that student outcomes are better when quality is higher (which is sometimes with native language instruction and sometimes not).

Limitations and gaps

There are several limitations and gaps in the work evaluating US bilingual education programs. The studies discussed here reflect mainly the impacts of transitional bilingual programs, the most common type in the US. However, their impacts may well differ from those of programs that have bilingualism as a goal, such as maintenance bilingual education and dual language immersion programs.

The literature focuses on English language skills and standardized test scores in English and mathematics as outcomes. These are important in that the main goal of limited English proficient programs is to help limited English proficient students to close the achievement gap. However, it would also be of interest to measure a broader set of outcomes, including native language skills, degree of bilingualism, non-cognitive skills, high school dropout rate, and educational attainment.

A final limitation is that the literature focuses on impacts on limited English proficient students and ignores the possibility that these education programs might have spillover effects on other students. The one study that considers this possibility finds that achievement for non-limited English proficient students is higher in districts that began to offer bilingual education as a result of a Texas administrative rule [9] . While this finding is consistent with non-limited English proficient students benefiting from lower exposure to limited English proficient students, this interpretation is speculative, and more research is needed on spillover effects.

Summary and policy advice

Collectively, a set of recent studies using experimental and quasi-experimental variation in exposure to bilingual education to estimate its causal impact suggests that while receiving some instruction in the native language might lower English-language skills initially, its impact on later English proficiency and achievement is not systematically better or worse than that of English-only approaches. This finding does not mean that school programs for limited English proficient students are not helpful—the studies compare one type of limited English proficient program with another type, not with no program at all. Rather, the implication is native language instruction is not essential to program effectiveness. This may be because bilingual education and English-only programs, as implemented in US schools, have more similarities than differences—both focus on English language acquisition and both use English as the main language of instruction. Moreover, this finding does not preclude the possibility that some bilingual education programs might raise achievement among limited English proficient students more effectively than English-only programs do—or vice versa.

The national debate on how to educate limited English proficient students has focused too much on language of instruction. It would be productive to shift the focus to the quality of instruction [4] . Local communities should be able to choose a program that can be staffed with qualified teachers, have appropriate teaching/learning materials, deliver an adequate number of hours per day of English language development services, and meet broader community goals without first tying their hands about using or not using native language instruction.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks an anonymous referee and the IZA World of Labor editors for many helpful suggestions on earlier drafts.

Competing interests

The IZA World of Labor project is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity . The author declares to have observed these principles.

© Aimee Chin

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Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science Says

Krista byers-heinlein.

Concordia University

Casey Lew-Williams

Northwestern University

Many children in North America and around the world grow up exposed to two languages from an early age. Parents of bilingual infants and toddlers have important questions about the costs and benefits of early bilingualism, and how to best support language acquisition in their children. Here, we separate common myths from scientific findings to answer six of parents’ most common questions about early bilingual development.

Bilingual parents are vocal in their desire to raise proficient, dynamic bilingual children. They have questions, and they want answers. But there is a complicated history of positive and negative press about raising children in bilingual households, to the point where some pediatricians—even today—recommend against exposing children to two languages. Attitudes against early bilingualism are often based on myths and misinterpretations, rather than scientific findings. Here, we aim to address the most frequently asked questions about childhood bilingualism using research findings from a variety of scientific fields including developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, and communication sciences and disorders. This article is intended for parents and the many people who parents turn to for advice about fostering successful bilingual development: preschool teachers, elementary teachers, pediatricians, and speech-language pathologists.

Bilingualism refers to the ability to use two languages in everyday life. Bilingualism is common and is on the rise in many parts of the world, with perhaps one in three people being bilingual or multilingual ( Wei, 2000 ). Contact between two languages is typical in regions of many continents, including Europe (Switzerland, Belgium), Asia (India, Philippines), Africa (Senegal, South Africa), and North America (Canada). In the United States, a large (and growing) number of bilinguals live in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona, and New Mexico. In California, for example, by 2035, it is expected that over 50% of children enrolled in kindergarten will have grown up speaking a language other than English ( García, McLaughlin, Spodek, & Saracho, 1995 ). Similarly, in some urban areas of Canada such as Toronto, up to 50% of students have a native language other than English ( Canadian Council on Learning, 2008 ).

Despite the prevalence of bilingualism, surprisingly little research has been conducted on the topic, particularly on the foundations of bilingual language learning in infants and toddlers. The science of bilingualism is a young field, and definitive answers to many questions are not yet available. Furthermore, other questions are impossible to answer due to vast differences across families, communities, and cultures. But with an accumulation of research studies over the last few decades, we are now equipped to partially answer some of parents’ most pressing questions about early bilingualism.

There are few venues for communicating scientific findings about early bilingualism to the public, and our goal is to distill bilingual and developmental science into practical, accessible information. We are researchers who study bilingual infants and children, and as such, we interact with bilingual families regularly. When we give community talks to preschools and nonprofit organizations about language development in early childhood, the question-and-answer period is invariably dominated by questions about early bilingualism. The consistency in questions is astonishing. Are bilingual children confused? Does bilingualism make children smarter? Is it best for each person to speak only one language with a bilingual child? Should parents avoid mixing languages together? Is earlier better? Are bilingual children more likely to have language difficulties, delays, or disorders? This article is organized around these six common questions.

1. Are bilingual children confused?

One of the biggest concerns that parents have about raising children in a bilingual household is that it will cause confusion. But is there any scientific evidence that young bilinguals are confused? The first question to ask is what confusion would look like. Except in the case of neurological disorders ( Paradis, 2004 ), fluently bilingual adults can speak whatever language they choose in the moment, and are clearly not confused. But what about bilingual children and infants?

One misunderstood behavior, which is often taken as evidence for confusion, is when bilingual children mix words from two languages in the same sentence. This is known as code mixing. In fact, code mixing is a normal part of bilingual development, and bilingual children actually have good reasons to code mix ( Pearson, 2008 ). One reason some children code mix is that it happens frequently in their language communities—children are just doing what they hear adults around them do ( Comeau, Genesee, & Lapaquette, 2003 ). A second reason is that, just like young monolinguals, young bilinguals are sometimes limited in their linguistic resources. Similarly to how a monolingual 1-year-old might initially use the word “dog” to refer to any four-legged creature, bilingual children also use their limited vocabularies resourcefully. If a bilingual child does not know or cannot quickly retrieve the appropriate word in one language, she might borrow the word from the other language ( Lanza, 2004 ). Rather than being a sign of confusion, code mixing can be seen as a path of least resistance: a sign of bilingual children’s ingenuity. Further, bilingual children do not seem to use their two languages haphazardly. Even 2-year olds show some ability to modulate their language according to the language used by their conversational partner ( Genesee, Boivin, & Nicoladis, 1996 ). There is also evidence that children’s early code mixing adheres to predictable grammar-like rules, which are largely similar to the rules that govern adults’ code mixing ( Paradis, Nicoladis, & Genesee, 2000 ).

What about bilingual infants? Again, the research is clear: bilingual infants readily distinguish their two languages and show no evidence of confusion. Languages differ on many dimensions—even if you don’t speak Russian or Mandarin, you can likely tell one from the other. Infants are also sensitive to these perceptual differences, and are particularly attuned to a language’s rhythm. Infants can discriminate rhythmically dissimilar languages like English and French at birth ( Byers-Heinlein, Burns, & Werker, 2010 ; Mehler et al., 1988 ), and by age 4 months they can tell even rhythmically similar languages like French and Spanish apart ( Bosch & Sebastián-Gallés, 1997 , 2001 ; Nazzi, 2000 ). Bilingual infants may be even more sensitive than monolinguals when it comes to discriminating languages. Recent research has shown that 4-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants can discriminate silent talking faces speaking different languages ( Weikum et al., 2007 ). However, by 8 months of age, only bilinguals are still sensitive to the distinction, while monolinguals stop paying attention to subtle variations in facial movements ( Sebastián-Gallés, Albareda-Castellot, Weikum, & Werker, 2012 ; Weikum et al., 2007 ). Instead of being confused, it seems that bilingual infants are sensitive to information that distinguishes their languages.

2. Does bilingualism make children smarter?

Popular books such as The Bilingual Edge ( King & Mackey, 2009 ), and articles such as The Power of the Bilingual Brain ( TIME Magazine ; Kluger, 2013 ) have touted the potential benefits of early bilingualism. One of the most important benefits of early bilingualism is often taken for granted: bilingual children will know multiple languages, which is important for travel, employment, speaking with members of one’s extended family, maintaining a connection to family culture and history, and making friends from different backgrounds. However, beyond obvious linguistic benefits, researchers have investigated whether bilingualism confers other non-linguistic advantages ( Akhtar & Menjivar, 2012 ).

Several studies have suggested that bilinguals show certain advantages when it comes to social understanding. In some ways, this is not surprising, as bilinguals must navigate a complex social world where different people have different language knowledge. For example, bilingual preschoolers seem to have somewhat better skills than monolinguals in understanding others’ perspectives, thoughts, desires, and intentions ( Bialystok & Senman, 2004 ; Goetz, 2003 ; Kovács, 2009 ). Young bilingual children also have enhanced sensitivity to certain features of communication such as tone of voice ( Yow & Markman, 2011 ).

