Title VII, Teaching Philosophy, and School-Wide Context:
Influences on a Bilingual Teachers Goals and Instruction
Anne -Marie Wiese (UC Berkeley)

Many influences guide teacher decisions about student language goals and classroom instruction, including personal teaching philosophy, the context of the school, and outside influences such as district, state, or federal policies. This small-scale qualitative study describes the student language goals and classroom instruction of Karen⁽¹⁾, an elementary school bilingual teacher, at Fairfield Elementary School, and presents an analysis of the many influences that guide her instruction.

Karen is a bilingual teacher who has a BCLAD⁽²⁾ teaching credential, and she has taught for several years in two-way immersion bilingual programs⁽³⁾ in the greater Los Angeles area. The first grade class which participated in this study consists of nineteen students, eleven males and eight females. All the students are of Mexican-American or Latin American descent and speak Spanish as a primary language. They are all limited English proficient students. Karen is responsible for the academic development of the students in both languages, and currently has a great deal of freedom in designating goals and instructional time to the specific languages. Spanish is the primary language of instruction, with forty-five minutes to one hour of English as a second language (ESL) instruction daily.

Teaching Philosophy, Language Goals, and Instruction
At present, Karen relies on her beliefs about language development and her past teaching experience to guide her language goals for students and classroom instruction. When I explicitly asked Karen whether the Title VII grant shapes her teaching philosophy, she expressed that the grant itself really matches her ideas of theory; she believes, "in bilingualism, in biliteracy, and the integration of students from diverse backgrounds." Still, implementation of the Title VII grant seems to be moving too slowly: "It is a bit frustrating . . . because the implementation is not coming along as I had hoped." Still, Karen trusts that as the current restructuring aligns the bilingual program with the Title VII guidelines, the program will also align with her teaching philosophy.

Karen believes that students need to develop literacy in their native language, while developing oral fluency in the second language. Native language literacy is "more fluid, more natural" than trying to teach a student to speak English and to read and write in English at the same time. Then, when students "are really strong in Spanish reading and English speaking I really don't believe it (the transition to English) will be difficult." In line with her beliefs about language development, Karen develops distinct goals and instruction for each language. In fact, Karen focuses her Spanish goals on literacy development and her English goals on oral fluency.

The Spanish and English goals and their reflection in language arts and ESL instruction differ substantially. While Karen's Spanish goals focus on literacy, English goals focus on oral language. The instruction in language arts reflects a focus on literacy by including a wide variety of reading and writing activities. The instruction also includes a variety of structures which focus on encouraging students to produce oral language about the content of instruction. The instruction in ESL emphasizes language development through vocabulary, not literacy. ESL incorporates a variety of structures, through which students practice new vocabulary regarding a specific topic, and focuses on Karen's role to elicit student participation in the production of language.

Other influences which affect Karen's language goals and instruction are a lack of bilingual materials, personnel issues, and her own past teaching experience. The latter has shaped Karen's teaching philosophy on how to best teach ESL to language minority students and proves to be a telling example of the tensions which exist between Karen's teaching philosophy and practice, and the lack of a cohesive school program. Karen believes that a different teacher for instruction in each language will enhance student language development. At the two previous bilingual schools where Karen taught first grade, she only taught her students Spanish, and taught another teacher's students English. This meant that another teacher taught her students ESL. Karen values that the languages were not "mixed" because when she taught other students ESL they recognized her as an "English speaking person...only, (and) they would struggle to speak to me in English. Even though we could've communicated in Spanish better." Karen saw herself as an English-speaking role model for those students, and as a strong Spanish-speaking role model for her own class.

Overall, Karen believes that structurally providing students with different teachers for Spanish and English instruction will enhance language development. Karen also believes that integrating Spanish-speaking students with English-speaking students will enhance English language development. At Fairfield, the current structure for ESL instruction requires that Karen teach English to her own students. This policy constrains Karen's efforts to enact her teaching philosophy for ESL instruction.

School-Wide Context
Fairfield Elementary has decided to restructure its bilingual program with funds from its Title VII comprehensive school grant. Through the restructuring process, the current early-exit⁽⁴⁾ bilingual program will evolve into one which promotes bilingualism and biliteracy for all students. Through this process, the school community plans to articulate clear language and literacy goals for all students, to establish systems for teacher collaboration, and to create appropriate achievement and language competency assessment tools. Teachers at Fairfield are participating in staff development opportunities regarding language minority students and the school community is meeting to discuss the future of the bilingual program. As Fairfield articulates a bilingual program, Title VII will hold the school accountable to its own goals, assessments, and evaluation procedures. So, the plan that Fairfield Elementary develops will affect school wide policies and individual teacher instruction.

Even though the school does not require or encourage student integration or teacher collaboration, Karen collaborates with a monolingual English teacher, Andrea. During this time, Karen teaches in Spanish, which serves as a Spanish as a second language lesson (SSL) for the English speaking students. Andrea teaches in English, which then serves as an ESL lesson for the Spanish speaking students. Unfortunately, over time Karen has changed her goals for the integration time, and relied on the self-contained ESL time, rather than on Andrea. Karen believes that the following factors have undermined her efforts to collaborate with Andrea: little support for teacher collaboration, a lack of cohesive language goals and instruction, and inconsistent class configurations. In turn, through the Title VII restructuring process Karen is trying to help shape the future of the bilingual program.

During a Title VII restructuring meeting, the discussion centered on ESL and issues of teacher role, content, and goals. The discussion demonstrates the conflicts that can arise when teachers have different philosophies about language development, and consequently, do not agree on the same instruction. During this staff meeting, the teachers' opinions reflected their teaching philosophies, but the teachers did not openly discuss their philosophies of language development and appropriate instructional support. Instead, they set aside the decision of whether different teachers should provide Spanish and English instruction; they narrowed the goals for the integration from language development to the social development; and they limited the content of instruction to "non-threatening" areas. They did not discuss their teaching philosophies to build a common visions of language development and appropriate instruction. In fact, the discussion focused primarily on structural issues of how to establish consistent planning time for teacher collaboration and heterogeneous student groups for integration.

While collaboratively creating a vision for Fairfield's bilingual program, Karen's voice carried a strong influence. Her voice emerged from her past experiences, her beliefs about teaching, and her student language goals and instruction during interactions with the larger school context. During this staff meeting her efforts were focused on programmatic change that she believed would support her teaching and student language development. Karen and the other teachers should also be encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs about language development, students goals, and appropriate instruction. Then, this reflection could lead to critical analysis and collaborative discussion to build a cohesive school-wide program where all the teachers have a voice, and all teachers discuss the pertinent issues of student goals and appropriate instructional support. A cohesive bilingual program, built upon shared teacher contributions and philosophies, will result in a cohesive academic experience for language minority students. As teachers communicate about philosophies to build a common vision, they will then discuss curriculum and content development because:

The issue of what to teach and how to teach it extends beyond a single teacher or grade level. It involves how the curriculum will be articulated across grade levels, within a program . . . The goal of the decision-making is to create a rigorous curriculum that prepares students to be academically successful. . . . (Miramontes et al., 1997: 148-149)

2. Bilingual, Crosscultural, Language and Academic Development

3. Two-way immersion bilingual programs aim for bilingualism and biliteracy for all students, regardless of native language.

4. Early exit transitional bilingual education programs do not encourage maintenance of the primary language once students are transitioned into English mainstream classrooms, which usually happens by third or fourth grade. Native language instruction is used as a bridge to continue academic development while acquiring English.