Bilingual Education Essay examples

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.

Bilingual education has been a debatable subject since its conception during the case of Lau vs. Nichols, in the early 1970’s. However, in that case, the court only ruling was that the children’s

“Our culture, our traditions, our languages are the foundations upon which we build our identity.” - Unknown. The concept of bilingualism represents several different ideas, two writers share their personal stories about learning being immersed into the English culture and learning the language. They both share their views of what Bilingualism means to them personally and make arguments about the importance of the concept.

Movements for bilingual education rose in 1974 with the Equal Education Opportunity Act and Bingual Education Act, which ordered federally funded schools to meet special educational needs for students not proficient in English. Unfortunately, dropout rates and lack of English-language proficiency alarmed the states that these bilingual programs were not efficent. Because of this, arguments between English-only advocates and supporters of bilingual educations emerged. Articles such as the New York Times have proclaimed the failures of bilingual education. One cause could be the resistance of immigrants from English language acquisition, who hold tight onto their first language and culture. Despite this, studies show that generations

I am the youngest of five sisters and two brothers. My family is Mexican- American, both of my older brothers were born in Mexico and were brought by my parents at a very young age. My parents were also born in Mexico and like every immigrant migrated from their home countries to pursue what is called the American dream. I very much enjoy being from Mexican roots, because my traditions, foods, dances, culture and kindness makes me who I am today. I have three nieces and one nephew from the ages six on down. We are all Mexican American ancestry.

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.

Being a Hispanic student who came from not speaking English at all to writing English essays on a weekly basis, I have learned many things that have helped me cope with the disadvantages that were brought on by my lack of English language skills and the advantages that came with being a bilingual student. When I first came to Canada in 2006, I barely spoke a word of English and had to rely on other people for help. I felt helpless and lost, as my classmates were doing things that I did not understand. Over time, I began to pick up the English language quickly and I started to take risks. I constantly challenged myself to try to speak English whenever possible and this allowed me to catch up to my classmates in writing and speaking by grade 3, which was my

In the article, Speak Spanish, You’re in America!: El Huracan over language and Culture, Juan Gonzalez, a journalist and broadcaster of the daily show, Democracy Now, describes how bilingualism has impacted the United States’ modern education system. He describes an amendment that would constitute English as the official in the United States, which he believes can be a potential threat to the educational system. Gonzalez suggests that instead of having an amendment that constitutes English as the national language, American schools should implement Spanish to highlight the importance of being bilingualism in the American educational system. A constitutional amendment declaring English as the national language would be damaging to bilingual students because it would limit their capability of communicating in English or their native language, and therefore they have would fall behind in classes and will not succeed in the American educational system. To highlight the importance of bilingualism, even more the educational system should implement a variety of languages.

Proposition 58 would undo almost 20 years of regulations limiting bilingual education. It repeals the English-only immersion requirements, along with the waiver provisions of the 1998 Proposition 227. Currently, under Proposition 227, all education is conducted exclusively in English, with a few exceptions. These exceptions include voluntary education programs, such as dual emersion classes, where students concurrently learn English and a second language. In effect, this proposition would bring back programs where students, that are not fully fluent in English, have education in both English and their native language. I understand the educational value of bilingual classrooms; however, I am concerned that it would cause segregation and significant disadvantages for students.

The greatest concern of mandating “English only” schools in California for example is that 80 percent of the population of students is Latino. Miner further explains, “Good bilingual programs are about more than learning a language, it should be about respect for diversity and multiculturalism (Bilingual Education, 1999).”

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

Rodriguez builds a formidable case against bilingual education with his bilingual childhood experiences. Rodriguez grew up speaking Spanish, but then learned how to speak English later in life so he knows what effects bilingual education has on bilingual kids who grew up speaking a private language at homes. When Rodriguez first came to the United States in Sacramento, California he understood “about fifty stray English words” (Richard Rodriguez “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”). He was a Mexican immigrant whose family only knew how to speak Spanish. The neighbors of Rodriguez’s family didn’t like them, so when they were out walking they would tell Rodriguez’s parents “Keep your brats away from my sidewalk!” (Rodriguez 571). Rodriguez loses the “special feeling of closeness at home” when he learned English (Rodriguez 577). Personal experiences are what makes him a credible author. Rodriguez used strong ethos and pathos appeals, but he didn’t use strong logos appeals. He didn’t use facts or reasoning in his memoir to prove his points against bilingual education.

At the beginning of the century, Bilingual education was not only absent in Texas public schools, it was illegal. The “English Only” law was passed in 1918. The law made it illegal for educators to use another language in classrooms and charged educators with a misdemeanor for using languages other than English in a classroom unless the class was a foreign language class. The apparent issue with the “English Only” law in Texas is that students could not understand their teachers and were not given a real opportunity to learn English. Texas still feels the weight of poor education policies that stayed far too long. Bilingual Education was illegal in Texas until 1969.

Prior to the passing of California proposition 227, immigrant children, mainly Latinos, were taught in their native language until they could transition into English-only classes. Students with limited-English-proficiency (LEP) would participate in bilingual education over a number of years before making this transition. After proposition 227, the percentage of children in bilingual programs dropped from 29 percent to 11, only those who were able to obtain waivers from school authorities were permitted to stay in bilingual programs (Bali, 2001). Proposition 227 was controversial because its opponents claimed that it was rooted in anti-immigrant sentiments and it was a return to ‘sink or swim’ programs which would