In recent years, bilingual education, a dual-language program designed to provide equal educational opportunities to students of limited English proficiency, has become a controversial topic in the United States. While some people firmly believe that one has the freedom to speak whichever language one chooses, others believe that the use of any language other than English in the United States creates divisiveness (Orozco p.79). However, due to the fact that there are many different nationalities in the United States, bilingual education can facilitate learning for people with different ethnic backgrounds. Bilingual education expedite the process by maintaining the fluency of the native language, improving the academic proficiency of the second language learned, raising sense of confidence and self-esteem, making the transition into a new environment less intimidating, and encouraging the acceptance and tolerance of different cultures; therefore, the advantages of bilingual education outweighs the disadvantages.
             In the past years, students, especially at the elementary school level, have come from various places in the world to the United States to study. Some people argue that, under such circumstances, it is easier for students to learn with the language that they understand. In accordance with this belief, students should therefore fully develop fluency in their native language before learning a second language. By doing so, bilingual education helps students achieve academic proficiency in a second language, in this case English (Orozco p.79). For bilingual students, school is usually an "essential agent" (Baker p.226) to develop their heritage language. This means that students must be taught to read and write in their native language before they are taught those skills in English.
             Secondly, students in bilingual programs develop fluency in English more quickly and efficiently than students in English-only classes. S...