Bilingual Education
Immersion or Bilingual Education: Is One Superior? Nationwide, about 3.5 million public school students do not know English well enough to succeed in a regular classroom. In the early twentieth century, such children would have been expected to learn English without much special help, sinking or swimming on their own. Of course, many millions of children did learn this way, but many others failed, falling further behind each year or dropping out of school altogether. Bilingual Education first appeared over 160 years ago to help ease the thousands of non-English speaking children into the American educational system and prepare then for instruction in regular English classrooms. This first program of bilingual education, still being used in some areas today, only trapped students in segregated classes that denied them the opportunity to learn English effectively. In recent years, research has shown that abandoning the current bilingual education system has "raised test scores at nearly every subject and grade level by 10-20%"(Wildavsky 2). With this new program and positive results, it is time for this nation to evaluate our bilingual education methods. The demographics of our public sch
There are several SEI programs in schools around the country to serve as models that administrators only need to share with each other in order to ensure the best programs for our bilingual students. The only concern educators and legislators should have, is the proper education of all the students in the classroom. Most of the immigrant students in grade schools, approximately three-quarters, are Spanish-speaking, so the programs stress Spanish-language teaching. This program has not been exceptionally successful thus far. On the other hand, there are a large number of people who are against this new movement. In this particular program, Spanish instruction is reduced to 30 minutes a day for Spanish-speaking students. California is an example of SEI learning. The basic results SEI is geared for are students learning and understanding more English as they are immersed in more English-speaking classes. ools are drastically changing every day with the influx of immigrant students that arrive in our country daily. According to the survey, "almost 2/3 of Hispanic parents wanted their children taught English as soon as possible, and more than 80% preferred that their children's academic courses be taught in English"(Crawford 185). This method has proven to be successful, though it requires much time from both teacher and student. By having time during the day where it is acceptable to speak Spanish, "it creates a more comfortable atmosphere for the student. With the state of California as an example of an immersion program that prospers, it would behoove our future teachers to study that program in their own school system. In a study by seven California education agencies, it was shown than an Immersion program was "60% more efficient in teaching mathematic, language, and reading than was the standard bilingual education program" (Wildavesky 1).
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