The Transatlantic Task Force on Immigration and Integration, a distinguished international body, including Britain's Trevor Phillips, completed a research report in 2007 on ‘the various approaches that may help students’ second-language learning’ across international settings. The starting point for their work was evidence from international data that show ’15-year-old immigrant students who do not speak the language of instruction at home are, on average, one year behind non-immigrant students’ and the acknowledgement that this gap acts as a barrier to such students’ educational success and access to the labour market.
The report draws on the highly influential PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study of 40 OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, 17 of which have sufficient numbers of immigrant students to allow for meaningful statistical analyses of their performance. The PISA study confirms the central role of learning the language of instruction for academic success.
The report, which focused on 14 of the 17 countries, points out that ‘investment in language support measures will likely reduce the disadvantage in school achievement’ and goes on to look at two countries in particular where the PISA study showed no significant gap between the performance of immigrant and non-immigrant students—Australia and Canada—and also Sweden, where the gap is very narrow.
On the subject of provision for second language acquisition and teacher training, their conclusions are challenging to the UK context, which falls far below their recommendations for best practice. The research identified the following as key factors for success:
- systematic programs with explicit standards and requirements;
- curricula determined at the local level but based on central key curriculum documents, including language development frameworks and progress benchmarks;
- high standards for the programs such that students acquire language skills in the context of the mainstream curriculum and can integrate into the appropriate level of instruction;
- time intensive programs;
- teachers instructing second-language learners have received specialized training (either pre- or in-service), with some completing postgraduate degrees in teaching the language of instruction as a second language;and
- teachers of second-language learners tend to cooperate with class teachers to ensure they meet the needs of immigrant students.
Features of less successful countries include the lack of explicit curriculum framework documents or certification programs for teaching second-language learners.
Gayle Christensen and Petra Stanat (The Transatlantic Taskforce on Immigration and Integration, 2007)
