Bilingual Program at Cougar Elem.
Helping your Child Since Day 1
Dear Parents,
We are excited because our new Literacy Program is up and running! We need your help, so that our program extends to the homes of every child of our school. Parental involvement is crucial to help our bilingual children be more prepared in our classrooms. We would like your cooperation, so that together, our students' performance grow immeasurably. Please read the rest of the newsletter for tips and more important information about the bilingual program and how you can improve your child's literacy at home. Thank you!
Reading Websites
Cuentos y Leyendas
Biografías y Vidas
Cuento Educapeques
The Texas English Language Learners Portal
Video about Bilingual Education
A Note about Bilingual Education
Jim Cummins, a leader linguist on second language acquisition, has impacted education since the late 1970s. Cummins has helped educators to differentiate student’s language ability by developing the BICS and CALPS. The BICS, Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills, refer to student’s listening and speaking abilities that are gained through social interaction with English-native speakers. The CALPS, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, refers to the academic language acquired through schooling. Cummins argues that second language learners take about one to two years of exposure to the second language to develop the BICS. He also contends that to develop the CALPS, students will take at least five years of exposure to academic English to reach the English-native speakers’ level (Freeman, 2007).
Furthermore, Cummins developed the Common Underlying Proficiency principle (CUP) to explain the “transfer of cognitive/academic or literacy-related skills across languages” (Cummins, 1983). It is the underlying knowledge of skills in learning a language and transferring those skills to other languages. Once people know how to do the former, speaking other languages will come easily because the base for developing a language is already established in their brains. Teachers need to reinforce and encourage the use of the native language at home so that it becomes richer and stronger. It would also serve as a platform so that students would pass techniques and abilities they learned when they acquired their first language to the second.
Cummins research explains why educational programs such as the Bilingual Program we have in our school require the students to participate in them for several years. Children need to have continuous exposure to both their native and the second language to develop the appropriate proficiency. According to Cummins, additive bilingualism will provide the platform for second language acquisition; additive bilinguals “would enjoy cognitive and academic advantages” (Ardasheva, 2012) than subtractive bilinguals. Cummins also believed that supporting the students’ first language was pivotal in learning the second language. Students are able to transfer their background knowledge in the first language to the second which will make second language acquisition a more straightforward process.