Children In Bilingual Education

Improved Essays
The United States is a country made up of many different racial groups, with White Americans being the largest and Hispanic and Latino Americans being the second largest. Due to the increasing amount of Hispanics and Latinos immigrating to the U.S., I feel as though the U.S. needs to enforce the Spanish language into education, along with the English language. Allowing students to learn Spanish at a younger age will allow them to become proficient in both English and Spanish. In order to enforce bilingual education programs, certain reforms will have to take place. Innovative models such as dual language, bilingual immersion and developmental bilingual education could be enforced to help students learn Spanish. These programs are designed …show more content…
Some would like to argue that bilingual education will prevent students from learning English. They even do not want public school systems to have a bilingual curriculum, and if families want them, then they’ll have to do the education independently (Le 459). I can see why some people would think a bilingual education would prevent children from learning English, but scientific studies show how children in bilingual programs typically have better test scores of English than the children in an all-English immersion program (Hamilton …show more content…
Others state state bilingual programs teach only in the native language while another state immigrant, particularly Spanish-speakers, are refusing to learn English. The truth is, most bilingual education programs actually introduce English immediately. The program then uses ESL (stands for English as a Second Language instruction) on the first day. By the time children are in third grade, seventy-five percent of their subject matter is English and the seventy-five percent becomes ninety percent by the time students reach fifth grade. As for the other myth about foreigners refusing to learn English, only about seven percent of immigrants cannot speak English. Also, Spanish speakers are actually learning English at the same rate of other diverse groups. Another study claims Spanish speakers born in the U.S. are actually better at speaking, reading and writing in English better than they do in Spanish by the time they graduate from high school (Hamilton 441-442). As a Spanish-speaker born in the U.S., I completely agree with the last study because I actually can speak, read and write in English better than

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