BILINGUAL LANGUAGE

Should all the university-level students be required to become at least bilingual before they graduate?

Should all the university-level students be required to become at least bilingual before they graduate?

Introduction

Languages are learned most readily during the toddler and preschool years and, to a lesser extent, during elementary school. Therefore, children growing up in bilingual homes and/or receiving bilingual education easily acquire both languages. Throughout much of the world, bilingualism is the norm for both children and adults. In the past, immigrants to the United States often began learning and using English in their homes as soon as possible. In the early 2000s, however, many immigrants choose to maintain their native language at home. Bilingual children are at an advantage in this increasingly multilingual nation.This paper will be discussing the argument about if all the university-level students be required to become at least bilingual before they graduate? In my opinion that yes all student must be required to become at least bilingual before they graduate because there are many reasons behind. These will be discussed in the discussion section.

Discussion

Bilingual education has been dismantled in three states, and is slowly dissolving in several others. This is a major attack: The three states that passed anti-bilingual education initiatives enroll 43% of the English language learners in the United States (Crawford, 2003). This should never have happened. The case for bilingual education is very strong, but somehow this information has never reached the public. I will briefly review the strong case for bilingual education, discuss what went wrong, and suggest what could be done about this in the future. I will suggest that the cure is better public relations (but not necessarily from public relations professionals), and even better programs.

The Strong Case for Bilingual Education

Bilingual education has two independent goals, and both are worthy, but they are independent. One goal I term English, and by this I mean what Jim Cummins means, academic English, the language of school, coupled with academic success. A second goal can be termed the Heritage Language goal, the maintenance and development of the heritage language and an appreciation of the heritage culture.

The Research is Impressive

In terms of the first goal, English, bilingual education has done well. The research is consistent: students in bilingual programs typically do at least as well on tests of English reading as comparison students in all-English programs, and often do better (for reviews, see Willig, 1985; Greene, 1997; for a current exemplary study, see Oller & Eilers, 2002).

The Two Pillars of Bilingual Education

There are two ways bilingual education helps English language develop and contributes to academic success, two pillars of bilingual education. The first ("background knowledge") is the fact that when students have a good education in their first language, they get background knowledge, and this knowledge helps make the English they hear and read more comprehensible. The second ("literacy transfers") is that developing literacy in the first language is a short cut to developing literacy in the second ...