Tow Way Immersion Education Programs in the United States

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.

Cultural Diversity has lead schools to promote dual language and bilingual programs for ELL students. However, raising bilingual children according to Marsha Rosenberg is not something that simply happens. Parents must carefully consider how they will raise their children in their new culture. Unfortunately, many parents often forget that neglecting their primary language in the process of raising their children will only hurt them in the long run. However, what they fail to understand is that our current society insists on developing diverse learners, who can speak two or more languages and are diverse (Gensee, n.d). Therefore, in order to raise bilingual students they parents must provide the children with rich experiences at home as well as in a variety of settings (Broekhuizen, n.d.). Furthermore, families need to maintain a close family unity and sense of belonging when dealing with the bilingual issue at home.

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 is important in the United States to have a competitive workforce, and a great way to do that is to have a society of learners that can communicate with people of other cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Although there are efforts for teaching school children other languages, most programs are primitive at best, left to be forgotten before the skills reach the point of relevancy. Dual language programs should be established in the US wherever feasible to give parents, at the very least, the choice to expand the minds of their children. Recent years have seen the inclusion of voluntary language immersion programs in places such as Athens, Georgia, in which students are taught from Kindergarten in two languages. These are steps in the right

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

It is no secret that the debate over what is the best course of action to educate our non-native English language students across the country is a highly charged topic that runs from the classroom to Capitol Hill. There have been many shifts in direction and focus of educational programs for English Language Learning (ELL) students during the past century in our nation's history. In 1968, with the passage of the Bilingual Education Act (Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) legislation was

However, this issue would take far more than funding. The issue of bilingual education in our public school system is a much debated topic in this country, and especially in this state. The Education Topic over Bilingual Education in our School Systems Spanish-speaking populace has grown tremendously in these past decades, much of which have immigrated with Spanish as their only language. This has left the public school system with an interesting problem; how to successfully transition Spanish speaking students into an English environment. Public school systems have adopted an immersion program; where students learn English and other subjects in classrooms where only English is spoken (Parkay, 2013). Students are not necessarily aided, they are required to learn like their peers from the teacher and ask for direction when needed in English. This program might aid some fast learners, but students who do not adapt to English; which is a foreign language to them, are left to learn on their own. If the student does not get the

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

Throughout the decade, there has been more of an effort, albeit slow-moving, in trying to help out the bilingual student sector of our education system. The most impactful legislation, I believe, that was a vital toward helping this sector, was Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, signed into law on January 2, 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson. As a formal teacher, President Johnson was an avid believer in equal opportunities for those children of low-income families, of which many of the EL students were. Title VII I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 “promot[ed] equal access to the curriculum, training a generation of educators, sniff fostering achievement among students…” Because of this tremendous act, it was a huge stepping stone for young children to learn a second language. It would help them master the English language for high school and gave them an opportunity to go to college. Starting them early, children would be prideful of their culture while encouraging them to learn English. For much of the bilingual movement, bilingualism has been seen as a foreigners not wanting to be American because they wanted to keep up their own, different cultural identity. The original Bilingual Education Act tried to promote linguistic, cultural differences and diversity in the United States, which challenged many popular assimilation theories and the "melting pot" concept of the United States. When it was signed in its final form,

The dissertation that met the action research (AR) this student found to examine was “The Biliteracy Achievement of Latino English Learners in Two-Way Immersion Elementary Programs.” This study focused on the “biliteracy achievement of Latino English learners in two program models of two-way immersion to determine if learning two languages sequentially is indeed more effective for English Learners” (Moraga, 2010, p.74). There was several research questions discussed throughout this study. However, the one question this student mostly interesting on was “How are data used at school site level to determine the biliteracy attainment of English learners?” (p. 74). This question was the most relevant to this learner because she wanted to examine

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

ual immersion education aims for students to become fluent in two languages, English and whichever language they are enrolled in. This education is done through a program where students are exposed to two languages in the classroom. Dual immersion education is beginning to expand towards more cities and needs to be better financed. As it expands, the popularity grows resulting in more parents becoming aware of the program and then wanting it offered at their child’s school. Dual immersion education’s budget should be increased, in order for more schools in the United States to be able to provide the program to their students. Through the lens organizational synthesis the process behind how dual immersion education is conducted will show the benefits of providing more schools with the program. In “Ways of Seeing: An Essay on the History of Compulsory Schooling” David B. Tyack presents the lens of organizational synthesis. Through this lens, he focuses on the development of compulsory schooling and analyzes the changes that it goes through, including the factors that affected the enforcement of compulsory schooling and the requirements that were to be followed.

With the powerful influence of globalization transforming every aspect of our world humans must adapt to the new cultural environment being created. One major change is that of language evolution. English is the third most spoken language worldwide after Chinese and Spanish, but it is the most popular second language overall (Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2014). The English language is taking over, so what, you may ask, is the point of putting in the energy to learn a second language? Why should you enrol your child in a language immersion school program? Well, as an English Canadian, learning a second language through an immersion program comes with a collection of cognitive benefits that can influence a variety of things, including mental health, academic performance, and employability, not to mentions that it plays a vital part in preserving the many cultures in our country, all while promoting acceptance diversity.