Two Languages Are Better Than One Essay

In the bilingual education, one of the most common approaches is transitional bilingual education (TBE). TBE programs include ESL. However most classes are directed in children 's home languages until they get proficiency for English only classes. For instance children who have not sufficiency in English might not be ready to learn academic subjects in English.

Learning a foreign language exercises the brain and improves learning ability. According to Mary Lynn Redmond of Wake Forest University, students enrolled in a foreign language class tend to score higher on standardized tests, such as the SAT (“Foreign Language Important in Elementary School”). “Learning languages helps increase listening ability, memory, creativity and critical thinking,” she says. These skills are vital to academic success. Bilingualism could also help keep brains healthy by aiding in the prevention of mental diseases such as Alzheimer’s (“Languages Build Better Brains”).

Since parents tend to have limited English language skills, the communication between school and parent is limited. (Huffcut 34). Hmong parents who do not speak English insist that their children communicate in their native language and keep up Hmong traditions (Vang, F. 4). First generation Hmong American college students do not perform as well as other students because of language barrier too. Students whose parents are illiterate in English or their primary language are more likely to be underachievers in school (Vang, C. 10).

In addition, research shows students are doing better when they are in bilingual programs. Pac (2012) writes “Facilitating instruction in both heritage languages and English, bilingual education specifically improved language minorities’ educational access, self-esteem, and personal and professional achievements” (Pac 2012, p.195). Students feel more comfortable when they are studying in the environment with their peers who are in the same English level, and they are more willing to practice in the class. However, when emergent bilinguals have to speak with unfamiliar language in the class, students will feel shame to ask questions because they will think other students will laugh at them since they are the only one who does not understand questions, which make them have lower self-esteem.

This limited proficiency can undermine students’ ability to complete school tasks (Keuhn, 1996; Vang, 2005), including science and math (Miller & Scheller, 2010). Children whose home language is the same as the school language, on the other hand, are able to transfer discussions between the two settings more easily, which could support the completion of homework and other school tasks (Hong & You, 2012). Children who hear a different language at home than the one used at school have a wide variety of possible language trajectories (Hoff,

There are many strategies that can improve the communication in the class for teachers. I will start my essay by describing what is a bilingual education, the barriers of communication in classroom and finally I will elaborate few strategies on how to improve communication in a bilingual classroom. According to McCarty (2010),

Once a child has learned a first language, the following study becomes simple because the learning abilities have been already tested. Learning new words becomes easier and creating links with already known languages helps a lot in learning of a new language. There are some disadvantages, however. Bilingual people generally know fewer words in a semantic area than the monolingual. Also verbal reactions may be slightly slower because needs a extra thinking caused by known many languages.

However, many kids learn to speak another language, beside English, at home from their parents. Sometimes, it is the primary language. The primary language could be learned before English. Foreign languages should be required at elementary schools because it helps the students become more culturally diverse, students get more opportunities and foreign language can helps students relate to other students better.

And in this case, bilingual instructional support can be practical to help students learn common subjects well in a language that they can understand. Thereupon, they won’t fall behind because of the language difficulty. Besides, the acquirement of English proficiency is equally important to LEP students’ academic development. Bilingual education can not only be helpful in school curriculum, but also is a practical program in which LEP students are able to learn both English and their primary language and also use their first language to acquire English proficiency for a long run.

So not only do both groups learn and work with two languages they meet new people they wouldn't have met or had class if it was not for those bilingual classes. Studies have been made to show the effects of bilingual education and how students would benefit from being in a bilingual class, “ELLs who had gotten waivers to remain in small bilingual programs were equally proficient in English and did just as well on state tests when compared with ELLs in English-only programs” (Sanchez). So bilingual education can improve the communication between ELL students

One of them is that some students can feel different or rejected because they are receiving bilingual education. Another one, is that sometimes the classrooms have problems with the level of language fluency between the students. Also, some students can feel frustrated and confused with this education system. Another issue with the bilingual education is the need for teacher preparation programs to include training in classroom-based assessments. In the article “Assessing Bilingual/Multilingual Pre-K–12 Students”, Virginia Gonzalez states "With adequate training, teachers can use classroom-based assessments as individualized tools that can tap into the language, cultural, and idiosyncratic differences present in multilingual/bilingual students".

Teachers that are receptive to emergent bilingual students have an in depth understanding of how language and subject matter education occur and have a broad span of tactics and methods to education as well. The only and greatest way for emergent bilingual students to achieve success in school is if we give them real chances in our classrooms to use language. According to Lucas, Henze, and Donato, there are a couple things we can do as teachers to contribute to the success of emergent bilingual students in our classrooms. We should put worth on language and culture and have high hopes for our emergent bilingual students. When one student in my practicum class went to Mexico for two weeks, my cooperating teacher made it a point to ask her about her trip and allowed the student to tell the class about her family in Mexico.

They are also important at home where children learn their first grammatical concepts from their parents. If you grow up learning incorrect grammar, it puts you at an immediate disadvantage. At some point in their life everyone wants to be a leader and grammar and communication skills are absolutely necessary to effectively give directions and provide assurance of leading ability. With the United States being mixed with different nationalities and foreign language speakers, hearing consistent, proper English would encourage newcomers in becoming fluent. Being a new resident of the United States and an English learner, I try to speak as good as possible and I really think that people can’t tell that I am not a native English speaker.

There were two questions of which were used for this research: “In what ways have reforms emphasizing high-stakes tests influenced the instructional practices and the learning experiences of ELLs in high school? What are the language policy implications of the focus on assessment?” (Menken, 2010, p.524). After analyzing the interviews, it was found that “teaching to the test” was brought up “94 times” (). Although some test can be taken in the students’ native language there is fear that teachers are only focusing on increasing the amount of time on that language than on English.

After I watched the episode of “Think Tank” that discussed the aftermath of Proposition 227 in California, I realized how contentious the debate about bilingual education has been in the past and how it still continues to be today. The video hosted Dr. Krashen, an advocate of second-language acquisition and bilingual education, and Mr. Unz, an advocate of English-Only Education, in a debate about the effectiveness of bilingual education and Proposition 227. On one side of the debate is Mr. Unz, the author of Proposition 227. He claims that the English-Only method is more effective than the Bilingual Education approach for teaching Limited English Proficient (LEP) students.