Bilinguals also show some cognitive advantages. In particular, bilinguals appear to perform a little bit better than monolinguals on tasks that involve switching between activities and inhibiting previously learned responses ( Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012 ). Although these advantages have been mostly studied in bilingual adults ( Costa, Hernández, & Sebastián-Gallés, 2008 ) and children ( Bialystok & Martin, 2004 ), new evidence suggests that even bilingual infants ( Kovács & Mehler, 2009a , 2009b ) and toddlers ( Poulin-Dubois, Blaye, Coutya, & Bialystok, 2011 ) show cognitive advantages. Additionally, there is some evidence that bilingual infants are advantaged in certain aspects of memory, for example generalizing information from one event to a later event ( Brito & Barr, 2012 ).

Research has not been able to determine exactly why these advantages arise, but there are several possibilities. Bilingual adults have to regularly switch back and forth between their languages, and inhibit one language while they selectively speak another. Some researchers suspect that this constant practice might lead to certain advantages by training the brain ( Green, 1998 ). Amongst infants, the need to constantly discriminate their two languages could also play a role ( Sebastián-Gallés et al., 2012 ). However, it is important to note that bilingualism is not the only type of experience that has been linked to cognitive advantages. Similar cognitive advantages are also seen in individuals with early musical training ( Schellenberg, 2005 ), showing that multiple types of enriched early experience can promote cognitive development. Regardless of origin, it should be noted that the “bilingual advantage” has sometimes been overplayed in the popular press. So far, bilingual cognitive advantages have only been demonstrated using highly sensitive laboratory-based methods, and it is not known whether they play a role in everyday life. Thus, the reported advantages do not imply that bilingualism is an essential ingredient for successful development.

3. Is it best for each person to speak only one language with a bilingual child?

One popular strategy for raising bilingual children is “one-person-one-language,” a strategy first recommended over 100 years ago ( Ronjat, 1913 ). Theorists originally reasoned that associating each language with a different person was the only way to prevent bilingual children from “confusion and intellectual fatigue.” While appealing, this early notion has been proven false. As discussed above, there is no evidence that bilingual children are confused by early bilingualism, and the cognitive benefits associated with bilingualism run counter to the notion of “intellectual fatigue.”

It is still important to consider what strategies families can use to promote early bilingual development. Research has shown that a one-person-one-language approach can lead to successful acquisition of the two languages ( Barron-Hauwaert, 2004 ), but that it does not necessarily lead to successful acquisition of the two languages ( De Houwer, 2007 ). Further, children who hear both languages from the same bilingual parent often do successfully learn two languages ( De Houwer, 2007 ). A one-person-one-language approach is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful bilingual acquisition.

Several other factors have proven to be important to early bilingual development. These factors might lead some families to use a one-person-one-language strategy, and other families to use other strategies. First, it is important to remember that infants learn language through listening to and interacting with different speakers. Infants need to have a lot of exposure to the sounds, words, and grammars of the languages that they will one day use. Both quality and quantity matter. High quality language exposure involves social interaction—infants do not readily learn language from television ( DeLoache et al., 2010 ; Kuhl, Tsao, & Liu, 2003 ), and low-quality television viewing in infancy has been linked to smaller vocabulary sizes in bilingual toddlers ( Hudon, Fennell, & Hoftyzer, 2013 ). Opportunities to interact with multiple different speakers has been linked to vocabulary learning in bilingual toddlers (Place & Hoff, 2010).

Quantity can be measured by the number of words that children hear per day in each language. Quantity of early exposure has a profound effect on children’s ongoing language development: hearing more words gives children a greater opportunity to learn a language, which leads to later advantages in school performance ( Hart & Risley, 1995 ). For bilingual children, it is important to consider the quantity of their exposure to each language. While a bilingual’s two languages do influence each other to a certain degree ( Döpke, 2000 ), in many ways they travel on independent developmental paths. Bilingual children who hear a large amount of a particular language learn more words and grammar in that language ( Hoff et al., 2012 ; Pearson & Fernández, 1994 ), and show more efficient processing of that language ( Conboy & Mills, 2006 ; Hurtado, Grüter, Marchman, & Fernald, 2013 ; Marchman, Fernald, & Hurtado, 2010 ). Bilingual parents thus need to ensure that their children have sufficient exposure to the languages they want their children to learn. We return to this topic in the next sections.

Relatively balanced exposure to the two languages is most likely to promote successful acquisition of both of the languages ( Thordardottir, 2011 ). In situations where each parent spends equal time with a child, one-parent-one-language can be a great way to ensure equal exposure. Conversely, exposure to a second language only when grandma and grandpa visit on the weekend, or when a part-time nanny visits on a few weekdays, or when a language class meets on Thursday nights, will not lead to balanced exposure. Imagine an average infant who sleeps about 12 hours a day, and so is awake 84 hours per week. A single afternoon (~ 5 hours) is only about 6% of the child’s waking life, and this exposure alone is unlikely to lead to acquisition of a language. Similarly, in homes where one parent is the primary caregiver, a one-parent-one-language is unlikely to lead to balanced exposure.

Unfortunately, providing perfectly balanced exposure in the early years will not necessarily ensure later bilingualism. As children become older, they become more aware of the language spoken in the community where they live, and are likely to use this language at school. This is known as the majority language, while other languages that are not as widely spoken are known as minority languages. Even if initially learned in preschool, minority languages are much more likely than majority languages to be lost as development continues ( De Houwer, 2007 ). Many experts recommend providing slightly more early input in a minority than in a majority language, and where possible providing children with opportunities to play with other kids in that language ( Pearson, 2008 ). Raising a bilingual child in communities that are largely bilingual such as Miami (Spanish-English), Montreal (French-English), and Barcelona (Catalan-Spanish) provides fewer challenges for ensuring the ongoing use of the two languages.

So what language strategies should parents use? The best answer is that parents should use whatever strategy promotes high-quality and high-quantity exposure to each of their child’s languages. This could include structured approaches such as using different languages as a function of person (one-person-one-language), place (one language at home, one language outside), or time (alternating days of the week, or mornings/afternoons). Some parents insist on speaking only one language with their child, even if they are able to speak the other ( Lanza, 2004 ), to ensure exposure to a particular language. Other families find that flexible use of the two languages, without fixed rules, leads to balanced exposure and positive interactions. Each family should consider the language proficiency of each family member as well as their language preference, in conjunction with their community situation. Families should regularly make an objective appraisal of what their child is actually hearing on a daily basis (rather than what they wish their child was hearing), and consider adjusting language use when necessary.

4. Should parents avoid mixing languages together?

Many parents of bilingual children are bilingual themselves ( Byers-Heinlein, 2013 ). Code mixing—the use of elements from two different languages in the same sentence or conversation—is a normal part of being a bilingual and interacting with other bilingual speakers ( Poplack, 1980 ). Code mixing is relatively frequent amongst bilingual parents as well ( Byers-Heinlein, 2013 ), and even parents who have chosen a one-parent-one-language strategy still code mix from time to time ( Goodz, 1989 ). But what effects does hearing code mixing have on the development of bilingual children?

Research on the impact of code mixing on bilingual children’s development is still quite limited. One study of 18- and 24-month-olds found that high amounts of code mixing by parents was related to smaller vocabulary sizes ( Byers-Heinlein, 2013 ). However, other studies have found no relationship between code-mixed language and early language development ( Place & Hoff, 2011 ). Further, studies are beginning to reveal that bilingual children as young as 20-months are able to understand code-mixed sentences, and show similar processing patterns as bilingual adults ( Byers-Heinlein, 2013 ). This would suggest that bilinguals are able to cope with code mixing from an early age. It has also been suggested that while code mixing might make word learning initially difficult, it is possible that practice switching back and forth between the languages leads to later cognitive benefits ( Byers-Heinlein, 2013 ). Unfortunately, the jury is still out on whether exposure to code mixing has developmental consequences for bilingual children, but we are currently working on several research projects that will help answer this question.

It is important to note that considerations of code mixing also have important social implications. In some communities, code mixing is an important part of being bilingual and being part of a bilingual community. For example, code mixing is the norm in some Spanish-English communities in the U.S., and Afrikaans-English code mixing is the norm in some parts of South Africa. Different communities have different patterns of and rules for code mixing ( Poplack, 1984 ), and children need exposure to these patterns in order to learn them.

5. Is earlier better?

Many people are familiar with the concept of a “critical period” for language acquisition: the idea that humans are not capable of mastering a new language after reaching a certain age. Researchers disagree about whether a critical period exists at all, and they disagree about when this critical period may occur—proposals range from age 5 to 15 ( Krashen, 1973 ; Johnson & Newport, 1989 ; Lenneberg, 1967 ). Disagreement aside, research on bilingualism and second language learning converges robustly on a simple take-home point: earlier is better. There may not be a sharp turn for the worse at any point in development, but there is an incremental decline in language learning abilities with age ( Birdsong & Molis, 2001 ; Hakuta, Bialystok, & Wiley, 2003 ).

