BILINGUAL STUDENTS

Factors Associated with Bilingual Students in my Classroom

Factors Associated with Bilingual Students in my Classroom

Introduction

While there are about 200 recognized sovereign nations, there are well over 6,000 languages spoken throughout the world. Because of increased migration, geographical proximity, and/or political conquest and colonization, few countries today can claim monolingualism as the norm. Moreover, globalization has placed English in a unique role in many school systems throughout the world. Bilingual education is one form of schooling that has been developed worldwide in response to this linguistic and cultural diversity (Arnberg, 2002, pp: 31).

The terms bilingual students and bilingual education are sometimes confused. Bilingual students know and use two languages to different degrees. Depending on the nature of access to both languages, as well as attitudes toward the languages, Bilingual students demonstrate varying proficiency in their two languages; for example, they may speak both languages but be literate in only one language. Their bilingual skills and the extent they identify culturally with the two languages may develop and vary over time. Bilingual children may or may not attend a bilingual education program (Arnberg, 2002, pp: 55).

Aims and Objectives

This research paper outlines the factors associated with bilingual students in my classroom for minority (dominated) language and majority (dominant) language speakers, using examples from nations throughout the world. After introducing some basic definitions of key terms, the entry highlights various factors that are traditionally distinguished. The next section addresses issues and trends related to the implementation of bilingual education programs.

Research Questions

What are the relationships between parents and the incidence of underachievement in bilingual students?

Do underachievement rates among Bilingual students differ between parents of working class or professional economic background?

Do underachievement rates among Bilingual students differ between parents that are divorced, separated or live together?

Discussion and Analysis

Simply defined, bilingual education is instruction that uses two languages as media of instruction. By extension, bilingual education programs aim for proficiency in more than two languages. These programs are implemented in many different forms in countries all over the world and respond to national and local contexts, student needs, and available resources (Harding, 2003, pp: 117).

The area of linguistics-based psychological and sociological foundations examines historical backgrounds and develops and integrates various theories. Researchers in this area emphasize the bilingual students and cognitive development and the effect that home and neighborhood play in this development; they investigate ways of interfacing bilingual education with minority language maintenance as well as language decay and language revival. The area involving micro-classroom pedagogy and macro-education deals with the effectiveness of bilingual programs of different types. Researchers examine essential features of bilingual classrooms that foster bilingualism and academic learning, investigate various teaching methodologies, and analyze different views of the overall value and purpose of bilingualism in conjunction with the nature of multiculturalism in society, schools, and classrooms. The sociolinguistic perspective concentrates on language planning and policy, raises critical issues reflecting diverse viewpoints about language minorities and bilingual students, investigates factors that generate disparity in preference between the assimilation of language minorities and language ...