Benefits Of Dual Language Bilingual Education

More young americans nowadays are being raised in homes speaking non-English, but these students are falling behind in schools where there is not a bilingual program available. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in schools without a bilingual education program, 71% of English speakers are at or above the basic requirements for fourth grade reading while merely 30% of non-English speakers reach this level. 35% of English and 8% of non-English speakers reach proficient reading levels while only 9% of English and 1% of non-English speakers perform at advanced levels. It’s evident that the availability of a bilingual program is crucial to the success of an individual who needs the resources that can be given to them through the use of bilingual education. The percentages of the non-English speaking students previously mentioned could undoubtedly be comparable to those percentages of the English speaking students if the education they were being provided with was cohesive to their comfortability, and the material being taught was in a language they could better understand.

Cultural Diversity has lead schools to promote dual language and bilingual programs for ELL students. However, raising bilingual children according to Marsha Rosenberg is not something that simply happens. Parents must carefully consider how they will raise their children in their new culture. Unfortunately, many parents often forget that neglecting their primary language in the process of raising their children will only hurt them in the long run. However, what they fail to understand is that our current society insists on developing diverse learners, who can speak two or more languages and are diverse (Gensee, n.d). Therefore, in order to raise bilingual students they parents must provide the children with rich experiences at home as well as in a variety of settings (Broekhuizen, n.d.). Furthermore, families need to maintain a close family unity and sense of belonging when dealing with the bilingual issue at home.

Around 1959, bilingual education took flight in the United States. Starting in Miami and quickly making its way San Francisco, bilingual education soon led to the Bilingual Education Act, which promoted “No Child Left Behind”. Only twenty years later, the act acquired the attention of high schools around the country. Nonetheless, bilingual education is not always taken to be the cure-all for acclimating immigrants to the United States. In his article “Aria: A Memoir of Bilingual Childhood”, Richard Rodriguez argues that students should not take part in bilingual education by explaining how it takes away individuality and a sense of family through the use of ethos, diction, and imagery; Rodriguez also uses parallelism and ethos to point out how a bilingual childhood can help students feel connected to society.

Many people still debate the benefits of bilingual education. Even if the program were supported, there would be no way to insure that it has successfully achieved its goal. “The problem with this method (bilingual education) is that there is no objective way to measure whether a child has learned enough English to be placed in class where academic instruction is entirely in English. As a result, some children have been kept in native language classes for six years” (Hayakawa 577). Not only is there no way to measure if a student is ready to be out of the program, those students who were stuck in the program for several years infers the feeling of being out-casted. Children complain of systematically being segregated from their English-speaking peers being put in to the bilingual

Around 1959, bilingual education took flight in the United States. Starting in Miami and quickly making its way San Francisco, bilingual education soon led to the Bilingual Education Act which promoted “No Child Left Behind”. Only twenty years later, the act acquired the attention of high schools around the country. Nonetheless, bilingual education is not always taken to be the cure-all for acclimating immigrants to the United States. In his article “Aria: A Memoir of Bilingual Childhood”, Richard Rodriguez argues that students should not take part in bilingual education by explaining how it takes away individuality and a sense of family through use of ethos, diction, and imagery; Rodriguez also uses

Many parents want their children to be enrolled in bilingual education programs so that they may receive the knowledge of the English language while at the same time keep their current and be active with their cultural heritage. Bilingual education is another avenue that needs to be explored by more school districts across the nation because children should learn that there are other forms of communication. High schools require their students to take a foreign language before graduating, so why is this form of bilingual education accepted; yet an elementary bilingual program is under constant criticism? Bilingual people are rewarded in today's society by the higher wages and better positions. The scorn of the bilingual education programs that

Bilingualism has shown to strengthen cognitive ability. Bilingualism maintain cultures and self-esteem and build strong communities of families that can effectively contribute back to society. Unfortunately, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 states that it was established to “help ensure that English language learners and immigrant students attain English proficiency and achieve academically” which has a tendency to be interpreted as programs that look more like English Immersion or assimilation which is something that has been proven not to be academically successful. The goal of our current educational policies toward education do not utilize such terms or seem to support cultural maintenance or

This model supports the use of both the native language and the new language within the daily teaching curriculum (Ray, 2008). The No Child Left Behind Act threatens the Dual Language method and negatively impacts bilingual education because of the high degree of emphasis that is placed on standardized testing. The weight of standardized testing that is felt from the state all the way down to the classroom level has forced curriculum to focus on the passing of these tests. Because bilingual students must take the standardized test in English, this has caused a shift in the landscape of bilingual education. Teachers of bilingual students are abandoning the DL method in favor of a more English only environment as a means to help students pass standardized tests (Ray, 2008). This negates the purpose of bilingual education and decreases the benefits that these students receive while learning in a dual language

Two models of dual language that take a front and center in Bilingual education is subtractive and additive. Subtractive is strips the student of cultural capital which could benefit the student in their educational achievement. As opposed to the additive model in the dual language program which seeks to add English to the students already possessed language and maintaining their first language. This method has been known for having a faster academic achieving and cultural awareness. (Ray, 2009)

Before outlining the arguments for and against bilingual education, it is first necessary to provide an overview of the controversy over bilingual education, and its emergence as a national debate. This controversy is basically centered on the question: Should the United States government incorporate the teaching of different languages into the public school system or not? Although it is currently permissible to learn secondary languages such as Spanish, French, German and Latin in public middle schools and high schools in the U.S., such classes have traditionally been geared toward broadening the educational experience for native English-speaking students. Therefore, rather than providing assistance to students whose native languages are not English, classes in American public schools are taught in English, despite the fact that increasing numbers of students in some areas of the U.S. do not speak English as their first language. In 1998, for example, (the most recent year for which statistics were available), statistics indicated that there were some

The continued growth of speakers of languages other than English is reflected in the rapidly increasing students in U.S. schools for whom English is a second language. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (2005) show that the number of school-age children who spoke a language other than English reached almost 10 million in 2004. Such a dramatic increase continually challenges educators to provide effective language programs with quality instruction for students who are culturally and linguistically diverse. Some educators choose to view these challenges as opportunities by offering a dual bilingual program as an educational option for meeting the needs of monolingual speakers.

Bilingual education policies in the Unites States have been influenced by many factors. These factors range from the different attitudes towards languages in general and the controversy that bilingual education creates among interested parties, to the relation between state and federal level language policies. All of these factors together, along with a number of historical events, have contributed, in one way or another, in shaping the country’s policies of teaching language-minority students (Crawford, 2004; Johnson & Johnson, 2015; Ruiz, 1988).

This article is about the different Dual Language programs available and their effectiveness. It analyzes different researches and literature available on this topic and it evaluates its efficacy and results after implementation. The article begins by explaining the 90:10 and 50:50 Dual Language model and its successful outcomes. It explains that students in the Dual Language programs become proficient in two languages and by the time the reach fifth grade they are performing at or above their monolingual peers. It also states the challenges these programs face, including instruction, assessments, materials and curriculum. It also provides ideas that can help the program work effectively.

In this literature review I will be discussing studies that are in favor, not in favor, and neutral on bilingual education.

Bilingual education in the United States is constantly debated. It is often misunderstood. As Freeman (2000) notes, part of the confusion is caused by the fact that the term refers to a wide range of bilingual programs and practices (p. 204). Practitioners in the field of bilingual education who have educational and linguistic backgrounds strive to implement the most educationally sound policies, programs, and practices in order to best serve the needs of the growing population of English language learners in the United States. These policymakers, language educators, parents, and community members, however, constantly battle opposition that is not always based on truths and evidence, but