This point is best understood as an interaction between biological and environmental factors. Researchers have argued that biological change during the first two decades of life results in a reduced capacity for learning and retaining the subtleties of language ( Johnson & Newport, 1989 ; Weber-Fox & Neville, 2001 ). In other words, our brains may be more receptive to language earlier in life. But importantly, our environment is also more conducive to language learning earlier in life. In many cultures and in many families, young children experience a very rich language environment during the first years of life. They hear language in attention-grabbing, digestible bundles that are targeted skillfully at their developmental level ( Fernald & Simon, 1984 ). Caregivers typically speak in ways that are neither too simple nor too complex, and children receive hours and hours of practice with language every day. This high-quality and high-quantity experience with language—a special feature of how people communicate with young children—often results in successful language learning. It gives children rich, diverse, and engaging opportunities to learn about the sounds, syllables, words, phrases, and sentences that comprise their native language. But beyond the first years of life, second language learning often happens very differently. Older children and adults do not usually have the same amount of time to devote to language learning, and they do not usually experience the advantage of fun, constant, one-on-one interaction with native speakers. Instead, they often find themselves in a classroom, where they get a small fraction of the language practice that infants and toddlers get ( Lew-Williams & Fernald, 2010 ). In classrooms, words are defined for them and grammar is described to them. Defining and describing can be effective, but they are not as powerful as discovering language from the ground up.

Applied to bilingualism, these maturational and environmental differences between younger and older learners indicate that it is most advantageous to learn two languages early on in life. Bilinguals who learn two languages from birth are referred to as simultaneous bilinguals, and those who learn a first language followed by a second language—whether as toddlers or as adults—are referred to as sequential bilinguals. The evidence points to fairly robust advantages for simultaneous bilinguals relative to sequential bilinguals. They tend to have better accents, more diversified vocabulary, higher grammatical proficiency, and greater skill in real-time language processing. For example, children and adults who learn Spanish as a second language typically struggle to master Spanish grammatical gender (e.g., “is it el gato or la gato ?”), while people who learn Spanish and English from birth show reliable and impressive ease in using grammatical gender ( Lew-Williams & Fernald, 2007 , 2010 ).

However, parents should not lose hope if they have not exposed their children to each language from birth. Infants’ brains and learning environments are special and non-recreatable, but there are many other ways to foster bilingual development. Here we overview two possibilities. First, some parents (particularly those who can afford childcare) choose to hire bilingual nannies or send children to bilingual preschools, in order to maximize their children’s exposure to another language. This can certainly result in increased bilingual proficiency, but it is essential to provide continued opportunities to practice each language once the child is older. Parental expectations should be quite low if children do not have opportunities to continue learning and using a language throughout development. However, keep in mind that bilingual exposure does not necessarily translate to being a bilingual who is able to understand and speak a language fluently. Researchers generally consider a child to be bilingual if he or she receives at least 10–25% of exposure to each language ( Byers-Heinlein, under review ; Place & Hoff, 2011 ; Marchman et al., 2010 ; Marchman, Martínez-Sussmann, & Dale, 2004 ), but this level of exposure by no means guarantees functional bilingualism ( De Houwer, 2007 ).

Second, there are language immersion programs in elementary schools in many of the world’s countries, including the U.S. and Canada. Their goal is to promote bilingualism, biliteracy, and multicultural proficiency among both language-majority and language-minority students. In the U.S., hundreds of immersion programs have been established in the last four decades in such languages as Spanish, French, Korean, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, Navajo, and Hebrew. There are currently 434 or more immersion programs in 31 U.S. states ( Center for Applied Linguistics, 2011 ). French immersion programs are available in all 10 Canadian provinces, with enrolment ranging from 2–32% of students depending on the province ( Statistics Canada, 2000 ). Immersion programs confer advantages over other formats of language instruction that are typical in high school and college classrooms. In immersion programs, the second language is not necessarily a topic of instruction, but a vehicle for instruction of other curriculum subjects. In terms of the quantity of language exposure, immersion classrooms do not rival infants’ language environments. However, they often foster functional bilingualism, and equip children with language skills that help them in later educational and professional contexts.

The take-home messages about bilingual language exposure are clear: more is better, and earlier is better. If you are 75 years old and you have always wanted to learn Japanese, start now. Language learning becomes more challenging with time, for both maturational and environmental reasons, but for those who are motivated ( Gardner & Lambert, 1959 ), it is never too late to learn a new language.

6. Are bilingual children more likely to have language difficulties, delays, or disorders?

Bilingual children are not more likely than monolingual children to have difficulties with language, to show delays in learning, or to be diagnosed with a language disorder (see Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2010 ; Petitto & Holowka, 2002 ). Parents’ perceptions are often otherwise—they feel that their child is behind due to their bilingualism—revealing an interesting disconnect from scientific findings. Science has revealed an important property of early bilingual children’s language knowledge that might explain this misperception: while bilingual children typically know fewer words in each of their languages than do monolingual learners of those languages, this apparent difference disappears when you calculate bilingual children’s “conceptual vocabulary” across both languages ( Marchman et al., 2010 ). That is, if you add together known words in each language, and then make sure you don’t double-count cross-language synonyms (e.g., dog and perro ), then bilingual children know approximately the same number of words as monolingual children ( Pearson, Fernández, & Oller, 1993 ; Pearson & Fernández, 1994 ).

As an example, if a Spanish/English bilingual toddler knows 50 Spanish words and 50 English words, she will probably not appear to be as good at communicating when compared to her monolingual cousin who knows 90 English words. However, assuming 10 of the toddler’s Spanish words are also known in English, then the toddler has a conceptual vocabulary of 90 words, which matches that of her cousin. Even so, knowing 50 vs. 90 English words could result in noticeably different communication abilities, but these differences are likely to become less noticeable with time. This hypothetical example about equivalence in vocabulary is supported by research showing that bilingual and monolingual 14-month-olds are equally good at learning word-object associations ( Byers-Heinlein, Fennell, & Werker, 2013 ). This offers some reassurance that young bilinguals—like young monolinguals—possess learning skills that can successfully get them started on expected vocabulary trajectories. There is also evidence that bilingual children match monolinguals in conversational abilities; for example, when somebody uses a confusing or mispronounced word, or says something ambiguous, bilingual children can repair the conversation with the same skill as monolinguals ( Comeau, Genesee, & Mendelson, 2010 ).

Just like some monolingual children have a language delay or disorder, a similar proportion of bilinguals will have a language delay or disorder. Evidence that one bilingual child has a language difficulty, however, is not evidence that bilingualism leads to language difficulties in general. The challenge for pediatricians and for speech-language pathologists is to decide if a bilingual child does have a problem, or whether her errors are part of normal development and interaction between the sounds, words, and grammars of her two languages. If parents are worried that their bilingual child does have a delay, they should first consult their pediatrician. Pediatricians sometimes have a tendency to say, “Don’t worry, her language is completely normal.” This statement will end up being false for some children who will end up diagnosed with language difficulties, but it is more likely than not to be true, especially considering that parents can be inaccurate when estimating their bilingual child’s language skills. In some other cases, health care providers with concerns about language impairment may recommend against raising a child in a bilingual environment. This recommendation is not supported by the science of bilingualism. Bilingual children with specific language impairments ( Paradis, Crago, Genesee, & Rice, 2003 ), Down syndrome ( Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2005 ), and autism spectrum disorders ( Peterson, Marinova-Todd, & Mirenda, 2012 ) are not more likely to experience additional delays or challenges compared to monolingual children with these impairments.

If parents do not feel comfortable with a pediatrician’s opinion, they should find (or ask for a referral to) a speech-language pathologist with expertise in bilingualism, if at all possible. Early intervention increases the likelihood of a positive outcome. The problem is that few clinicians receive quality training about the learning needs of bilingual children, which in some cases leads to a misdiagnosis of bilingual children as having delayed or disordered language ( Bedore & Peña, 2008 ; Kohnert, 2010 ; Thordardottir, Rothenberg, Rivard, & Naves, 2006 ). The time is past due to eliminate such simple misunderstandings in clinical settings. A bilingual clinician, or an individual who has training in bilingualism, will take care in assessing language skills in both languages, in order to measure the child’s entire language profile. Parents should keep in mind that clinicians have a very difficult job when it comes to assessing bilingual children. They have to (1) accurately assess a bilingual child’s language abilities in each of her languages, (2) integrate the child’s problematic and unproblematic abilities in terms of sounds, words, grammar, and conversation in each language into a coherent whole, (3) evaluate whether the child is delayed and/or disordered in one or both languages, (4) weigh the child’s linguistic/cognitive capacities in comparison to typically and atypically developing monolingual children and, when possible, bilingual children of the same age, and (5) develop an effective intervention that targets subareas of linguistic/cognitive competence in one and/or both languages. This is a tangled landscape for intervention, but one that can be assessed thoughtfully. Regardless of whether parents pursue intervention, they can help children gain bilingual proficiency by using both languages as regularly as possible in enriching and engaging contexts. Furthermore, parents should keep in mind that both monolingual and bilingual children can best show off their skills when using language that matches their daily experiences ( Mattock, Polka, Rvachew, & Krehm, 2010 ).

In summary, if you measure bilinguals using a monolingual measure, you are more likely to find false evidence of delay. Fortunately, researchers and clinicians are now developing bilingual-specific measures that paint a more accurate picture of bilinguals’ global language competence.

Conclusions

In this article, we have reviewed what the science says about six of parents’ most commonly asked questions about early bilingualism. Research demonstrates that we need to reshape our views of early bilingualism: children are born ready to learn the language or languages of their environments without confusion or delay ( Werker & Byers-Heinlein, 2008 ). To promote successful bilingual development, parents raising bilingual children should ensure that their children have ample opportunities to hear and speak both of their languages. As children get older, interacting with monolingual speakers (especially other children) is important for motivating ongoing language use, especially for minority languages not widely spoken in the community ( Pearson, 2008 ). Teachers, pediatricians, and speech language pathologists play an important role in dispelling common myths, and in communicating science-based information about early bilingualism to parents.

