Bilingual Education

Paper Summary:

Bilingual education programs set up to provide support to non-English-speaking children allow immigrant children to keep up with studies in other academic subjects while they work on their English skills. The paper shows that the controversy over the effectiveness of bilingual education programs continues to rage in the community as educators attempt to find ways to accommodate the needs of the increasing numbers of immigrant children. Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence that bilingual education programs or other strategies provide the best education for immigrant children. The paper discusses how past experiences have shown that immigrant children from different parts of the world perform differently in response to particular strategies. Socio-economic backgrounds of the immigrant children may also be a decisive factor in determining the outcome of the children's success. The paper concludes that it is ultimately up to the parents and educators to collaborate in order to provide an education that caters to the individualized needs of their children.

From the Paper:

"However, critics of bilingual education point out that bilingual education programs have been an utter failure in enabling immigrant children to succeed in schools. Even after thirty years of implementation, there is still no indication that bilingual education programs work in helping non-English-speaking students succeed. They argue that immigrant children are still dropping out of schools in droves and few immigrant children transition to full English instruction classes (Rothstein, 1998, p. 672). According to these critics, the premise of bilingual education classes is a divisive concept that slows down the assimilation process of these immigrant children. By keeping children straddled between two worlds, bilingual education advocates are sabotaging the immigrant children's chances of learning a sufficient level of English to allow them to survive in the workplace (Rothstein, 1998, p. 672). Immigrant children who are immersed in their native language at school and at home will not feel the incentive to tackle the difficult challenge of learning another language (Rothstein, 1998, p. 679)."

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