Antagonism to Bilingual Education Programs

The public perception concerning bilingual education is bound with two related but different issues, one concerning illegal immigration, and the other concerning welfare. The public has expressed dissatisfaction with these policies as well and has demanded reform. Many of those who require bilingual education programs are indeed immigrants--not necessarily illegal immigrants, though many fail to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration when raising concerns about how tax dollars are spent. Similarly, there is a perception that many of the immigrant children are also beneficiarie

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error over several years to evolve two different methods. In one, students are plunged immediately into intensive E.S.L. (English as a Second Language) instruction in order to bring them up to the proficiency of native speakers at their grade level and get them into mainstream classes as quickly as possible. The other is the bilingual approach which allows students to take courses such as math and history in their own language while devoting a certain amount of time each day to learning English. Once the new language has been mastered, the students will be able to translate and build upon their earlier, nonEnglish instruction. Both techniques have proved appealing to students. In addition, both techniques have their drawbacks and their critics. Englishonly has been found to work better for younger students but can prove too rigorous for older children, who may grow frustrated and disinterested in school as a result: "Children who live in families and communities where a foreign language is spoken often take so long to master English that they lack basic factual knowledge once they enter mainstream courses" (Gray 1993, 68). Because of this, most teachers preferred the bilingual method. One such is Winnie Porter, a bili
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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