While our focus here has been on language development, it is also important to recognize that early childhood is also a time of profound emotional, social, physical, and cognitive development. Bilingualism will be a priority or even a necessity for some families. Other families might choose to focus on other aspects of development. In some cases, where families are not fluent in a second language, early bilingualism might be unrealistic. Here, it is important to keep two things in mind: 1) bilingualism is only one way to promote successful early development, and 2) second language learning is possible at any age. Language—any language—is a window to the world. It is better for parents to provide plenty of input and interaction in a language they are comfortable in, than to hold back because they are not fluent or comfortable in the language.

When it comes to raising bilingual children, myths and misunderstandings are common, but facts are hard to come by. Together with researchers around the world, we are working hard to continue providing scientifically based facts addressing parents’ most important questions about early bilingualism.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants to Krista Byers-Heinlein from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada and the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, and to Casey Lew-Williams from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. Thank you to Alexandra Polonia for her assistance with proofreading, and to the many parents of bilingual children whose questions inspire and motivate us.

Biographies

Krista Byers-Heinlein (B.A., McGill University; M.A., Ph.D., University of British Columbia) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University. She directs the Concordia Infant Research Laboratory, and is a member of the Centre for Research in Human Development, and the Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music. She is recognized internationally for her research on bilingualism in infancy, and has published extensively on the topics of bilingual infants’ speech perception and word learning.

Casey Lew-Williams (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., Stanford University) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University. He directs the Language Learning Lab, a research group devoted to studying first, second, and bilingual language learning. His work focuses in particular on understanding how different learning experiences shape language outcomes in diverse populations of infants, children, and adults.

Contributor Information

Krista Byers-Heinlein, Concordia University.

Casey Lew-Williams, Northwestern University.

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Effects of Bilingualism on Students’ Linguistic Education: Specifics of Teaching Phonetics and Lexicology

• Published: 14 September 2023
• Volume 52 , pages 2693–2720, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Zoya Snezhko 1 ,
• Gaukhar Yersultanova 2 ,
• Valentina Spichak 1 ,
• Elena Dolzhich 3 &
• Svetlana Dmitrichenkova 3  

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In the study of English in a bylingual environment, issues related to the need to develop students' phonetic and lexical competencies, which include communication, phonetic and auditory skills and lexical sufficiency, are of particular relevance. The motive of this study is the need to improve the methodology of teaching English in the context of student immersion in a foreign language educational environment, by implementing additional thematic courses in the general educational program aimed at improving the phonetic and lexical competencies necessary for successful learning in a bilingual environment. The purpose of the article is to study the feasibility and effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology by students-translators who study in a bilingual educational environment. An educational experiment was conducted with the participation of 75 students-translators, in the educational process of which the disciplines of phonetics and lexicology were integrated for two academic hours per week for one year. The effectiveness of studying phonetics and lexicology within the framework of bilingual education has been proved and the skills and achievements of students that they have acquired in the process of bilingual education with an emphasis on phonetics and lexicology have been analyzed. Control tests yielded the following results: among the 46 Russian-speaking participants the percentage of English speakers at the C2 level was 7% (3 people), C1—79% (36 people), B2—14% (7 people). To achieve the most effective learning in a bilingual environment, especially when it takes place in a minority language, it is worth emphasizing students' learning of phonetics and vocabulary. Using this approach, students were able to form and develop a number of phonetic and lexical skills and improve academic performance.

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Acknowledgements

Elena Dolzhich and Svetlana Dmitrichenkova have been supported by the RUDN University Strategic Academic Leadership Program.

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Zoya Snezhko & Valentina Spichak

Language Center, Almaty Managment University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Gaukhar Yersultanova

Department of Foreign Languages of Engineering Academy of RUDN University, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russian Federation

Elena Dolzhich & Svetlana Dmitrichenkova

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ZS: Conceptualization, Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing—original draft. GY: Data curation, Methodology, Software, Visualization, Writing—review and editing. VS: Formal Analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Writing—review and editing. ED: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Resources, Writing—original draft. SD: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Software, Writing—review and editing.

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Grammar: Choose One Correct Answer

Reading: Read an Article About Penguins and for Questions 11 to 17, Choose the correct Answers

Learning from penguin poop.

The unique features of penguin poop have allowed scientists to make a remarkable discovery. The faeces of Adelie penguins, which live along the Antarctic coast and its islands, have a unique colour. They are bright pink due to the penguins’ diet, which consists largely of pink creatures called krill. They eat so much of it that their plentiful poop stains the ground on which they live, as well as their own bodies. Moreover, they produce so much poop that the pink stains can be seen from space.

This attribute has been useful for scientists studying these birds, as it has allowed them to locate colonies of penguins using satellite images. It isn’t possible to see individual penguins in satellite photos, but the pink stains are easy to identify. Scientists can even estimate the size of the colony from the size of the pink area.

Researchers using this method were, until recently, reasonably certain that they knew the whereabouts of all the Adelie penguin colonies on the continent. However, a colleague at NASA then developed an algorithm which automatically detected these stains, rather than finding them by human eye. The computer programme identified many more pink patches that the researchers had previously overlooked, particularly in the Danger Islands.

Researcher Heather Lynch admitted that the researchers had probably missed these colonies because they never expected to find them there. As the name suggests, the Danger Islands are difficult to get to and are almost always covered in sea ice. They are so small that they don’t even appear on many maps of Antarctica. However, once the researchers were aware of the colonies, they completed a full survey. They discovered 1.5 million penguins in this small area, more than in the rest of Antarctica.

Although this seems a large number, research findings suggest that it is lower than previous years. By studying satellite images from the past, which date back to 1982, the team were able to deduce that penguin numbers peaked in the late 1990s, and have since declined by 10–20%. Krill fishing is one of the main causes for the population decline of penguins in Antarctica, but because the Danger Islands are normally surrounded by sea ice, there is less human activity here than in other parts of the continent. This leads researchers to believe that the recent decline is due to other factors, such as climate change.

The scientists are now conducting research in the area to better understand the species and the long-term health of the colonies. One team, for example, is analysing the colour and content of the poop to investigate changes in the birds’ diet. This can show the extent to which penguins are affected by commercial fishing. Another is digging holes to learn more about the penguins’ past. By radiocarbon dating the bones and eggshells found in these holes, the team have discovered that the penguins have been inhabiting these islands since 2,800 years ago. By learning more about the penguin population of Antarctica, the team hopes to understand more about the impact of human activity on the natural world.

Listening. Watch a Video About the Future of Airport Security. Decide if the Following Statements are True or False.

18. In Vancouver airport, they are concerned about the security in the airport premises.

19. They have implemented security measures similar to those used in Istanbul.

20. Don Ehrenholz gives us an idea of what the new security measures are.

21. The objective is to obstruct, as much as possible, the action of any potential terrorists.

22. Other countries have also taken extraordinary security measures, but many of them only after being attacked by terrorists.

23. In Moscow the terrorists had to go through a security check to get into the airport buildings.

24. In Glasgow airport the terrorist attack caused no casualties.

Writing: Check the ‘Explanation’ Tab Above Before Doing These Exercises. Read the Following for and Against Essay Sample. For Each Gap, Choose the Correct Option from the Expressions in the Box Below

Having an only child is easier for parents and better for kids.

Several centuries ago, it was unbelievable that having only one child could have any advantages. The higher number of children, the bigger opportunities your family had to survive. 23 _ nowadays families with just one child are most common. And as a parent, you will ask yourself what are the advantages and disadvantages of being or having an only child.

24 _ for parents who have just one child is that they need to spend less money and time and can survive with just a small two-bedroom house. 25 _, an only child doesn’t have to share anything, and they get all their parents’ attention and affection. 26 _ of only children is that having just one child prevents traditional problems related to the partition of the parents’ last will. 27 _, there are also well-known disadvantages. 28 _, only children tend to become more selfish and have a more difficult personality. 29 _, if you have a brother or sister, you will always have someone to play with or talk to if you need help or advice. And 30 _ you are the centre of the universe as a child, when your parents grow old, you will be the only one to look after them.

31 _ , either having or being an only child has numerous advantages and disadvantages, and if you are thinking of becoming a parent, you will have to think carefully what you believe is the best for you as a parent, but also for your child.

Reading: Read an Article About Personality and Health, and the Correct Answer

Personality and health.

There is increasing evidence that health is linked to personality. However, until now, the relationship has not affected the way health care is delivered. There are several reasons for this. Some health workers doubt whether there is a direct link between health and personality or whether it’s just a coincidence. Some feel it is their professional duty to treat all patients in the same way. Others argue that delivering health services according to patients’ personalities will have minimal impact and therefore isn’t worth the effort. However, some psychologists believe that applying different procedures to people with different personalities could have a significant, positive effect on health.

Research into personality has, in recent years, focused on the Big Five model of personality types. This model measures how neurotic, extrovert, open to experience, agreeable and conscientious a person is. Some of these personality types have been studied in relation to health. For example, conscientious people tend to be less likely to smoke, drink too much alcohol or be inactive. However, in other cases, the relationship is less clear. Neurotic behaviour, for instance, has been found in some studies to increase the risk of death, in others to protect people from illness and in others to have no link to health at all.

