Bilingual Education and the Cycle of Native Language

The original objective of bilingualistist breeding was to ensure students would not pass along behind academically beca use up of a pitiful command of incline and to gradually check them incline as a punt language. If language-minority students were taught nigh subjects in their autochthonal tongue, proponents insisted, they potentially could shoot English without sacrificing content k instantaneouslyledge. only when bilingual directions critics present that the approach keeps students in a troll of native language dependency that at last inhibits significant progress in English language acquisition. Proponents counter that if students first learn to read in the language they are fluent in and then enthral the skills everywhere to English-their second language-they will word stronger literacy skills in the long term. Plus, they argue that in an increasingly global society, schools, far from discourage native-language retention, should work to help students maint ain their native tongues, even as they also inform them English.Complicating the debate is the range of programs that, by some peoples definition, fall to a lower place the umbrella of bilingual education. Some use bilingual education to refer only to transitional bilingual education or two-way bilingual programs while others aim any program designed for students with limit proficiency in English to be bilingual. For instance, they may refer to English-as-a-second-language programs, where students are typically taught solely in English, as bilingual education.Public sentiment against transitional bilingual education has been growing. On June 2, 1998, California voters overpoweringly approved Proposition 227, an initiative that closelyly eliminated bilingual education from the states public schools. Under the California initiative, most LEP students in that state are now placed in English- density programs. azimuth voters followed case by passing Proposition 203, a measure si milar to the California initiative, on Nov. 7, 2000. While the California initiative reduced the percentage of LEP children in bilingual education from 29 percent to 12 percent, the Arizona initiative is expected to end bilingual education because, unlike the California initiative, it makes it rattling difficult for parents to seek waivers from English immersion that would permit some bilingual education to continue. Arizona officials expect to implement the honor by fall 2001.Despite the English only message that Propositions 227 and 203 bear, the debate over how best to instruct linguistically respective(a) students is far from decided nationwide.