Teaching Bilingual Students At The Elementary School Level

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’s never too early to start.” This sentence may seem familiar, uttered by parents as they encourage their children to begin piano lessons or go to junior basketball camps. Whatever the situation, it seems as though starting to learn early affords a child some sort of advantage. It can most likely be assumed that this quasi-proverb translates to language as well: a language that is learned and used regularly from a young age is probably better ingrained into the mind of its user than one learned late and used sporadically. It has been made evident through research by Bialystok, Craik, and Luk that there are immense neurological advantages that come from bilingualism. Also, as stated by Martha Nussbaum, proficiency in more than one

As the previous discussion has shown, the notions bilingualism and bilingual education are pretty complex. Summing up, bilingualism exists in different levels, which are defined as termed individual bilingualism and societal bilingualism. These forms are typical either for the whole language minorities (communities) or for an individual. This should be taken into account for bilingual education, which can be described as language possession at the individual level. From the research that has been carried out, it is possible to conclude that this issue is very complex and can be described by various dimensions, such as language ability, achievement, competences, performance, proficiency and skills, as well as the age of language acquisition, the balance of two languages, context of language usage.

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.

As a current 5th grade teacher through Teach for America and Masters’ candidate at the Relay Graduate School of Education, I believe I would be an excellent fit for the English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil. Raised myself in a bilingual household, my experience teaching English as a Second Language students in Passaic, New Jersey has strengthened my language skills. Teaching in a bilingual classroom (English and Spanish), I teach a range of students: some only speak their native language while other students are quickly approaching proficiency in English. This has helped me switch between English and Spanish seamlessly—and guide others to do the same, a skill I would like to bring to learners in Brazil. Further, I am now capable of helping others think metacognitively about the process. In addition to being fluent in English and Spanish, I have taken on Portuguese to be my third language. Although I have conversational skills now, I am hoping to reach the intermediate level in the next year and greatly boost these skills through interactions in Brazil. As well as the language skills I’ve gained, I have learned to create engaging lessons and units that scaffold information to help increase understanding. I have also learned to create my own handouts, worksheets, and charts to assure student learning. As a teaching assistant, these fundamental skills will assure I can focus on teaching and learning from my students, instead of the basics of teaching. I am also excited to

Whenever I was asked about what it was that I wanted to be or do when I grew up my answer was always: “I don’t know, but I do know that I want to work with children.” There are many fields in which on can work with children. For instance, there is medicine, social work, law, and education. It was not until high school that I began to really think about what field I wanted to go into. Therefore, I began to volunteer at my local library and started to babysit. This led to me realizing that education was the field I want to pursue in my career. However, it was not until college that I narrowed that down to early childhood education, but to be even more specific I want to work with bilingual/ELL children in that age range. I attended a bilingual program up until the fourth grade and it was a very fulfilling experience for both my parents and me. Looking back and having done fieldwork at schools I came to realize that I want to give back to a specific field that helped me learn to read and write in the English language and not let me forget my first language which is Spanish in my early years of education. I had teachers that incorporated both languages to help not just me, but all of the students in the classroom.

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 beginning I talked about wanting to understand how when newborns develop their cognitive learning development of two different languages as they got older for example attending a bilingual Preschool, would they be able to continue with their development of learning both English and Spanish and be able to grow and become experienced in both languages and be able to transition from their first language they may use at home and their second language they may use at school. Now that we got to take a look at two studies that wanted to know if children from low income families either attending a bilingual preschool or a stay at home, are able to grow in both English and Spanish language. In those two studies they had many things in common

Bilingual educators were accused of disregarding such developments; they often admitted children who were proficient in English to bilingual programs and kept them there too long. A U.S. Office of Education­sponsored investigation of thirty-eight bilingual projects for Hispanic Americans judged that about 70 percent of the pupils involved used English rather than Spanish for the purpose of taking tests. (Duignan)

Suppose your child has been moved to China. Your child does not speak Chinese; is it the school system's responsibility to teach your child in English? Or should your child be expected to learn in the country's language and perhaps get extra help on the side? Why should a school district spend money on bilingual classes rather than on reducing class sizes?

Mother is bilingual, her thought patterns seem to be adequate and she appears to be well kept in appearance. Although she was leaving children home unattended, she was willing and accepting of guidance which can be assumed that she was not comfortable with the situation either but felt as though she had no other resources. Lorenzo seems to be capable and cognitively aware for his age, he does as instructed by his mother and follows directions given to him adequately for a child of his age. Lia also seems to be developmentally appropriate for her age, she responds and reacts appropriately and listens to verbal cures.

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

I support bilingual education because it can be an effective pathway for foreign language speakers to learn the English language. I am in favor of the two-way immersion method as a bilingual education application in the classroom. According to Hadi-Tabassum, “Two-way immersion (TWI) bilingual education is an integrated language immersion program in which students who speak a majority language, such as English, study and learn together in the same classroom with students who speak a minority language….Both the language majority and language minority students learn the two languages simultaneously and acquire academic content knowledge through both L1 (English) and L2 (Spanish, Korean, etc.). Dual immersion education is another term used more often to describe TWI bilingual programs but both terms signify the same type of bilingual education program in which two distinct sociolinguistic student groups are fully immersed in learning both the majority and minority language across all content areas and within the same classroom setting.” (4). As one can imagine, it can be very difficult to learn a completely new language in a short period of time, therefore, the two-way immersion method is a great way for students to learn a new language, while still being able to communicate in their primary tongue and not being forced to acquire new knowledge without the ability to communicate effectively in the new language being learned.

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

Surrounding my high school there are dozens of large trees which line the parking lot and sidewalks. In the autumn, red, orange, purple and brown leaves thickly cover the ground making a leaf collage. Although the leaves come from different trees, they all have one thing in common: they’re all leaves. This can be likened to both the students at my high school and the world’s people as well. No leaf, or person, is exactly the same. Colors, patterns, place of origin and future are all different. During the school year, I am surrounded by over two thousand students of varying backgrounds. One difference between myself and any other schoolmate could be our primary language. Every day at school, I am surrounded by those speaking Russian, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese... The list goes on. Although different backgrounds, languages and cultures could create separation between students, there is one language by which everybody can communicate and connect: English. Not all people that go to my high school speak English to the point of fluency, but they all do speak fluently enough to gain an education in an English speaking school. In other words, they’re bilingual. Bilingualism is like grafting a plumb tree branch onto a peach tree. The plum branch will grow on the peach tree, but neither the branch nor the tree will ever be the same. The peach tree is no longer purely a peach tree, and the plumb branch is not just a plumb branch either. They have been infused