Even so, if health workers applied an understanding of personality to the services they provide, they could influence the extent to which patients act on advice and follow their treatment. For example, high sensation-seeking individuals, who are extroverts and unconscientious in the Big Five model and tend to take part in risky activities, respond to drama, energy and emotion. Thus, to encourage those people to follow health advice, health promotions can be designed to incorporate those factors. An example of this was the campaign SENTAR which aimed to reduce cannabis use among high sensation-seeking teenagers. By creating a suitable television advert, they successfully engaged these youths and reduced their recreational drug use. Of course, this approach isn’t always possible. It is often impractical and expensive to create several versions of a campaign to reach different personality types. However, recent developments in computer technology, cookies and targeted advertising may allow this approach to be used more in future.

Personality could also be considered when sending messages, information and guidance to specific patients. Already, health information is usually available in various forms—printed, digital, audio, and so on—to be suitable and accessible for different users, such as the blind, the elderly, and people with reading difficulties. Research has also shown that, by identifying different patients’ motivations for treatment and then corresponding with them in a way that reflects their motivations, patients will become more involved in their treatment, compared to when the same messages are sent to everyone. Correspondence could, therefore, be adapted to reflect patients’ personality type, too. For example, less conscientious people could be sent phone reminders to attend appointments. So far, there has been very little research into the effectiveness of tailoring health guidance according to personality, so this area deserves further study.

Until now, the focus of personality-health research has been to explore the link between personality and health and has had very little practical application. Thus, health workers have not engaged deeply with it. However, by suggesting, trialling and implementing practices to engage patients with different personalities, the relationship between psychology researchers and health workers could improve, along with the health of the general public.

21. Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City.

22. As a child, she didn't like to play with her sisters, and preferred to be alone.

23. As a child, she loved drawing, but didn't want to be an artist.

24. She began to paint in a hospital bed after a terrible illness.

25. Diego Rivera saw her paintings and approached her to say she could become a professional artist.

26. Diego Rivera wanted to live in the US, but they returned because Frida missed Mexico.

27. Loneliness made Frida feel a lot of pain, which she reflected in her self-portraits.

28. Frida used her art to cope with her difficult life.

Writing: Check the ‘Explanation’ Tab Above Before Doing These Exercises. Read the Following for and Against Essay Sample. For each Gap, Choose the Correct Option From the Expressions in the Box Below

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing in 29 _ to the home exchange service that you offer on your website. We are a family of four who have been considering the possibility of exchanging our main home for some time and we would be 30 _ if you could answer a few questions. 31 _, I would like to 32 _ if some kind of insurance is included in the fee that you charge for your services. We have our own home insurer, but we are not sure if we should talk to them before doing an exchange. I would 33 _ some information on this point.

I would 34 _ like to know if pets can be included in the exchange. We have a cat and we do not have anybody to look after him while we are away. Could you tell me if exchanging pets or leaving a pet in the care of the people who are coming to your home is a common practice?

35 _, I would be interested to receive 36 _ information about the confirmation process. Would you 37 _ telling me if there is an exchange contract that needs to be signed before your exchange?

We would appreciate it if you could answer these questions. I look 38 _ to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Clark.

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Snezhko, Z., Yersultanova, G., Spichak, V. et al. Effects of Bilingualism on Students’ Linguistic Education: Specifics of Teaching Phonetics and Lexicology. J Psycholinguist Res 52 , 2693–2720 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-10016-x

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Issue Date : December 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-10016-x

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Bilingual education in China: a qualitative synthesis of research on models and perceptions

Bilingual education has become increasingly popular in China, with a subsequent growth in research, particularly research with a qualitative component that examines learners’ and teachers’ experiences and perspectives. These studies have mostly been conducted in individual classroom settings where contexts and learners differ, making findings less transferrable to other educational settings. To address this need, we conducted a qualitative synthesis of research that aims to provide a holistic and rich description of bilingual education in China. Our focus is on the implementation of bilingual education in different educational contexts, learners’ and teachers’ perceptions of bilingual education, and the research instruments used for the evaluation of bilingual education. Following a discipline-specific methodological framework for conducting qualitative research synthesis (Chong, Sin Wang & Luke Plonsky. 2021. A primer on qualitative research synthesis in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly 55(3). 1024–1034), we identified suitable studies using a pre-determined search string within various databases. Search results were screened based on a set of inclusion criteria and relevant information was extracted from the included studies using a piloted data extraction form. The extracted data were synthesised using grounded theory to identify new themes and sub-themes. Our findings point to the need for more fine-grained classifications of bilingual education models, despite the fact that Chinese learners generally show positive attitudes towards bilingual education. The study ends with an analysis of limitations, as well as recommendations for future research and practice.

1 Introduction

Bilingual education refers to the use of two languages as the media of instruction ( García 2009 ). The reason bilingual education is prevalent nowadays is twofold: globalization creates needs for bilinguals who are proficient users of more than one language; bilingual education facilitates intercultural communication and widens the cognitive capacity of individuals ( Jawad 2021 ). The rise of Chinese bilingual education stemmed from its open-door policy in 1978 ( Gao and Wang 2017 ). At that time, English was taught as a subject, but learners were incapable of using the language in real-life contexts. Thus, there was growing dissatisfaction with the traditional methods of English language teaching in China, which predominantly used the first language (L1) of learners. Under the influence of bilingual education implementation in other countries, for example, immersion in Canada and dual-way bilingual education in the United States, China began to adopt and adapt various models of bilingual education. Simultaneously, the Ministry of Education (MOE) called for a reform in English language teaching in universities to improve the communication skills of university learners by promoting bilingual education in China ( MOE 2005 ). In 2021 , MOE amended the education law, which mentioned that schools and institutions in ethnic autonomous regions and ethnic minorities should use indigenous languages to implement bilingual education while the government would provide additional support for minority learners.

Although the implementation of bilingual education varies across China, research remains piecemeal, especially regarding learners’ and teachers’ experiences. Thus, there is a need for a qualitative synthesis of research findings that focuses on issues pertaining to implementation (how bilingual education is implemented by teachers and experienced by learners), perceptions (learners’ and teachers’ attitudes towards bilingual education), and evaluation (research tools used to evaluate the effectiveness of bilingual education) of bilingual education in China. These issues will be discussed in light of the synthesised findings.

2 Literature review

2.1 defining ‘bilingual education’.

García and Lin (2017) define bilingual education as the use of diverse languages to teach. Jawad (2021) put forward the Separate Underlying Proficiency and Common Underlying Proficiency models to refer to the interrelationship between the two languages used by bilinguals. The separate Underlying Proficiency model, which influenced the early development of bilingual education, posits that bilinguals’ proficiency and knowledge of the two languages are discrete entities, each with a limited capacity for storage, while the Common Underlying Proficiency model, representing a more dynamic view towards the confluence between the use of two languages by bilinguals, indicates that the two languages are inseparable from a cognitive perspective.

A few terms are usually confused with bilingual education, for example, trilingualism, multilingualism, monolingualism, and plurilingualism. Monolingualism refers to speaking only one language or having active knowledge of one language and passive knowledge of other languages ( Ellis 2006 ). Multilingualism could be seen as an individual’s ability and language use in society ( Edwards 2012 ). According to Cenoz (2013) , multilingualism can include bilingualism and trilingualism. Piccardo (2018) mentioned multilingualism refers to the knowledge of multiple languages in society. Plurilingualism means that individuals could acquire languages simultaneously from exposure to multiple languages, and it is also sometimes defined as individual multilingualism ( Cenoz 2013 ). Piccardo (2018) mentioned that plurilingualism is the interrelation between languages associated with dynamic language acquisition. In other words, a classroom with learners speaking different mother tongues is multilingual, while a class where teachers and learners adopt strategies that celebrate linguistic diversity to maximize communication is a plurilingual classroom ( Piccardo 2018 ). Trilingualism is a branch and extension of bilingualism ( Anastassiou et al. 2017 ), which refers to multilingual speakers gradually obtaining the ability to communicate in different languages. For example, people being exposed to three languages from birth and being able to use three languages in writing and orally can be called trilingual. Hoffmann (2001) mentioned that there is no clear distinction between bilingualism and multilingualism, and multilingualism can be seen as a variant of bilingualism. However, Aronin (2005) indicated that the notions of trilingualism and multilingualism are interchangeable. Dewaele (2015) indicated that people who learn a variety of languages may develop multicompetence. Specifically, grammatical and lexical competence of a learner may be influenced by multicompetence ( Dewaele 2015 ). In terms of cultural awareness, bilinguals and multilingual are more receptive to cultural differences than monolinguals.

2.2 Bilingual education practices in the U.S., Canada, and China

Whilst bilingual education is adopted in different ways in many countries around the world, the U.S. and Canada are the pioneers in bilingual education and their models serve as the foundation for various forms of bilingual education in other countries. In Canada, immersion refers to the creation of a learning environment that is rich in the target language; however, the use of L1 is still acceptable in immersion. Ultimately, immersion does not expect learners to develop native-like competence in the target language ( Beardsmore 1995 ). Dicks and Genesee (2017) discussed three forms of immersion in Canada: French immersion, heritage language programs, and indigenous language programs. French immersion is for both the majority of learners speaking English and learners with minority backgrounds ( Dicks and Genesee 2017 ). French immersion is popular in Canada because French and English are the official languages of the country and they are protected in the education system since the adoption of the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 ( Dicks and Genesee 2017 ).

