learning spanish before english

In Improbable Scholars, the author describes how Alina Bossbally pushes her immigrant students to become fluent in Spanish, their native language, and acheive literacy in that language before she lets them begin writing entirely in English:

"Still, the bulk of the research confirms that a solid foundation in one’s home language offers the best preparation for mastery of English. And in Union City, there’s no arguing with success. At the start of the year, half of Alina’s youngsters were being taught in Spanish, but two months later some of them have begun to read in English. They’ve been prepared for that shift— from day one they have been hearing lots of English spoken in the room, and in their small groups they’ve been playing a game with blocks that teaches them how to construct English words. Alina won’t push these kids, for she wants to make sure they've honed their Spanish before they read and write entirely in English . “There aren’t many children in this country who know two languages,” she reminds them. “It’s a real advantage.” " (page 38-39)

Alina knows that if students haven't mastered Spanish before they transition to using English full-time, they will mix up the two languages and write in 'Spanglish'. Earlier in the chapter the author describes Alina teaching cognates and compound words in English to some of her students; if the students don't have a good vocabulary in Spanish, they won't be able to learn English words that are cognates of word in Spanish, and if they haven't learned compound words in Spanish, it will be much harder for them to grasp the same concept in English.

At first, I would think that teaching students fluency and literacy in their native language is not the best use of time that could be spent teaching them how to read and write in English, but after reading this chapter and learning that many students confuse English and Spanish when they don't learn Spanish first, the approach that Alina uses makes sense. It reminds me of the approach that my computer science professor here uses; he makes sure that we learn how to structure a program and understand how to solve a problem using an algorithm before teaching us specific syntax or commands in a programming language. This makes it easier to learn new programming languages. Similarly, a student must learn how to write a paragraph and argue a point in order to write an essay in any language, so it makes sense that these concepts are taught in whatever language the student is most comfortable with before the student is expected to write an essay in English.