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Advantages Of Bilingual Education

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What Are the Advantages of Bilingual Educational Programs and Bilingualism?

It is difficult for me to write this from the point of view of an educator in the United States. I am presently at the end of my second year of teaching and also my second year at a totally bilingual school that teaches in both Spanish and English. My opinions and reflections on my literature reviews may be affected by my teaching here in Mexico, vs. teaching ESL students who are immigrants located in the USA.
Bilingual education programs are not only dual-language programs designed to provide an equal education to students learning English in the USA. The true definition of a Bilingual education program is the presence of any two languages in an instructional program. …show more content…

However, “the clear conclusion emerging from data sets is that even in two California districts that are considered some of the most successful in teaching English to LEP students, oral proficiency takes 3 to 5 years to develop, and academic English proficiency can take 4 to 7 years. The data from the two school districts in Canada offer corroboration” (Hahta, Butler, Witt. 2000, p. 2)
There is a common fallacy that bilingual education or bilingualism will have adverse effects on the learning of the majority language. Cummins (n.d.) states “A finding common to all forms of bilingual education is that spending instructional time through two languages entails no long-term adverse effects on students’ academic development in the majority language. This pattern emerges among both majority and minority language students, across widely varying sociolinguistic and sociopolitical contexts, and in programs with very different organizational structures” …show more content…

To have the ability to communicate in more than one language is like having a world passport. Employment opportunities for bilinguals are increasing every day. The 2006 census for the USA shows that 20% of the population speak a language other than English. When you add in the millions of visitors to the USA, the international businesses that operate there, and you can see that there is a big demand for employees who speak another language in addition to English (Balderrama, 2008). “Globalization and improvements in communication technology also provide opportunities for the multilingual worker. Many companies do business overseas and technologies such as videoconferencing mean that business partners can meet face to face even when they’re thousands of miles apart” (Arno, 2012,

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In her article, “Teach Them Spanish Early, Too,” Carlene Carmichael questions why young Californians are not being taught a basic understanding of both the English and the Spanish language. Carmichael contends that more job opportunities are available to bilingual applicants. She suggest that children could be taught both languages together from a young age. Carmichael pities the many Americans who are barred from employment at bilingual businesses because of this disadvantage and she wonders if anyone else feels the same. Carmichael’s suggestion to offer Spanish curriculum to young children and teach both English and Spanish at the same time makes a lot of sense; After all, California does recognize both English and Spanish as official

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Alexander Hamilton was a man who strongly believed in a powerful central government. This means he wanted the government to rule and have all the say. Thomas Jefferson was a man who strongly believed in the union of the states with government as a humble leader. The two opposing views caused two political parties to be born, The Federalists, and The Democratic-Republican Party. The Federalists would eventually cease in 1828 and The Democratic-Republican Party would spilt and become the two political parties of today.

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A study at Johns Hopkins found that bilingual education teaches bilingualism without compromising English proficiency. Comparable studies have shown that students gain proficiency in the second language and outperform their nonimmersion peers on standardized reading in English. The Current Status of Bilingual Education Programs in Arizona In 2000, Arizona passed Proposition 203, which required English-only instruction in all public schools.

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The definition of bilingualism is fluency in or use of two languages. Martín Espada is the author of the essay “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” which is about the act of Spanish being a forbidden language in a school full of multicultural children. In the essay, his main argument is the idea that the language of Spanish, or Bilingualism as a whole is interpreted as a burden for a young immigrant. Another author named Richard Rodriguez wrote about his struggle to juggle between his 2 languages, his public language (English) and his private

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By including a personal example of a bilingual student in the South, Carsen proves that his research is credible as the title of the article is “Bilingual education in the South.” In addition to his interview with a student, Carsen also interviews an English as a Second Language (ESL) specialist and a worker of the state education department to gather different viewpoints on the matter. Incorporating interviews with specialists in foreign language and education adds to Carsen’s credibility because his argument revolves around these two elements. Carsen also includes his

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When I was younger I was enrolled into Bilingual classes since preschool which cost me dearly. While taking these classes I had trouble learning English and Spanish words at the same time. I struggled through elementary school because I was not used to focusing primarily on English which affected my grades. While it is true that colleges look for students who know more than one language, the problem with that requirement is that students who focus on two languages at once are more likely to fail their classes because they do not have their full attention directed towards the English language and they don’t pay attention to that factor. Colleges do not see the risk of being a bilingual student.