Regarding bilingual education in the U.S., dual language immersion programs are usually adopted to provide equitable education for ethnic minorities ( Bybee et al. 2014 ; Collier 1995 ). Osorio-O’Dea (2001) compared different bilingual education programs in the U.S. including English as a second language immersion, and transitional and two-way bilingual education. In terms of bilingual education in China, Lin (1997) and Geary and Pan (2003) , investigated bilingual education policies and practices for Chinese ethnic minorities. Similarly, Gao and Wang (2017) discussed two types of bilingual education programs in China. They are the government-led bilingual education programs for ethnic minorities and the Chinese-English bilingual education programs ( Gao and Ren 2019 ; Gao and Wang 2017 ). However, the studies above about bilingual education in China only mentioned little about the preferences for bilingual education models. Although the number of studies on bilingual education in China has been on the rise in recent years, most of them only focus on a specific region (e.g., Shanghai in Wei 2013 ). It remains unclear how bilingual education is implemented in different regions in China. Equally, a thorough understanding of how Chinese teachers and learners think about bilingual education remains to be unravelled. Thus, our review intends to address these gaps and shed light on the preferences for bilingual education models, and perceptions of teachers and learners towards bilingual education in China.

3 Methodology

We adopted a qualitative synthesis of research as the methodology of this review ( Chong and Plonsky 2021 ; Chong and Reinders 2021 ; Chong et al. 2023 in this special issue). The rationale for its adoption is that the 16 included publications are small-scale studies, making findings in these studies less transferrable due to the limited number of interviews and the small sample size. Despite the insightfulness of the findings of these studies, their ability to shed new light on bilingual education within other contexts is limited. Additionally, qualitative synthesis of research is a systematic and rigorous methodology to provide a reliable representation of the state-of-the-art of a research topic using a systematic approach ( Chong and Reinders 2021 ). The rationale for synthesising qualitative data is that it can provide a rich description of the current situation of bilingual education in China, as well as on the perceptions of different stakeholders, such as teachers and learners.

To assure quality in the process of synthesis, the first author kept a researcher logbook to record the disagreements and how we resolved them, which not only shows reflexivity but also acts as a mechanism to ensure the quality in each stage (see Supplementary Material online). Reflexivity is what we intended to highlight in the process, which is concerned with what we disagreed, why we disagreed, and how we resolved the disagreement. A reflexive approach, in our opinion, is a much richer and more informative approach than calculating inter-coder reliability.

For the present study, we drew on a methodological framework for conducting qualitative research synthesis in TESOL ( Chong and Plonsky 2021 ; see Figure 1 ). The rationale for employing this framework is that it comprises multiple methodological stages that can be used to guide the review process, contributing to transparency and systematicity, and in the future, replicability, of the process of identifying, extracting, and synthesising relevant qualitative data.

A methodological framework for conducting qualitative research synthesis in TESOL ( Chong and Plonsky 2021 , p. 1027).

3.1 Design research questions

How is bilingual education implemented in China?

What do Chinese teachers and learners think about bilingual education?

How is bilingual education in China evaluated in research?

3.2 Keywords identified for conducting the literature search

Our focus is on “bilingual education”. As Chong and Plonsky (2021) mentioned, interchangeable words should be taken into consideration. Thus, “immersion”, “translanguaging” and “plurilingual*” were chosen as keywords. Based on these keywords, the following search string was developed and used to perform the search for this review:

(“bilingual education” OR “bilingual*” OR “translanguaging” OR “immersion” OR “plurilingual*”) AND (“China” OR “Chinese”)

3.3 Literature search conducted

We searched for studies in an exploratory way ( Chong and Reinders 2020 ). The search was conducted in the following databases in March 2022: Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC. The rationale for choosing these databases is twofold: (1) they can process the search strings verbatim; (2) Scopus and Web of Science allow for considerable length of the search queries to up to 1,000 terms ( Gusenbauer and Haddaway 2020 ). Thus, ERIC, Scopus, and Web of Science are deemed appropriate databases to provide accurate and comprehensive search results.

The first author initially filtered the studies following the steps listed in Chong and Reinders (2020 ; see Figure 2 ). We selected ‘Title’ and ‘Abstract’, listed all relevant articles, browsed through all titles and abstracts, and included all articles that matched the inclusion criteria. In total, 384 articles were included (see Figure 3 ). One hundred and nine articles with irrelevant contexts (research in a country other than China), 103 articles with irrelevant topics, 94 duplicate articles, and 26 secondary studies were excluded in the pre-screening and screening stages. After excluding these 332 articles, four of the remaining 52 articles were inaccessible, resulting in 48 articles.

Searching and first-screening articles ( Chong and Reinders 2022 , p. 6).

Flow chart of study selection (based on Page et al. 2021 ).

3.4 Evaluate literature using inclusion criteria

The second screening followed the inclusion criteria in Table 1 . The search frame was between 2018 and 2022, which provides the latest primary research on bilingual education. Particularly, we focused on primary studies because we are interested in the implementation of bilingual education in China, not just the theories that underpin the concept of bilingual education. We only included publications written in English because we are affiliated with UK universities, and we can mainly access publications written in English. We acknowledge that there are some high-quality publications written in languages other than English that were excluded, which is one of the limitations of this review.

Inclusion criteria of the QRS.

Following the search process (see Figure 3 ), We downloaded all 48 articles, of which we excluded three articles that do not contain an explicit section that discusses bilingual education, 14 articles with irrelevant research questions, eight studies in areas other than in mainland China, one secondary study, one study about Chinese as a second language and foreign language respectively, and four duplicate articles. Sixteen studies were included in this qualitative synthesis of research.

3.5 Data extraction and synthesis

With the 16 included studies, information related to the research questions was extracted into a form adapted from Chong and Reinders’ (2022) (see Appendix I ). The first author analysed and categorised the articles (see Figure 4 ). Twelve of the 16 articles were about Chinese-English bilingual education, and the remaining four were about bilingual education in minority languages (e.g., Mongolian) and Chinese. After co-developing the data extraction form with the second author, who is experienced in conducting research synthesis in language education, the first author extracted three studies using the extraction form and they were checked by the second author to ensure accurate data were extracted. After receiving feedback, the first author began to extract the remaining studies. The completed 16 data extraction forms were reviewed by both authors independently. Queries related to the extracted information were discussed and resolved during a series of bi-weekly face-to-face meetings that spanned across two months. After completing the 16 extraction forms, we produced an overview form summarising the 16 studies (see Appendix II ), which consists of contexts, types of bilingual education (e.g., translanguaging, immersion), research methods, and findings to provide a holistic view of the included studies.

Analysis procedure of the 16 studies.

Based on the 16 extracted forms and the overview form, we synthesised the background information of 16 studies (e.g., research questions, methods, participants, locations) and the three research questions. The synthesis was conducted using grounded theory ( Thornberg et al. 2014 ), as it is an inductive analytical approach, building data-driven conceptual understanding, which accords with the purpose of this study; that is, to identify bilingual education models and stakeholders’ perceptions towards bilingual education in China. We collated data from included studies to extraction forms with different focuses (research questions, research methods, participants, locations) and developed concepts and categories for each term in an inductive way. The study generated descriptive and conceptual categories through initial, focused, and axial coding (see Appendix III ). In this study, the first author coded the 16 extraction forms line-by-line in the initial coding phase. Then, descriptive categories were developed to classify the extracted information in the focused coding phase. Finally, the related descriptive categories were combined into one conceptual category in the axial coding stage. The first author met with the second author bi-weekly to discuss every coding stage and at times they had discussions on the challenges the first author had. In the meetings, the second author also reviewed a sample of the coded data and offered feedback and suggestions when necessary. We have prepared a narrative summary of the meetings that we had concerning data extraction and synthesis, as well as photos of the notes that the second author took during the meeting (see Supplementary Material online).

4 Findings and discussion

4.1 background information of the 16 studies.

There are 41 research questions in the 16 studies, which are classified into two categories, internal and external focuses. Internal focus is endorsed by 27 research questions about teachers’ and learners’ perceptions, and bilingual practices. It consists of six conceptual categories. Of the six categories, there are 11 questions about perceptions and practices (e.g., Wang 2021 ). There are seven questions about the effectiveness of bilingual education for learners (e.g., Wang 2021 ), and four questions about the difference in learners’ performance under different bilingual practices (e.g., Yu et al. 2019 ). Three questions are about the adaptability of bilingual education in different contexts (e.g., Xiong and Feng 2018 ). Only one question is about the role of teachers in translanguaging ( Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ) and teaching or learning strategies in bilingual education respectively ( Zhou and Mann 2021 ).

On the other hand, the external focus of the research questions is about external environments or contexts (endorsed by 15 research questions), which consisted of five conceptual categories. Eight of the questions are about external factors that influence the implementation of bilingual education. For example, Yang (2018) referred to a question about the factors affecting the quality of bilingual teaching. There are three questions about reflections and recommendations for the implementation of bilingual education (e.g., Hiller 2021 ). It is closely followed by questions about the relationship between environment and achievement (endorsed by two research questions) ( Wang and Lehtomäki 2022 ). Unique characteristics in the Chinese context ( Xiong and Feng 2018 ) and the assessment of bilingual education ( *Yang 2018 ) were the research questions in two studies. Coding of research questions of the 16 studies is shown in Appendix III .

In terms of research methods, nine studies adopted mixed methods by conducting questionnaires, class observations, surveys, tests, documents, field notes, interviews, and focus groups (e.g., Wang 2021 ). Four studies used qualitative research methods such as classroom observations, videotaping, field notes, documents, and interviews (e.g., Guo 2022 ), while only three studies used quantitative research methods, that is, questionnaires (e.g., Wang et al. 2018 ).

