an average of nine points in reading and 14 points in math” (English, 2000, 10).
However, Cummins (2000) argues that the majority of such research has been poorly carried out because it has been conducted before programs and students had a chance to development which he argues takes five years. He makes the distinction between basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency skills (CALP) which he argues are learned at disparate rates between native-speaking and foreign language speaking students. This is why traditional measures are inadequate to Cummins (2000), who feels they are administered before foreign students have developed CALP proficiency: “CALP is most accurately assessed on the basis of lexical knowledge, and because of this assessment by means of traditional standardized norm- or criterion-references tests provide largely meaningless and potentially harmful data” (142).
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