Book Reviews

Mace-Matluck, B., Alexander-Kasparik, R, & Queen, R. (1998). Through the golden door: Educational approaches for immigrant adolescents with limited schooling. (152 pages)

Reviewed by

Jim Cummins, of Toronto University

This timely volume addresses one of the most urgent issues facing American educators: the education of students who enter middle and high school with limited former schooling and minimal literacy skills. Even for immigrant students who enter secondary school with strong first language (L1) literacy and prior schooling, catching up academically represents a formidable challenge and students often run out of time before they meet high school graduation requirements (Thomas & Collier, 1997). Without the foundation of L1 literacy to build on, the challenge is obviously far greater for students who enter U.S. schools with little or no former schooling.

This volume attempts to document promising directions for meeting the needs of such students. It profiles four programs (In Illinois, Texas and Virginia) that have successfully enabled students to meet high school graduation requirements, documents the experiences of five students (from Haiti, El Salvador, and Vietnam) who participated in these programs, and extracts critical features of successful practices as a guide for educators who are planning programs for students with limited former schooling. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Hamayan, 1994), this issue has not been extensively researched or analyzed. Consequently, educators have had little guidance for addressing the specific needs of these students.

In their Introduction to the series "Topics in Immigrant Education," of which the present volume is a part, Series Editors, Joy Kreeft Peyton and Donna Christian, highlight the academic challenges that immigrant adolescents face:

They must pass tests that require English skills that they do not have. They must study subjects such as physical science, chemistry, economics, and geometry that require high levels of English academic language. Most secondary school texts and materials require a high level of English reading ability. Few schools provide native-language support for these classes, English-language instruction tied to content, or content classes taught with adaptations of English appropriate for these students' levels of proficiency. Students learning English often find it difficult to be accepted in well-established groups of English-speaking students. (1998: xiii-xiv)

A central theme that emerges from the program descriptions in Through the Golden Door is the importance of flexibility in the organization of middle and high school programs for immigrant students with limited prior schooling. The four programs that were profiled all instituted specialized intervention focused on the specific needs of this group of students. There was an explicit recognition that the "default option" of providing some limited ESL support but minimal adaptation of the "regular" high school program was totally inadequate to address students' needs. All of the programs provided flexible pathways into, through, and beyond secondary school (see also Lucas, 1998) in recognition of the fact that educational success for these students is virtually impossible within the rigid constraints of the "normal" high school program.

The four programs that are profiled differ in a variety of respects. For example, the Falls Church Transitional High School in the Fairfax County Public School district in Virginia serves immigrant students who are 17 years old or older, have limited literacy skills and limited or interrupted schooling. Sheltered content instruction is provided in English. The school operates as a day school from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and then houses the transitional high school from 3:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. This enables students who work during the day to attend school in the late afternoon and evening. Students usually attend a transitional program for one or two years after which they take higher level credit courses offered at one of the county's three alternative high schools. In this way, students are usually able to graduate in 5 or 6 years.

The Elgin High School Bilingual Program in Elgin Illinois serves a predominantly Mexican immigrant population and focuses on accelerated content learning through extensive use of the students' native language. All content courses required for graduation are taught in Spanish. Students also take at least two periods a day of ESL courses. Students go to class in the same building as their native-born, English-speaking peers and all students have physical education, study hall, and lunch together. Students are mainstreamed into the English language high school program on the basis of extensive monitoring of their progress and assessment of the likelihood of success in the mainstream program. Between 40 and 50 students are mainstreamed during each school year and another 20 or so during the summer. The authors point out that "some students, particularly those with limited schooling and low literacy in their native language, may take all 4 years of school in native language and ESL classes" (p. 69).