As for participants in the 16 studies, 11 studies had mature language learners from higher education institutions (e.g., Wang 2021 ) who are able to provide more in-depth and accurate reflection on their own learning experiences. These were followed by learners in primary schools ( n  = 3) (e.g., Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ) [1] and secondary schools ( n  = 3) (e.g., Xiong and Feng 2018 ).

As for location, seven studies were conducted in eastern China. Notably, the seven studies conducted in eastern areas of China were all about English-Chinese bilingual education. Seven studies were conducted in western China, four of which were about minority languages and Mandarin. Western areas are usually less economically developed areas in China and the introduction of Mandarin remains a challenge. It is worth noting that Zuo and Walsh (2021) conducted the study in two schools located in an eastern city and a southwestern city respectively. *Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019) noted that the study was conducted in the central region of China. The remaining two studies did not mention the location.

4.2 Findings and discussion based on the research questions

4.2.1 rq1 – how is bilingual education implemented in china.

The included studies reported four conceptual categories (see Figure 5 ), including translanguaging ( n  = 7), immersion ( n  = 3), learner-centred bilingual education ( n  = 1), and five studies without specifying the type(s) of bilingual education. The coding scheme of the implementation of bilingual education is shown in Appendix IV .

Types of bilingual education in 16 studies.

Among the seven studies about translanguaging (see Figure 6 ), two studies are about ‘translanguaging with content-based instruction (CBI)’ ( Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ; Wang 2021 ), which emphasized the significance of understanding subject-specific content. CBI classes include the instruction of subject content and language-related activities, and teachers are required to teach both content knowledge and the second language (L2) ( Wang 2021 ). Similarly, complex content-based concepts were explained using two languages in Troedson and Dashwood (2018) . There are also two studies about ‘translanguaging in English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom’ ( Guo 2022 ; Zuo and Walsh 2021 ). One study is about ‘translanguaging in English for academic purposes (EAP)’ ( Hiller 2021 ), ‘translanguaging in content and language integrated learning (CLIL)’ ( Zhou and Mann 2021 ), and ‘translanguaging practices’ ( Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ) respectively. Specifically, EAP teachers designed writing tasks that employed translanguaging; for example, a short paper for discussing an important Chinese cultural notion ( Hiller 2021 ). In CLIL classrooms, a theme-based reading course was conducted to develop learners’ language proficiency and content knowledge in Zhou and Mann (2021) . In this study, translanguaging was implemented with three strategies: explanatory strategies, attention-raising strategies, and rapport-building strategies . Explanatory strategies refer to the textbook content explained in a combination of English and Chinese; attention-raising strategies refer to translanguaging being employed to raise learners’ attention to important teaching points; Rapport-building strategies are usually adopted on two occasions: teachers intend to keep the natural flow of interaction when learners are unable to understand concepts; teachers participate in learners’ group discussions when they overwhelmingly rely on their L1 ( Zhou and Mann 2021 ).

Sub-types of bilingual education.

Similarly, four translanguaging practices were adopted by Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019) : bilingual label quest, simultaneous code-mixing, cross-language recapping, and dual-language substantiation . Bilingual label quest refers to adopting the labels in another language to show the concepts in one language ( Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ). Simultaneous code-mixing refers to the use of Chinese and English in meaning-making ( Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ). Cross-language recapping refers to repeating the course content in another language, which has been taught in one language ( Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ). The major difference between cross-language recapping and bilingual label quest lies in the fact that the latter only focuses on concepts. The fourth practice is dual-language substantiation , referring to the co-construction of knowledge based on two languages ( Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ).

Among the three studies about immersion ( Wang et al. 2018 ; Xiong and Feng 2018 ; Yao 2022 ; see Figure 6 ), one study is subsumed under ‘dominant use of English in class’, which means English is used as the medium of instruction while the use of Mandarin (L1) is allowed ( Xiong and Feng 2018 ); the other two studies are coded as ‘one-way immersion’. In one-way immersion classes, L1 is forbidden in the class, and teachers are only allowed to speak in English ( Fleckenstein et al. 2019 ; Yao 2022 ). Similarly, Chinese learners are also taught in English in Wang et al. (2018) .

One study is grouped under ‘learner-centred bilingual education’ ( Figure 6 ) ( Yu et al. 2019 ). Yu et al. (2019) did not point out explicitly the type of bilingual education, but they introduced three teaching modes used in Mongolia for fluent bilinguals, limited bilinguals, and Mandarin monolinguals respectively. The reason these three teaching modes are labelled as ‘learner-centred bilingual education’ is that three teaching modes are implemented according to learners’ abilities and levels. Fluent bilinguals’ teaching mode refers to learners being taught in Mongolian and Chinese as a subject ( Yu et al. 2019 ). On the contrary, limited bilinguals’ teaching mode means learners being taught in Chinese, while the heritage language, Mongolian, is the subject. The teaching mode used for Mandarin monolinguals refers to Chinese being used as the only language in class ( Yu et al. 2019 ).

The above findings suggest that bilingual education is a rather loose pedagogical concept rather than specific approach(es) to language teaching. According to Wang (2010) , the definition of bilingual education is loose because the understandings of what bilingual education constitutes range widely. It is demonstrated in the fact that five studies (31.25%) did not mention the types of bilingual education (see Figure 6 ) but used the overarching term ‘bilingual education’ in the studies (e.g., Yang 2018 ). Specifically, two of these studies ( Li 2018 ; Wang and Lehtomäki 2022 ) described the pedagogical approach used to teach the target language without referring to a specific type of bilingual education, such as immersion. The other three did not mention how bilingual education was implemented in their studies at all ( Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ; Wang et al. 2021 ; Yang 2018 ). Additionally, a more well-refined categorisation should be applied in bilingual education because there are five studies that do not specify type(s) of bilingual education. According to Azzam (2019) , factors such as contexts and desired outcomes should be taken into consideration to define new types of bilingual education.

Bilingual education programs mentioned in the 16 studies were implemented for different durations ( Appendix V ) and using different materials ( Appendix VI ). Four studies mention the duration of the bilingual education program (e.g., Guo 2022 ), of which two studies implemented bilingual education for less than 50 h (i.e., 48 h in Guo 2022 , and 38 h in Li 2018 ) and the other two studies implemented bilingual education for over 50 h (i.e., a two-year period in Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 , and 13 days in Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ). The other 12 studies did not specify the duration of the bilingual education program. Regarding materials, three studies introduce the materials used in the programs, including the textbook Gogo Loves English in Guo (2022) , a Chinese textbook published in 2006 ( Li 2018 ), and a textbook with philosophical and scientific knowledge in Rehamo and Harrell (2018) . The other 13 studies did not mention any materials used (e.g., Wang 2021 ). From a practitioner’s perspective, teachers’ primary concern is the materials that can be used to teach bilingual classes and the duration of a bilingual program. However, such information is absent from the majority of the included studies. Similar to our earlier observation about types of bilingual education, researchers appear to adopt the term ‘bilingual education’ quite loosely without providing an operational definition that reflects how it is practised. Hew et al. (2019) , while focusing on research on educational technology, indicated that research that is under-theorised may have limited relevance to scholarship and practice.

4.2.2 RQ2 – How do the Chinese teachers and learners think about bilingual education?

Three studies report teachers’ view that learners benefit from bilingual education ( Guo 2022 ; Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ; Xiong and Feng 2018 ), and only one study reports that teachers think it is challenging to implement bilingual education ( Wang 2021 ), while the remaining 12 studies do not discuss teachers’ perspectives at all (e.g., Li 2018 ; Yang 2018 ). Among the three studies coded as ‘bilingual education benefits learners’, two studies are about how translanguaging helps learners to self-improve ( Guo 2022 ; Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ) and one study is about ways that immersion helps with learners’ performance ( Xiong and Feng 2018 ). Specifically, in Troedson and Dashwood (2018) and Guo (2022) , teachers indicate that translanguaging helps learners understand materials, develop critical thinking, and express themselves. Teachers in Wang (2021) find it difficult to insist on the use of English in group discussions or in-class activities among learners. Teachers mention that learners always revert from English to Chinese ( Wang 2021 ). To sum up, teachers’ perceptions toward bilingual education are largely ignored and learners are the main stakeholders in the included studies. It is important to consider the views of other stakeholders in future research to develop a more holistic understanding of bilingual education and other educational issues ( Bond et al. 2021 ). The coding scheme of teachers’ perceptions is presented in Appendix VII and the analysis of the teachers’ perceptions is shown in Figure 7 .

Teachers’ perceptions towards bilingual education.

As for learners’ perceptions, seven studies mention ‘approval of bilingual education’ (e.g., Wang 2021 ), while two studies show ‘disapproval of bilingual education’ ( Yang 2018 ; Yao 2022 ), and one study shows ‘the factor affecting usefulness of bilingual education’ ( Wang et al. 2018 ) and ‘mixed perceptions’ ( Zhou and Mann 2021 ) of learners respectively. The other five studies do not mention learners’ perceptions (e.g., Zuo and Walsh 2021 ). Bilingual education is conducive to learners in various ways. For example, learners benefit from better employment prospects, further study opportunities ( Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ), and better comprehension of content being taught ( Guo 2022 ). However, two studies show ‘disapproval of bilingual education’ ( Yang 2018 ; Yao 2022 ). Specifically, about 33% of learners in Yang (2018) have difficulties comprehending content in two languages and following teaching schedules; most learners in Yao (2022) indicate that bilingual education is costly and detrimental to their confidence. Aside from this, learners in Yang (2018) express that poor practices of bilingual teaching make language learning stressful. *Wang et al. (2018) points out that the English proficiency of learners affects bilingual education. Additionally, Zhou and Mann (2021) present mixed perceptions toward bilingual education, in which 72% of learners believe bilingual education negatively affects their language choice. The other five studies did not mention how learners perceive bilingual education (e.g., Zuo and Walsh 2021 ). The coding scheme of learners’ perceptions is shown in Appendix VIII , and the analysis of learners’ perceptions is shown in Figure 8 .

