Literature Review
Introduction
The growing popularity of bilingual education in the United States has added pressure to determine the most effective way to teach students that are not yet proficient in English. The dual language (DL) program also known as two-way immersion (TWI) program is amongst the different approaches to bilingual education. The TWI program is one of the few bilingual programs in the country that have the continued maintenance of the first language as an explicit goal (Alanis & Rodriguez, 2008). The purpose of this paper is to describe a DL program, compare the program to other bilingual programs, to summarize the impact on student perspectives and achievement as well as to outline suggested challenges of the DL program.
Description of Dual Language Program
Within a DL program, there are two dimensions: (i) the adjustment of the ratio between
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During this program, students began their DL education in kindergarten or first grade. Afterwards, they were then identified as ELLs or English-dominant (ED) students. The study indicated that when data was collected after year 4, it was difficult to distinguish the ELL student from the ED. For example, on the 2002 state Language Arts assessment, 47% of the general education students and 25% of transitional students achieved a Proficiency level. However, 80% of the DL students achieved a Proficiency level that same academic year. According to DeJesus (2008), by the 2004 – 2005 school year, ED students in DL program were the highest performing student group in the school and the district. DeJesus (2008) also argued that this case study alone cannot prove the positive outcomes of DL education. These program outcomes cannot be used for determining statistical predictions on future achievement levels of students in a DL program. However, these patters on success should not be fully