• Balance. Students of bilingual schools get better grades in Madrid

The difference is small, but the students of the bilingual program of the Community of Madrid score worse in the Evaluation for University Access (EvAU) than those who follow the traditional academic system. The disparity between the two groups increases significantly when the exam qualifications equivalent to the old Selectivity and those obtained in the two years of Baccalaureate are added.

The data is contained in the latest report prepared by the School Board - the highest educational body in which the regional government, unions and associations of parents and students are represented -, which corresponds to the 2017-2018 academic year. On the other hand, the boys enrolled in the so-called bilingual section, that is, specific classrooms instead of a center entirely in which at least one third of the weekly teaching schedule is in English, they do get better results than the rest.

Up to now, the Community of Madrid has been defending that, in general, bilingual students in public and private schools have obtained better grades than the average. In the last specific evaluation carried out by the Ministry of Education in 2018 on this initiative launched in 2004 under the mandate of Esperanza Aguirre, the conclusion was that said learning system “not only does not impair the performance of students in the subjects that they are taught in English , but it improves even in subjects taught in Spanish ».

However, the School Board report details that the results are not the same for those enrolled in the bilingual program in Secondary School - 57.3% of the 66,000 who study part of the English programming of a total of 272,000 enrolled- , which is taught in all the classrooms of the center, and those that do so in the bilingual section -the remaining 42.7 %-, only in some classes of the center and with a higher reading load in the second language. Specifically, in the 2017 EvAU those from the first modality obtained a 6.54 and the second a 6.94 , while in the sum with the Baccalaureate qualifications the notes were in a case of 7.13 and in the another 7.43.

On the other hand, non-bilingual students obtained a 6.55 in Selectivity and a 7.21 in the final grade. The averages of the total of the three groups of students were, respectively, 6.57 and 7.22.

Criteria Differences

"The students of the bilingual program in the institutes are usually those who are generally academically weaker and those who come from the section are the strongest," argues the director general of Bilingualism of the Community of Madrid, Mercedes Marín. «By breaking up the bilingual students of the program and section, the general average is distorting: if in the non-bilingual centers we had the possibility of making a dissociation of some kind between the equivalents of the students of the section and the program, there would also be an important difference ", Add.

According to Marín, if the average was made between both modalities of teaching in English, "which would be the precise way to compare centers, a much more even average would come out." Likewise, it separates these data from the intention of the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to reinforce the study of the second language in the Infant stage in the future to reduce the number of hours in the upper levels.

«The idea is due to the studies we have done and the pilot projects that have been carried out in the Community of Madrid that show that in the acquisition of the second language in children the earlier the exhibition is, their learning ability is higher (...). When we see these results, it will allow us to reformulate the ideal teaching load for students who arrive at Secondary School, ”says the general director of Bilingualism.

The report of the School Council indicates that the students of the bilingual program obtained the worst marks in the whole of the EvAU and of Baccalaureate both in the branch of Arts -6.65-, as in those of Sciences -7.26- and Humanities and Social Sciences -6.88-. The same notes in the non-bilingual group were, respectively, 6.75, 7.47 and 6.89, while the section bilinguals took 6.78, 7.58 and 7.16.

CCOO asks for a moratorium

In the Federation of Education of CCOO of Madrid they defend that the data is broken down, because they evaluate «levels of different linguistic competence» between program and section. "Another thing is that politicians do not like it , because it is a bet that has been politicized to the extreme," denounces its secretary general, Isabel Galvín.

In his opinion, especially relevant is that the bilingual students in the program will average 7.05 in the EvAU in English, while the non-bilingual students - who only have three or four hours of foreign language per week - obtained 6.85. In addition, he warns that "there is a concern among teachers in schools about the loss of acquisition of skills in the mother tongue that affect comprehension, vocabulary and the ability to express both spoken and written" and "expels" the students with less economic possibilities.

"The results are devastating , we should give it another perspective," says Galvín. That is why the majority union in the sector proposes "a consensus moratorium" on the application of bilingualism to evaluate these first 14 years of application and analyze the possible margins of improvement.

They also urge the Ministry of Education to publish the PISA Report data broken down by bilingual and non-bilingual centers and "stop hiding reality under the carpet . "

Modalities

In the modality of the bilingual program, participants receive five hours of English per week and in that same language they are taught at least one of the following subjects: Physical Education, Visual and Plastic Education, Music or Citizenship Education. "The subject of Technologies can also be taught in English if the linguistic level of the students allows it," they point out in Education.

In the case of the bilingual section, students receive five hours of advanced level of English, "whose contents deal with language and literature of Anglo-Saxon countries . " In addition, with compulsory character in First and Second courses in this language Social Sciences and Nature Sciences and in third and fourth Social Sciences and Biology and Geology, in addition to the tutoring that is also mandatory in English.

“In the fourth year, the centers must also ensure the teaching of one more subject in English, which can be chosen in each of the intineraries. Depending on the availability of qualified teachers in the center, any other subject will be taught in English except Mathematics, Spanish Language, Literature and second foreign language ”, they specify in Education. That is, bilingual students receive between 30% and 50% of academic content in English.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Madrid's community
  • Selectivity
  • Madrid
  • PISA report
  • Esperanza Aguirre

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