Bilingual Education Over The United States

Compared to other Countries, America stands less developed in bilingual abilities due to language requirements taught within our school systems curriculum. Being bilingual is an important skill to have in America, with multiple different prominent languages spoken within our country other than English, we are constantly surrounded by language. The problem that our country is dealing with now, is that we started with the idea that anyone that moved to America should adapt to our languages, instead of us Americans, taking the initiative to learn a new languages. In a report by Hyon Shin and Robert Kominski, showed the number of citizens in America that spoke a language other than English. The “data on speakers of languages other than English

First off, it’s important to understand the difference between learning and education. Learning is the ability of an individual’s brain to acquire and retain information for a lifetime, whereas education is an aide to further strengthen a student’s learning capacity with the use of resources: teachers, libraries, classroom environment, etc. All students are essentially equal when they enter the educational environment, however students who don’t speak English have an unfair disadvantage in the american educational system.

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.

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.

A common joke says “What do you call someone who speaks two languages?” in which the person being asked the question would usually respond with “bilingual.” It goes on to ask about those who speak three or four languages, but then there is a kicker. “What does one call someone who only speaks one language?” to which the punch line is “an American.” According to the 2006 General Social Survey, only 25 percent of American adults are fluent in a foreign language, while only 7 percent cite the source of this education to formal schooling (Devlin 1). Large amounts of evidence point to the benefits of being multilingual. Although the United States has a few laws that help immigrants assimilate through dual language programs, there is little to be

School principals will find in the following lawsuits the legal framework to provide educational services to ELLs in public schools. Baker (1997) points out that a landmark case in favor of bilingual education in the United States was a lawsuit in 1970. The case was a class-action suit brought by the parents of nearly 3000 Chinese students against the San Francisco School District (Lyons, 1990). This case originated that in 1974 the Unites States Supreme Court handed down its only substantive decision regarding the responsibilities of school districts serving ELLs (Lyons, 1990). The court indicated that under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Chinese students were entitled to receive specific support to allow them full participation in the school program (Crawford, 1989). This case was known as Lau v. Nichols and its verdict outlawed English submersion programs for language minority students, and resulted in nationwide ‘Lau Remedies’ (Baker, 1997). Lyons (1990) writes that the ‘Lau Remedies’ specified how to identify and evaluate language minority students, determine appropriate instruction, decide when ELLs were ready for mainstream, and determine the professional standards expected of teachers serving language minority students. Under the Lau Remedies school districts were encouraged to provide

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).”

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.

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.

When I first started school, I remember how difficult it was for me to make the transition from Spanish to English. My Mom left me at the door of the school in the morning, but since I was placed in an English-only classroom, the next time I opened my mouth to speak to anyone was when she picked me up again that afternoon. I didn't know what anyone was saying around me, and to make matters worse, my teacher didn't speak a single word of Spanish. That day, like every other day, I came home crying because I felt like an outsider. That year was very difficult for me because I ended up in the back corner of the classroom not participating. As a result, I had to take several years of summer school in order to catch up, something that

Based upon the Bilingual Education Act of 1968, all English Language Learners (ELLs) “shall be kept in an adequate program until they can read, write, and comprehend English well enough to participate meaningfully in all aspects of the school’s curriculum (Education Commission of the States (ECS) website, n.d., para. 4). While keeping these parameters in mind, I began taking a closer look at the support my school district has in place to aid in the education of ELLs (primarily Hispanic) and their families. Drawing upon my years spent at both the elementary and secondary levels in my district, I would conclude that there is not enough being done to ensure that our ELLs can meaningfully

The reason as to why there are fewer children in the United States being raised bilingually than in other countries, is because certain countries have more than one language established. Certain large countries have their main language but also have languages that have become standard in their country, raising children bilingually. For example, there are many countries who have both English and their native language as the main languages of the country. We have countries like Nigeria, who’s main language is English, but have a series of other major languages like Yoruba or Igbo. Now when it comes to the United States, this trend might change because we have a growing population of multi-diverse groups. This country is becoming such a melting

Texas and California are two of the biggest states in America. They also comprise two of the most diverse populations in the country as well. According to Robert E. Slavin, bilingual education “refers to programs for students who are acquiring English that teach the students in their first language part of the time while English is being learned” (2012). Bilingual education can also range from education that uses almost English for instruction to instruction that teaches partly in the student’s native language and partly in English. There are many theories as to which method is most effective and which should be used in schools. With so many diverse students becoming a part of schools, one can almost never apply one perfect instructional strategy

A 12-year-old boy living in a small farming village outside of Matamoras, Mexico comes home one day from school and is informed by his parents that the family is moving to Texas to stay with his aunt and uncle. The entire family packed up their belongings and caught a bus from Matamoras bound for a small-town north of Houston, Texas. As he looks out the window, he wonders about this completely different world he has stepped into. At one gas-station stop on the way up, he hears people, predominately speaking in English, a language he had heard people speaking from time to time, but had no idea what they were saying. After arriving at his aunt and uncle’s house, his family is greeted in Spanish giving him the first degree of comfort he has had since he crossed the border into Texas. The following day his non-English speaking mother takes him to a local school where she is met by a counselor who has to send for a translator to properly register her son for his first day at school. As he attempts to interpret his printed schedule, the boy makes his way to his classroom. He is met by a paraprofessional who introduces herself in English and then in Spanish as his monitoring teacher. She promises to help him get used to his new school and to transition him into the English language. This is an example of the experience that over 20,000 new immigrant children face every year in Texas schools alone, and that number is doubling as

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