Language ideology and bilingual education in Texas: Assessing the language orientation of teachers

The purpose of this study is to assess the language orientations of bilingual public school teachers from the state of Texas. More specifically, this research seeks to describe the language orientation of teachers in the six different bilingual program models that are implemented in Texas schools. The research design used in this study is a mixed methods research design that included the collection of 52 survey questionnaires at the 2012 Texas Association of Bilingual Education Conference and eight one-on-one interviews with conference participants. All the participants in this study are teachers who teach in one of the six bilingual program models approved by the Texas Education Agency. The program models range from strong additive programs like dual immersion/two way programs to weaker programs like ESL/pull out models (Faltis, 2012). The findings of this research indicate that the language orientations of the bilingual teachers do not necessarily correspond to the language ideologies of the respective bilingual program models they teach in. Moreover, support for bilingual education programs at the school district and campus level further reflects language ideology. Strong support corresponds to strong language ideology and weak support corresponds to weak language ideology. Seven out of the eight teachers interviewed stated that they were not getting the support from their district administrators, principals, or superintendents to effectively teach their respective bilingual program model.