PDF available at http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/633345b4
Abstract:
The Amigos two-way bilingual education program began as a collaborative effort between the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Public Schools' departments of desegregation and transitional bilingual education. Parents, teachers, administrators, and members of the community formed a committee to explore the possibility of developing a program that would combine the best features of transitional bilingual education (for limited-English-proficient students) and language immersion education (for native English speakers). The committee sought a way to end the isolation of language minority students from the rest of the school and to provide language majority students with the opportunity to acquire proficiency in a second language.
The Amigos program commenced in September 1986 and currently serves close to 250 public school students, half of whom are from Spanish speaking homes, the other half of whom are from English-speaking homes. Half of their instruction is provided in Spanish, the other had [sic] in English.
This report describes research that was conducted on the achievement in mathematics and in Spanish and English language arts of Amigos students and students in control/comparison groups. Also presented are data collected on students' and parents' attitudes toward bilingualism and biculturalism; students' self-assessment of academic competence and self-esteem; teachers' judgment of students' academic competence and self-esteem; and social-interactional patterns among Amigos students from different ethnic backgrounds.
Background:
Students in the Amigos program were either grouped as English-Amigos or Spanish-Amigos. The corresponding control groups were made up of students in conventional programs. The English control group attended all-English public school. The Spanish control group was made up of students with a Hispanic background who attended a standard bilingual education program or sometimes an all-English program. The students were in kindergarten to 3rd grade.
In order to make an accurate comparison between the Amigos groups and the control groups, the researchers matched students groups according to gender, socioeconomic status, and intellectual ability. The latter was assessed by Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices Test which measures non-verbal abstract thinking. In order to be included in the data analysis, each student in the Amigos program had to be matched with his/her equivalent in the corresponding control group.
In this study, students were tested in English and Spanish reading as well as math in both languages.
Key Quotes: (emphasis added)
"Everyone involved in the decision, including representatives of the Cambridge bilingual department and desegregation office, the Superintendent of Schools, and the Director of the Office of Equity, was convinced that the two-way model would eliminate the isolation of language minority students, provide them with a rich English-language-learning environment, and support their academic learning. In addition, majority language students would be given the opportunity to learn Spanish with native-Spanish-speaking peer models with no risk to their first language development or their academic achievement." (p. 5)"Providing children with the opportunity to cultivate friendships with children from different ethnic backgrounds is a major focus of the Amigos program. Hispanic students are given the clear message that Spanish language skills need not be exchanged or sacrificed for English skills. Through natural interaction, English speakers learn Spanish from their Spanish-speaking peers, who serve as alternate role models, just as Spanish speakers learn English from their native-English-speaking peer role models." (p. 5)
"...very few children leave the Amigos program from year to year and that usually a dropout case is simply a move away from the district." (p. 10)
"In summary, the English-Amigos children are progressing normally in English language development, staying at the same level as or above Raven matched English-speaking controls. There is no evidence that the Amigos program--which offers only half the instructional time in English--places the English-Amigos youngsters at any disadvantage compared to English controls who follow an all-English curriculum." (p. 17)
"In summary, the Spanish-Amigos pupils are only slightly below the national norms for competence in English reading and at the norm level for mathematics achievement (measured through a test given in English), and in general they outperform matched groups of Hispanic pupils whose bilingual curriculum emphasizes much more English instruction as a preliminary to mainstreaming into all-English programs. Thus, giving only half time to English instruction while devoting equal time to home language development--the case of the Spanish-Amigos groups--has promoted better (and essentially native-like) competence in English reading skills relative to the Spanish control groups. Moreover, the program appears to have promoted better working knowledge of English, that is, a higher level of application of English to the understanding and use of English in the domain of mathematics than is the case for the Spanish controls." (p. 18-19)
"Overall, the outcomes suggest that the Amigos experience promotes a solid balance of English and Spanish skills for both the Spanish-Amigos and the English-Amigos pupils. Neither group shows any signs of losing out in the development of home language skills as they progress toward functional bilinguality and biculturality." (p. 23)
