What is bilingual education in the United States?
Bilingual education — the practice of teaching non-English-speaking children in their native language while they learn English — helps Latino students advance. Roughly 3.8 million students in U.S. schools are native Spanish-speakers who are not proficient in English.
Is bilingualism a phenomenon?
Bilingualism/multilingualism is a natural phenomenon worldwide. Unwittingly, however, monolingualism has been used as a standard to characterize and define bilingualism/multilingualism in linguistic research.
Why is bilingual education controversial in the United States?
The primary reason it has become so controversial is that many believe that those who live in the U.S. should be completely “Americanized,” meaning that instruction should be only in English.
What is the most common model of bilingual education in the US?
transitional
As noted above, the most popular form of bilingual education in the USA is the transitional bilingual education program (TBE) (Torres-Guzmán et al., 2005, p. 516). In this Page 3 82 program, instruction is in both the native language (of minority students) and English for a period of three years.
What are the three goals of bilingual education?
Know the three pillars of dual language. Dual language is about three goals: Bilingualism/biliteracy. High academic achievement in both program languages. Sociocultural competence.
Is bilingual education controversial?
In recent years, bilingual education has sparked as much controversy as any other education issue. Most educators and parents agree that the main goals in educating students with a native language other than English are mastery of English and of content in academic areas.
What does bilingual education look like?
Bilingual education is the process of teaching students using two languages. Educators usually teach students in their native language in conjunction with a second language utilizing differing levels of the native and second language depending on the requirements specified in lesson plans and teaching models.
Why you should consider bilingual education?
A bilingual education can strengthen the executive function of the brain. In fact, Research shows that because bilingual students are able to use two languages at the same time, switching consistently, it develops skills for functions such as inhibition, switching attention, and working memory.
Are bilingual classrooms better than ESL?
Bilingual classrooms have unexpected benefits for native speakers, and may be better than ESL programs for foreign speakers, researchers say.
Do other countries do bilingual education?
Do other countries do bilingual education? Yes, they do. There is a vast literature describing bilingual education in other countries, and the consistent result of studies of these programs is that they work, that students acquire the national language as well or better than students without education in their first language.
Why do students partake in bilingual education?
This type of bilingual education is designed to help students learning a new language pick it quicker and make the transition to begin learning math, science, and other subjects in English. Students begin receiving instruction in their native language and eventually become weaned off it and being learn entirely in English.
