Essay on Should Bilingual Education Be Taught In Schools

The advantages of bilingualism can be seen throughout “Aria,” a memoir originally published in Hunger of Memory in 1980, written by the Mexican-American author Richard Rodriguez. In his writing, Rodriguez's shares his experience of how he gained a new identity because he had to learn English and adapt to a new society in America. The purpose of his memoir is to give the reader a sense of why bilingual education shouldn’t be used in school. Rodriguez's writing reaches out to supporters of bilingual education who may not see the benefits that can be gained from not having the program in school.

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, as Rodriguez states, "romanticizes public separateness and trivializes the dilemma of the socially disadvantaged."

By expanding ourselves past the comfort of the native tongue, we are able to create connections with other people. When learning another language, we may start to understand not only the language itself, but also comprehend new cultures, ways of thinking, and other people. From the very beginning of deciding to become a teacher, I knew I wanted to expand my ways of thinking so I positively benefit students of all cultures and language. I believe language learning allows people to view the world in different ways by becoming positively influenced by other cultures, people, and different ways of thinking. However, after deciding to become an ESL teacher, I truly believe that bilingual education is needed to help students develop and maintain high levels of proficiency and literacy in both their L1 and L2, while learning in the content areas. This is why I personally believe it is better for children to be raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. One reason for this is that even though I was born in America, my parents wanted me to learn their language, which was Polish. Now, I am fully appreciative of the fact that my parents taught me Polish and placed me in a Saturday school where I was being taught both English and Polish. If I was taught Polish later in life, I think I would not use it to this day because I would not have made personal connections with the languages, as I was able to by being raised bilingual. There are many benefits of being raised bilingual instead of learning a second language later in life. It is important to understand that it takes on average 4-7 years to become academically fluent in a language; by raising a child bilingually, the children are able to use both languages more efficiently earlier than those students who learn a second language later in life. Since the child has been bilingual for a longer time, there are educational benefits commonly found. Bilingual children tend to have a higher concentration and are better at working through distractions while doing their schoolwork. Bilingual children also perform higher on average on tests that involve multi-tasking, creative thinking, or problem solving (Marian & Shook, 2012).

I feel that the children will get confuse. “They feel, to begin with that part of the confusion around bilingual education program is their different meanings in different states.” (http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/259970/the_pros_and_cons_of_bilingual_education.html?singlepage=true&cat=4) I believe that children who doesn’t speak English won’t master English language, they will end up having low score in test and will prove that education is failing in their native and as well as their second language.

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.

It may be that ideals of strong American nationalism and pride stand in the way of bilingual education. “Opponents of bilingualism, and by extension bilingual education , see the use of multiple languages as a sign that the home country's culture is being diluted by the introduction of foreign languages, viewpoints, and traditions” (Ginsberg 1). According to a video posted by USA Today, even the current US president, Donald Trump, has expressed ideals against Americans conversing in languages other than English (Trump). But the anti-bilingual attitude held by some in America needs to be reevaluated because there are just too many benefits, and not enough evidence of harms, to keep students away from the privilege of knowing more than one

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).”

His public language of a very rough English was used in the classroom at school and when he was on the streets of town. His private language of Spanish was used at home and he often felt a sense of safety in this. Comparing the Spanish his parents spoke at home to the English they spoke outside can prove and support his argument. Because Richard Rodriguez was raised in a Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrant family and moved into the U.S. during his childhood, so he earned deep insights on the educational benefit of using one language, English. Rodriguez received the immersion education where he has to speak English for entire time. This education is largely different from the bilingual education that many supporters in the era had proposed as a national policy for general education of American immigrant children. As the supporters argue, bilingual education is supposed to raise a healthy private identity and cultural heritage which are undoubtedly lost in the process of immersion education. However, Rodriguez disagrees with argument that such losses would accompany without bilingual education. He claims that immigrant children can still maintain their intimacy and cultural heritage. He also proposes his perceptions that bilingual education restrains children from achieving linguistic proficiency and concrete public identity. He believes that they necessarily have to sacrifice a

Growing up from a different culture, Richard Rodriguez looks back on his experience on how he faced the situation as the child of Mexican immigrants. According to his 1982 memoir, “Hunger of Memory”, Rodriguez uses his own observation “to argue that if the children of immigrants are to succeed in the United States, they must separate themselves from their home culture and immerse themselves in the English oriented atmosphere of the American school” (980). In “Aria”, Rodriguez has created an autobiographic essay of his childhood. In his essay, the author is against bilingual educators, who believe that children in their first years of school should be educated in their native language. According to Rodriguez this education method is wrong, it won’t be helpful, therefore children should be knowledgeable in the same language as the public one. The author’s main point is to strongly motivate children of immigrant parents to adopt English as their primary language in order to comprehend public society and have a better future.

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.

Since the beginning of colonization, individuals have immigrated for a better future allowing their offsprings an experience of a new culture. Bilingual programs have offered students the knowledge of another culture and allowing students and individuals to come as a whole and becoming a family. This programs have allowed students to not forget their cultures but instead it has helped students get rich in knowledge of their own culture, and the new and unknown one too. Making this society diverse.

Over the last decade or so, important legislation has been implemented to positively ensure fair and equal access to a quality education for English Language Learners (ELL). Change did not happen without there being obstacles to overcome. There were many overturned cases that initially sought to strip English Language Learners of their basic rights to an education. Yet, there would eventually be legislation instituted to help alter the course.

First, in this paragraph i will be discussing studies that are in favor of bilingual education. According to a study done by Aqel (2006) investigated the reaction of students and instructors toward bilingual instruction method in the department of english and modern european languages at Eh university in Qatar. The findings of this study highlighted the most astute way to deliver the information in the shortest time, in addition, it pinpointed the effective role of L1 in teaching the foreign languages. Likewise, Jadallah and Hasan (2011) targeted in