Abstract:
Evidence from international studies suggests that Bilingual Education benefits students academically, especially those who are culturally and linguistically diverse. While there is similar evidence in New Zealand, this evidence is generally limited. This study profiles a Samoan bilingual unit in one of the mainstream primary schools in Auckland by asking the question whether Samoan bilingual education makes a difference to children's academic achievement particularly in reading comprehension. Ten Samoan Bilingual (SB) students, their two teachers and five SB parents in addition to 12 Samoan Mainstream (SM) students were involved in the study. Students' STAR achievement over six time points (beginning and end of each year from 2010-2012) were analysed cross-sectionally and longitudinally to examine baseline and across years patterns including subtest patterns of achievement. SB teachers and parents were also interviewed about their beliefs about bilingual education and why their preference was for Samoan bilingual education as an alternate form of learning. Results showed that the baseline achievement of Samoan students was below average on STAR with SB students averaging lower than SM students. In the cross sectional and longitudinal analyses, Samoan students in the bilingual unit made accelerated progress on the same tool over the 3 years recording significantly higher gains and large effect sizes compared to SM students. At the beginning and end of the study, the subtest patterns were similar with higher scores in subtest 1 (decoding) and lowest in subtest 3 (paragraph comprehension). An added finding was a pattern found in summer learning where SB students were found to have a linear progress from 'end of year' to 'beginning of year' rather than the normal 'staircase' pattern found in other studies. The interviews with SB teachers showed that building relationships with parents and fanau was a priority followed closely by language enrichment and maintenance which was the major reason for the SB parents selecting the unit for their child. The researcher speculates about the reasons for the results and makes recommendations for further research, with one suggestion being observations of teaching and learning in this unit and a replica of this study administered on a larger scale to see if results from this research are limited to this participating school or are consistent with other Samoan Bilingual units.