Bilingual Bicultural Education

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.

I taught for 25 years at an inner city school. My students were all second language learners, and often their parents were totally illiterate. I entered this career not as a teacher, but as a social worker turned teacher. The Los Angeles Unified School District was in dire need of bilingual educators, so they offered a district intern program where I took college courses while I worked in the classroom.

The primary goal of any school district’s English Language Learner policy should be to ensure that all students receive equitable access to the curriculum. The Office of Civil Rights memorandum (May 25, 1970) requires school districts to take affirmative steps to provide equal access to instructional program for students with limited English proficiency. The Illinois Constitution guarantees every child from kindergarten through grade 12, access to a free public education; which means, regardless of a child’s home language, he/she deserves a free and appropriate education (Illinois State Board of Education, 1998).

Bilingual Education where Supporters feel that students miss a great deal by not being taught in their family’s language. That children that retain their family’s language will retain a sense of individuality. Their ethnic heritage & cultural ties. Helping Students acquire the skills of a classroom crucial for public success. Rodriguez also discusses the use of teaching and using a single language.

In the part six of the book called For the Progress, a Return to Deaf-Centered Education discussed about the early century, deaf American children studied all their subjects in their most fluent language, ASL that way they can continue their education (Lane, pg. 165). Basically, the author argued that deaf children shouldn’t be isolated in a hearing school, and should be taught how some bilingual children are taught; through both languages for better understanding.

People of all ages constantly learn how to speak multiple languages. Children are taught to become bilingual, which increases their knowledge. A young boy named Richard Rodriguez grew up in San Francisco, California with a household of Spanish speaking family members. Rodriguez barely knew English when he entered his early years of Elementary school. Through the course of his education Rodriguez took note of how different he was from his family, and slowly began to lose his heritage. Rodriguez’s family embarrassed him since he was categorized as a Scholarship boy, which means a good student yet also a troubled son whose moderately endowed (Rodriguez 19).

At the University of Washington a group of Chicano students started a movement in the fall of 1968 who wanted to fight for justice and were inspired to do so by such groups as the Mexican American Youth Association and The United Mexican American Students. Students in the Los Angeles area and in Denver were especially tired of the oppressive conditions tied together with the inability to make changes which outraged them enough to take their issues public with their demands for education reform. With the help of teacher Sal Castro, along with college students like Moctesuma Esparza, student leaders including Paula Crisostomo and such groups as the United Mexican American Students they presented the Board of Education with as many as thirty-six demands, which included smaller class sizes, revision of textbooks to include Mexican American history, Latino teachers and administrators, and bilingual, bicultural education. With the meeting with the Board of Education not going successfully and their demands not being met the students threatened walkouts, which they call “Blowouts”.

In the 1960s, Mexican Americans began organizing to address a broad range of issue of bilingual education. In New York, Puerto Ricans began to demand that schools offer Spanish-speaking children classes taught in their own language as well as programs on their culture. Latinos were demanding the right for school to teach students in their language because they feared abandoning Spanish would weaken their extinct culture. Additionally, women were excluded from education because it was believed that if women were well educated it would ruin their marriage prospects and be harmful to their mind. In this saying, Latinos were allowed to have education but it was the belive that a woman must stay home. Women with little education often believed that

Asylees are foreigners that have been admitted to the United States and are unable or unwilling to return to their home country due to persecution or fear of persecution. They need protection from persecution based on their race, religion, membership in a social group, political opinion, or national origin. They are capable of applying when they are in the United States or at a point of entry.

According to the US Census, 75 percent of today's immigrants learn to speak English during the first ten years after arriving. As now, not all immigrant students first made good work, but often suffered because their schools were few resources and attention given to their problems with the language was minimal. The study by Thomas and Collier, a comprehensive analysis of 700,000 minority students from 1982-1996, concluded that "only the enrichment bilingual programs long-term quality ... will give them minority students cognitive development and academic ... they need to succeed in English, and to sustain their successes as they reach high school grades. " A more recent study in Arizona in 2000 found that for three consecutive years, students

In the chapter “Bilingual and Bicultural Education for Deaf Children” learning English as a second language in schools was discussed and the criticism and benefits that come from it. I’m glad the Education Opportunity act talked about in this chapter includes the child developing a healthy identity and takes into account the psychological well-being of the child (295). There have been studies that suggest bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals, and that they can analyze sentence structure better (297). It goes to show when given a fair chance, people can flourish. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the students were cognitively able, they just didn’t speak English. The idea of having a teacher who knows sign to teach deaf children English is amazing and I’m glad they tried to implement that in the classrooms. That was they

Bilingual education should be mandatory in the Indigenous community as the recommendation 14 claims that “the Commonwealth Government work with state and territory governments to provide adequately resourced bilingual school education programs for Indigenous communities from the earliest years of learning, where the child’s first language is an Indigenous language (traditional or contact) (The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2012). Australia, as a multicultural nation, holds two aspect of identities to some extent. One is the aspect of national identity and other is about community identity. If Australia strengthen the national identity by encouraging people to speak only national language, it will define more the sense of national

Bilingual education is an academic approach followed by some instructors, which is using the native language for new English learners for instructions. Within the international context, bilingual education has become a necessity due to the high number of immigration, colonialism and the great number of local languages (Yushau & Bokhari, 2005). This approach in instruction has reflected back positively or negatively in many dimensions such as social, psychological, and pedagogical. However, bilingual instruction is an effective way of teaching English as a second language, in case of well implementation it can be seen as an educational advantage. This literature covers a wide variety of opinions that revolves around a topic that researchers find it controversial, this review will highlight the major question and findings which emerge in

Deaf children that are placed in a regular school setting often are accompanied by another individual known as an interpreter. The role of the interpreter breaks the language barrier between the “hearing” teacher and the “non-hearing” student. An interpreter’s role in the classroom is to

For this investigative assignment, I interviewed three of my closest friends about their perspectives on bilingual education in the United States. One of my friends, who I will call “A,” said that bilingual education is important for students because it helps them broaden their perspectives on the world. Students are exposed to learn different cultures and respect them, promoting multiculturalism in our country. “A” said that if students were only exposed to English-only classroom setting, they would most likely be ignorant of other cultures. She also told me about her experience when she was in an ESL program during her middle school year. She described the program as useless because she and her classmates learned broken English from each other. She somehow managed to get out of the program and put herself into the mainstream English class. My other friend, who I will call “B,” stated that bilingual education is helpful in developing a wider cultural perspective and cultivating a person suitable for the globalized world. As a foreign-born American and working as an international student coordinator, she emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and respecting different cultures. She believes that bilingual education can help students to achieve better knowledge on growing multiculturalism in our country. My last interviewee, who I will call “C,” also believes that bilingual education is important to cultivate young minds by helping them to respect not only their own but