The ¡Español Aumentativo! program in Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston, Texas, is a supplementary transitional bilingual program implemented in six schools (4 middle and 2 high schools) with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking immigrant students. About 10 percent of the district's English language learner population was identified as having limited prior schooling. The program has three components: instructional intervention, parent involvement, and staff development. The instructional intervention includes curriculum guides and instructional materials that enable content instruction to be modified appropriately for English language learners. This component also includes "Functional Spanish," a one- or two-year class designed to teach reading and writing to Spanish-speaking immigrant students whose L1 literacy skills are at a beginning level. As students transition into core English and content area classes, bilingual instructional aides work with students individually or in small groups to ease the transition. Also, staff development is offered to increase teacher effectiveness in teaching core content classes to these students and in helping them meet graduation requirements.

The International Newcomer Academy (INA) in Fort Worth, Texas, opened in 1993 and aims to provide a multicultural learning environment to prepare students for entry into regular secondary school programs. The program lasts from one semester to two years and serves a diverse student population, although the majority (82%) are Hispanic. Native language support is normally not provided except in the case that a student is having a very hard time understanding instruction and participating in class. In these cases, a tutor or aide will provide native language support in class. Although the program is based primarily on the Texas State Essential Elements for ESL and also the State's Reading Improvement Program, the International Newcomer Academy also builds on students' prior knowledge by integrating into the instruction language experience activities, tactile and visual learning opportunities, and cultural enrichment. The INA uses an integrated, thematic approach to content learning and attempts to show students how their life experiences can help them in their academic studies.

When students have completed the maximum 2-year program and reached an intermediate level of proficiency in English they transfer to the Language Center of the high school to which they are assigned. Ramón Magallanes, Director of Bilingual/ESL programs, identified key components of the success of the program as follows:

It's the teachers' sense of mission and dedication and the students' attitudes, the sense of school as a place where students all come to learn. But there's another key that cannot be undervalued: program flexibility. We want to find and then support instructional practices that work for these students-not hinder them. (p. 89)

The authors of Through the Golden Door clearly and concisely synthesize the central elements of these successful programs and integrate them with organizational and instructional strategies that have been identified in other reviews of effective programs for immigrant adolescents (e.g. Lucas, Henze, & Donato, 1990; Walsh, 1991). They propose a composite model for the delivery of services which comprises four components-instructional intervention, parental/familial involvement, staff development, and support services-operating within a climate of cultural acceptance.

From my perspective this climate of cultural acceptance is what emerges most clearly as the deep structure of any effective program. Without this process of establishing affirmative human relationships (what I have termed negotiating identities [Cummins, 1996]), none of the other organizational or instructional initiatives will amount to much.

This is a valuable and informative book that addresses a neglected topic in a way that provides practical guidance for educators. It demonstrates that academic success for students with limited prior schooling and low L1 literacy is possible if we choose to make it a priority and plan coherent and flexible programs to address students' needs. Unfortunately, many policy-makers are more concerned to impose a pseudo-accountability on schools by locking them into rigid policies (e.g. regarding state-mandated testing of all students regardless of length of time learning English) that are the antithesis of the successful approaches documented in this volume. To the composite model outlined by the authors, I would add one additional component necessary to promote effective education for immigrant students: professional development for politicians and policy-makers who routinely relegate issues related to English language learners to the footnotes of educational policy. A good place to begin this remedial professional development process would be to mandate that all educational policy makers and administrators read this book.

References

Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society. Los Angeles: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Hamayan, E. V. (1994). Language development of low-literacy student (pp. 278-300). s. In F. Genesee (Ed.), Educating second language children: The whole child, thewhole curriculum, the whole community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lucas, T., (1998). Into, through, and beyond secondary-school: Critical transitions for immigrant youths. McHenry, IL: Delta Systems & Center for Applied Linguistics.

Lucas, T., Henze, R., & Donato, R. (1990). Promoting the success of Latino language minority students: An exploratory study of six high schools. Harvard Educational Review, 60, 315-340.

Thomas, W. P. & Collier, V. (1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Walsh, C. (1991). Literacy and school success: Considerations for programming and instruction (pp. 1-10). In C. Walsh & H. Prashker (Eds.), Literacy development for bilingual students. Boston: New England Multifunctional Resource Center for Language and Culture in Education.