communicate effectively in English. This view is expressed by Banks (1981): "Because the United States needs a national language, literacy in standard English should be taught in schools; however, because of the linguistic diversity in the United States, the equal educational opportunity language policies that foster respect for linguistic differences should be sustained" (p. 176). If this approach is not taken, the result is that most LEP students will be excluded from the chance to make the best use of their academic opportunities. This creates a serious problem in terms of America's overall educational success. In the words of Haberman and Post (1990), "the numbers of minority children in our schools is now so large that if they do not succeed, all Americans will have diminished futures" (p. 32). This shows that bilingual and bicultural education programs are important in the maintenance of high standards in a multicultural society.
In the past, the American educational system was focused on the use of "immersion techniques" in order to teach LEP children proficiency in English. The idea behind these techniques was to immerse the child in the English-speaking school culture (Valencia, 1992, p. 132). It was felt that this approach to teaching would enable the LEP students to become assimilated into the English-speaking culture as quickly as possible (Ambert & Melendez, 1985, p. 10). However, by utilizing this approach, educators denied the importance of the native languages of LEP children. Valencia (1992) has claimed that immersion techniques failed in their effort to assimilate various ethnic groups into American society. In fact, such techniques tended to hamper the further educational development of minority children. This failure was due to four major factors. Thus, the immersion programs resulted in: (1) negative perceptions toward the minority students; (2) many minority students being assigned to curriculum "t...