Primary Language Instructional Theory Synopsis
             Reed and Railsback (2003) maintain that a "basic knowledge of language
             acquisition theories is extremely useful for mainstream classroom teachers
             and directly influences their ability to provide appropriate reading
             instruction to ESL students. It is especially important in those schools
             or districts where limited resources result in little or no instructional
             support in a student's native language. In these "sink-or-swim"
             situations, a committed mainstream teacher with a clear understanding of
             language acquisition can make all the difference". There are various types
             of strategies that have been developed to address the primary instruction
             of ESL students. Three programs that include various strategies are:
            
• Developmental Bilingual Programs
            
• Two-Way Immersion Programs or Dual-Language or Bilingual
            
• Newcomer Programs
             Primary Language Instruction (Antunez, 2004) is used to help students
             keep up with academic content, but the focus is on phasing students into
             English-only instruction as quickly as possible. Upon the move into an
             English-only classroom, the student's primary language is not neglected,
             but it is also not developed in the academic setting. Therefore, the ESL
             student may experience problems with learning the language, thus also
             inhabiting their ability to learn how to read in English. The main
             emphasis of the student's education becomes the learning of the curriculum
             or reading the written English word. The ESL student may begin to feel
             overwhelmed and experience feelings of frustration. The teacher will need
             to explore different methods to discover what will work with each ESL
             student and help them to become interested in not only learning to speak
             English, but to also read the new language (Garcia, 2000).
             The goal of the Two-Way Immersion o...