Learners’ perceptions towards bilingual education.

Focusing on learners’ perceptions, we investigated the benefits and challenges of bilingual education discussed in the 16 studies. Ten studies mentioned the benefits of bilingual education. Among the ten studies, five studies mentioned bilingual education is conducive to learners’ mastery of content and language (e.g., Wang 2021 ). Specifically, Wang (2021) mentioned that bilingual education can develop a deeper comprehension of the content without the pressure of using two languages simultaneously and facilitate learners’ acquisition of the target language. In a similar vein, learners in Troedson and Dashwood (2018) indicated that bilingual education can develop the target language. Wang and Curdt-Christiansen (2019) showed that bilingual education can facilitate disciplinary learning, and learners perform better than monolinguals ( Xiong and Feng 2018 ). Additionally, learners’ self-improvement was mentioned by three studies (e.g., Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ), in particular, cognitive development and confidence. Provision of resources ( n  = 2) ( Hiller 2021 ; Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ) includes communicative resources and linguistic resources. Bilingual education helps learners maintain interactions between minority culture and mainstream society ( n  = 2) ( Wang and Lehtomäki 2022 ; Yu et al. 2019 ). Preserving heritage culture and language was mentioned by one study ( Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ). The remaining six studies did not mention the benefits of bilingual education (e.g., Yang 2018 ). The coding scheme of the benefits of bilingual education is shown in Appendix IX .

Challenges of bilingual education were divided into two categories: challenges resulted from contextual factors and learner factors. Among the 16 included studies, contextual factors were mentioned by five studies (e.g., Wang 2021 ). First, the dominance of monolingual education and stereotypical view towards bilingual education hamper the implementation of bilingual education ( n  = 2) ( Wang 2021 ; Yang 2018 ). The mismatch between bilingual education and societal needs ( n  = 3) ( Wang et al. 2018 ; Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ; Yao 2022 ). The challenges of bilingual education are also caused by learner factors ( n  = 14). Firstly, learners’ needs in bilingual education are largely ignored ( n  = 3) ( Guo 2022 ; Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ; Yang 2018 ). Then, bilingual education is expensive for learners from rural areas, which causes a financial burden on learners and their families ( n  = 2) ( Wang et al. 2018 ; Yao 2022 ). Other factors include that learners lack a solid language foundation and knowledge ( n  = 2) ( Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ; Wang et al. 2021 ), lack of confidence ( n  = 1) ( Yao 2022 ), and lack of incentives ( n  = 1) ( Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ). Additionally, the effectiveness of bilingual education is affected by teaching and learning factors, such as learners’ attitudes, teachers’ language proficiency level, assessment methods, and teaching methods ( n  = 2) ( Li 2018 ; Yang 2018 ). Learners’ insufficient communication in activities among peers ( n  = 2) (Wang 2018; Wang and Curdt-Christiansen 2019 ), and insufficient teacher training ( n  = 1) ( Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ) are the other two challenges. The other seven articles did not introduce challenges of bilingual education (e.g., Troedson and Dashwood 2018 ). The coding scheme of the challenges of bilingual education is shown in Appendix X .

4.2.3 RQ3 – How is bilingual education in China evaluated in research?

There are 11 studies coded under ‘perceptual’ (e.g., Wang 2021 ), which refers to the use of evaluation tools that focus on the perceptions of participants. Two studies evaluate learners’ ‘performance’ (in language tests) ( Wang et al. 2021 ; Yu et al. 2019 ). The remaining three studies are about ‘perception and performance’ ( Li 2018 ; Rehamo and Harrell 2018 ; Xiong and Feng 2018 ). A possible reason for researchers to adopt more perceptual evaluation tools is that improvement in performance, as reflected in the scores in language tests, would not be noticeable in the short run. In the two studies that specify the duration of bilingual education, the practice was implemented for less than 50 h ( Guo 2022 ; Li 2018 ). This shows that bilingual education was implemented as a short-term practice rather than longitudinally. Another reason may be that 11 studies (68.75%) focus on university language learners (e.g., Wang 2021 ). Learners in higher education are more mature and can provide more accurate responses about their perceptions towards bilingual education. According to Bond et al. (2021) , the reason perceptions of stakeholders are usually evaluated in lieu of actual learning behaviour or grade differences is because the former is easier to be carried out. The associated coding scheme can be found in Appendix XI .

Eight studies adopted questionnaires (e.g., Wang 2021 ), followed by seven studies using interviews (e.g., Yao 2022 ). Questionnaires and interviews are the two tools most frequently used, which results in 11 studies focusing on participants’ perceptions. Six studies adopted class observation (e.g., Guo 2022 ) and four studies adopted tests (e.g., Li 2018 ). Particularly, among the eight studies that use questionnaires, Wang (2021) adopted open questions about the intersection between CBI and translanguaging. Similarly, Yang (2018) also included an open question in the questionnaire about the opinions about bilingual teaching. Interviews were carried out in Yang (2018) about the different attitudes toward bilingual education among learners with varied English levels. As for tests, Li (2018) adopted Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension Test and Gates-MacGinitie Vocabulary Test (pp. 902–903). They were used to measure learners’ reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge by providing short passages with multiple-choice questions and asking learners to identify target words among items with similar meanings. The findings of most of the included studies suggest that bilingual education in China is largely effective. However, the research tools used to gauge its effectiveness focus on specific language skills (e.g., reading) rather than learners’ holistic linguistic competence. As Gibb (2015) mentioned, assessment of the four language skills (i.e., listening, reading, writing, speaking) is critiqued because it reduces language to an individualised task where communication is largely ignored, that is, ignoring the integration of social conditions involved in the use of skills. Thus, assessment of holistic linguistic competence (e.g., communicative competence) is viewed to be more contextualised than assessment of the four language skills in isolation. The coding scheme of evaluation mechanism is presented in Appendix XII .

5 Conclusion

The findings show that translanguaging and immersion are the two types of bilingual education most prevalently implemented in the 16 studies focused on bilingual education in China. Learners’ and teachers’ perceptions are the two stakeholders most frequently mentioned, in which the former is largely positive while the latter is less mentioned among the 16 studies. Additionally, most studies focus on evaluating the effectiveness of bilingual education in relation to stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences, for instance, through semi-structured interviews.

Based on the reported findings and discussion, we offer recommendations to researchers and practitioners. For researchers, a more refined categorization of bilingual education needs to be adopted in future studies. To ensure future research on bilingual education in China is ecologically valid, it is crucial to clarify and define the type of bilingual education being studied in future studies. Equally important, researchers should strive to document how bilingual education is implemented including its duration, materials used, and lesson activities. Secondly, in addition to learners’ perspectives, researchers could focus more on the perceptions of teachers and other stakeholders including parents in future studies. The current research base emphasizes learners’ perceptions, while neglecting those of teachers and other stakeholders. In addition to teachers, other stakeholders should also be taken into consideration, such as, principals, and policymakers ( Bond et al. 2021 ). Other stakeholders’ opinions are vital to shedding a more comprehensive light on bilingual education. Third, longitudinal research and more diverse language proficiency tests can be adopted in future studies to evaluate the effectiveness of bilingual education. Most of the included studies are short-lived ( Guo 2022 ; Li 2018 ), which may affect the evaluation of the effectiveness of bilingual education. Additionally, the evaluation mechanism in current bilingual education studies in China focuses more on learners’ performance in reading in lieu of other language skills. A more holistic assessment of learners’ linguistic competence in the target language needs to be included to fully gauge the usefulness of bilingual education.

For practitioners, our synthesised findings reveal that teachers need to receive adequate training to ensure effective implementation of bilingual education. The quality of bilingual education is determined by teachers’ understanding of bilingual education and their own experience as learners. Yang (2018) shows that learners are overburdened because the quality of bilingual education is unsatisfying, and Wang et al. (2018) indicated that the poor quality of bilingual education results from teachers’ limited language proficiency. Teacher training is conducive to teachers’ professional and language development, which are essential to improving the quality of bilingual education in China.

This research synthesis is not without limitations. The inclusion of only 16 studies may not fully capture the current situation of bilingual education in China. For example, the current study only focuses on primary studies about bilingual education rather than secondary studies, which may result in excluding other important work in this area of research. It also only includes studies indexed in three databases and, as the topic is on bilingual education in China, it is likely that some publications are published in Chinese, which is beyond the scope of this review. As a result, future studies could include more studies by setting a longer time frame and include publications in other languages.

Acknowledgement

This qualitative synthesis of research is based on the MSc TESOL dissertation written by QL. SWC was QL’s supervisor who oversaw the conception and implementation of the research process. Both QL and SWC were involved in the writing of this publication.

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For us, bilingual education means that learners study typical school subjects – for example, maths or geography – through an additional language (such as English) and some subjects through their first language, or they may study the same subject through two languages.

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