BILINGUAL EDUCATION

Bilingual Education

Bilingual Education

Introduction

English has become the main language of communication for citizens in United States but, there are still significant differences in knowledge and use of English among the countries of Northern and Southern Europe. It is interesting to that, from a continental American perspective, the English can be considered neither a foreign language nor a language which is wholly owned by its native speakers but a second language is the most powerful language of communication within America. In the American context, with a large number of bilingual communities multilingual, English is in many cases a second but a third language. For example, speakers of minority languages like Frisian, Breton, Sardinian or Euskera learn majority languages also studying English. Many majority language speakers in bilingual communities also learn languages minority community, and learn English. On the other hand, it is very common to learn more from a language of communication within America and internationally.

Historical Development

The early learning of English in the school context is becoming increasingly common. However, the teaching of English from childhood education is not very common in other American countries where education foreign language often starts in primary school. Nor is there evidence sufficient to demonstrate the positive effect of the introduction of English at a young age the acquisition of this language when the acquisition occurs in school settings. In our context, the teaching of English from an early age was characterized by the Reform the educational system and, since 2003, the teaching of foreign languages was compulsory from the third grade of primary school. In some communities, this early introduction already had advanced to early childhood education (from age four) before the generalization of the Reformation. For example, the early introduction of English from childhood education in various centers of the Basque Country and Navarra began an initiative of the Federation Ikastolas during 2000-2002. This initiative has been extremely popular and now teaching English as a third language takes place from four years in most schools in the Basque Autonomous Community. This trend also is present in other communities. It is necessary to consider that the early introduction of foreign languages should be studied relation to the educational context in which it occurs, and all students in the Community Basque Country and for a considerable number of students in Navarra, English is the third language in a bilingual education system. In such a situation are bilingual students are not Anglophone communities that have two languages in the system Education: Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia, Friesland, Britain, etc. English is also the third language in the case of immigrant communities who use the language of their country of origin and host country and learn English at school. The acquisition of English as a third language has many features in common with acquisition of English as a second language but also have differences.

The acquisition third language, as the second language is related to a large number of individual and social factors but also the ...