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502 Words | 3 Pages

The parent’s perspective towards bilingual education was like the student’s opinions because both individuals felt immersion classrooms benefit the students and the parents. The father of Jason was proud his son was the first in his family to read, write, and speak in English. Jason’s father knew his son would have many career opportunities by learning English at school. Learning the English academic language was not the only proud language Jason’s father encouraged for Jason to learn but also the Spanish language as well. Jason’s father only speaks Spanish so if his son was to lose his home language, a language barrier would form between father and son.

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This is occurring in a school district that is located on the “wrong” (east) side of El Paso and serves a student population that is 88.1 percent Hispanic and 73.4 percent economically disadvantaged. Dual language has helped liberate its students from the grim statistical reality that half of the Hispanic students in Texas will become dropouts: Ysleta boasts a graduation rate of 84 percent, well above both the Dallas and Houston school districts. A pioneer in dual language, Del Valle in 2005 graduated the first class to begin the program in elementary school. Instead of leaving Spanish behind for all-English classes, students were taught core subjects like algebra and world history in both Spanish and English. - See more at:

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Simonitsch and Lambert intel that the city of San Francisco was underfunded due to the overwhelming of immigrates of LEP students and made the students submerse into the English language (2004). Ultimately, the programs in San Francisco are failing at maintenance of bilingual education to static and developmental maintenance. Barker refers that static maintenance is to target language skills by maintaining them and developmental maintenance is to reach the student’s home language into a full proficiency of full biliteracy or literacy; also, known as Enrichment Bilingual Education (2011). It is important to know that indoctrinating the children into an English language culture is effecting their developmental stages. Due to these failed practices,

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According to Jarmel and Schneider (2010), by the year 2025, one-third of students attending public schools will not know English when they start Kindergarten. How will schools adapt to this? Will teachers and/or students be limited on what they can teach/learn throughout the school year because of time restraints? In a documentary Speaking in Tongues, directed by Jarmel & Schneider (2010), four students who range from Kindergarten to eighth grade, showcase their experiences about attending public school around the San Francisco area to become bilingual. The four students Durrell, Jason, Julian, and Kelly are taught in English and also in a second language such as Mandarin, Spanish, Chinese, and Cantonese.

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With nations becoming increasingly connected through mediums like the internet, the world has changed substantially within the last decade. It’s a time where Spanish songs such as Luis Fonsi’s Despacito can top the American music charts, where traveling to the other side of the world takes a few hours instead of weeks, and more importantly, where states like California and Utah are continuing to promote and provide for a growing demand for bilingual education through dual-immersion programs. Although the states have great strides in the right direction, bilingual education should not be encouraged but rather be required for K-12 students. Because bilingual education integrates languages into the student’s lifestyle through instruction, it enriches the lives of children, the adults they will become, and the community to which they will contribute to.

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Another benefit of being bilingual is the ability if utilize and expressideas in different languages. When people are confronted in a situation and they have to provide answer for particular question then bilingualism enable individual to find the appropriate word from two different languages thus it help them to provide best answers. It also allow one to rely on their skills and enhance their cognitive skills. However, it is also indicated that cognitive abilities of a bilingual individual is sharper than an individual who can only speak one language(Bialystok, Craik, &Luk, 2012).

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The children learning a second language for develop skills that will help create opportunities in the future and ability to communicate with others in different situations. It will most certainly In addition to the language skills of children with learning a second language, and learning the cultural differences helps. Includes a variety of educational and career opportunities as well. However, children learning a second language in the early teens It can learn faster and learn the lesson faster also. But it does not mean if passed, then a teenager.

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Increasing development of bilingual education and the evolution of language may be due to the population size, social, political, economical and personal requirements. Numerous researches show that learning a language can improve mental agility, it can strengthen brain, develop communicative abilities of invidividuals and strengthen and improve overall humans´ abilities and skills. The concept of bilingualism should be tackled because of the various definitions that are given to this term. Those definitions seem to share one basic element, which is the use of two given languages by a given speaker. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary bilingualism is the ability to speak two languages or the frequent use (as by a community) of two languages.

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The notion of bilingualism is frequently connected to the idea of code-switching since a person should have ability to speak using two or more than one variety. Researchers have made countless studies describing bilingualism as they create awareness in different ways. To begin with is Bloomfield (1933) who defined bilingualism as having the “native- like control of two languages”. However, Haugen (1953) pinpointed that bilingualism is the ability of a speaker to communicate and understand an additional variety. This is to mean that the concept of bilingualism exist only when an individual of a certain variety has the capability to communicate effectively in an additional variety.

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