Teaching students in a language they understand benefits both language learning and broader learning¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on a source with no registered publication record (a web page, book or unpublished report). It is kept because a design page cites it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Teaching in a language students understand benefits their learning of that language and their broader learning. → Foundational Learning 2023 q2 i? Early-exit policies that teach other subjects in a second language may hamper student learning in those subjects. → Foundational Learning 2023

Evidence¶

Foundational Learning 2023¶

Foundational Learning. (2023). World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education/brief/foundational-learning

q2 · i? · no source text available to check; the entry prints no effect size · review · r?

Narrative review of language-of-instruction evidence. The brief states the "evidence is clear" that home-language teaching helps both the language itself and broader learning, and warns that early-exit transition to a second language as medium of instruction may hamper subject learning. No pooled effect size is printed.

"evidence is clear that teaching students in a language they understand has benefits for not only their learning of that language but also their broader learning."

Studies bearing on this claim¶

Does teaching through the learner's home language (dual language or mother-tongue instruction), rather than early transfer to the school language, improve school-language and subject learning? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 14 narrower claims that bear on it: 12 distinct studies (4 review, 2 causal, 2 theoretical, 2 associational, 1 qualitative, 1 quant-synthesis), q1–q3, 3 of 12 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Fluent bilingualism is linked to metalinguistic awareness of how the two languages relate — related
• Learners of Italian report ideal-self motivation rather than instrumental motivation, while their teachers assume the reverse. — related
• Early-exit transitional bilingual programs that provide minimal early-grade English literacy and then transition students to all-English classrooms with no support are inappropriate — related
• As of 2024, only 10 U.S. states explicitly include Spanish–English bilinguals in their kindergarten entry assessments, while 41 states implicitly include or do not include them — related
• BCIRC has potentially positive effects on reading achievement for Spanish-speaking English language learners (effect size 0.61, not statistically significant after clustering correction) — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Dual language learners especially benefit from high-quality early care and dual language immersion programs, and multilingualism is associated with cognitive, linguistic, social, and cultural strengths — related
• Audio narration with finger-tracking animation directs bilingual preschoolers' attention to the target-language print in dual-language e-books, including the nondominant language — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Dual language programs improved English literacy achievement, with a potentially positive effects rating based on one study — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Primary-language (Spanish) oral instructions yielded significantly higher English reading comprehension than English-only instructions — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Dual language programs are associated with higher achievement and with EB/non-EB achievement gap closure by seventh grade — a broader claim this one bears on
• Spanish–English bilinguals performed better on kindergarten mathematics assessments when tested in Spanish — related
• Literacy benefits of dual language programs did not extend to the English learner subsample in the strongest study — reports the opposite
• English Learner classification in kindergarten negatively impacts teachers' perceptions of students' academic abilities, with a reduced negative effect in bilingual classroom settings — related
• ELs who received bilingual education services had higher long-run attendance and academic outcomes than kindergartners who refused bilingual services — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Rizal Experiment showed literacy achieved more quickly in local and national languages but finding glossed over — a narrower finding that bears on this claim