Bilingual Education

Transitional bilingual education (TBE):

• The goal is to prepare students to enter mainstream English classrooms (a transition usually completed within two or three years) by providing a portion of instruction in children's native language to help them keep up in school subjects, while they study English in designed for second-language learners.

• The bulk of federal Title VII grants must support this approach, requiring only that some amount of native language and culture be used.

• TBE refers to a range of approaches from stressing native-language development to nothing more than the translation services of bilingual aides.

• Studies have shown that English is the medium of instruction from 72 to 92 percent of the time in TBE programs."

• TBE is referred to as a compensatory model meaning it is compensating for students' needs or as subtractive bilingualism attempting to replace a child's native tongue with English as quickly as possible.

• TBE is associated with low level of proficiency in both languages and underachievement in school.

Maintenance or developmental bilingual education:

• The goal is to preserve and enhance students' skills in the mother tongue while they acquire a second language.

• Maintenance bilingual education is considered an enrichment model, adding to students' linguistic abilities or additive bilingualism, continuing the development in both languages.

Submersion Programs:

• Submersion is also referred to as "sink or swim."

• Students who speak languages other than English receive no special language assistance.

• Submersion is a violation of federal civil rights law based on the U.S. Supreme Court case Lau v. Nichols (1974). (However, NCLB creates considerable ambiguity about this, as do the various laws in the individual states that limit how much assistance ELL students may have.)

Enrichment Immersion Programs:

• Enrichment immersion programs focus on developing second language abilities of students who speak the majority, dominant language (English speakers learning Spanish).

Structured Immersion Programs:

• Structured immersion programs focus on developing second language abilities of students who speak a minority language (Spanish speakers learning English).

• Structured immersion programs is supported by some U.S. Department of Education officials.

• Structured immersion programs can easily become submersion programs because they rely heavily on the use of English over developing or maintaining the first language.

Alternate Immersion Programs:

• Alternate immersion programs are most often referred to as "sheltered English."

• Students receive second-language instruction that is "sheltered" from input beyond their comprehension, first in subjects that are less language-intensive, such as math, and later in those that are more language intensive, such as social studies.

• Lessons can be presented in one language one day and then the second language the next day.

Concurrent Translation Programs:

• Teachers shifts between languages to communicate each idea.

• Concurrent translation programs are wide spread.

• Researchers have discredited concurrent translation programs.

• Children often ignore the second language.

• Teachers tend to favor one language or the other, usually not developing both languages.

• Teachers tend to not make English intelligible.

Adapted from:

Crawford, J. (1991). Bilingual education: History, politics, theory, and practice, Second Edition. Los Angeles, CA: Bilingual Educational Services, Inc.