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Adilene Munoz

Professor: Dustin Jones

PSY:1100

10/09/2017

Language Development in Early Childhood

Dual program effectiveness

There is no one-size-fits-it-all when it comes to teaching diverse students, classrooms

around the world are bringing diverse children together. This makes it important for the students

to balance both languages, but that is not always the case. Many children forget their native

language or they might not know it as well as they should which is referred to as language loss.

Language loss occurs because of opposition to bilingual education, many people fear the it will

enhance loyalty to minority tongues and delay the process of linguistic assimilation (Crawford

287). Some children may even struggle with learning a secondary language, which puts them at

risk of failing school. There are many bilingual approaches such as immersions which all

instruction is taught only in the majority language or the secondary language that the child is

learning. There is also bilingual schooling, which is when the school subject is taught in the

learners original language and secondary language. This can also be referred to as Dual

language which is the one that I want to focus on today.

Dual language education programs are designed to help all students learn through two

languages to develop bilingualism and biliteracy, high levels of academic achievement, and

multicultural competence (Christian, 2011). It is more commonly referred to as Dual language


because it was a safer term that would not cause so much opposition compared to using the word

bilingual. When the term bilingual is not mentioned they fail to notice that minority students

are involved. Since then a number of schools offering two-way dual language education has

increased steadily since the 1980s. This program gives students the opportunity to learn a second

language and excel academically. Many studies focus on academic achievement, language and

literacy development, and cross-cultural competence. When researchers went back to those

students who had been in the program in early 1970 they were now finishing college. A lot of

them had taken more classes to better their Spanish and some had even lived in Spanish speaking

countries for some time. Many of them had also pursued careers in social work, language

teaching and other jobs where they could use their bilingual skills. They also had many diverse

friends and lived within diverse communities (Crawford 293).

Midvale Elementary is a very well-known school because of the Dual Language Program

it provides for its students. I decided to observe a first-grade classroom in this school where the

teacher was teaching the dual program. The way this works in Midvale Elementary school is that

the students are taught half the day in Spanish and half the day in English. I went to observe the

Spanish classroom first and was surprised at how diverse the classroom was. The teacher, Miss.

Ruiz was only allowed to speak Spanish to the students, if the students asked her a question in

English she would respond in Spanish. Some students understood and other were frustrated

because they werent sure what she meant. If that was the case, Miss. Ruiz would try different

methods to try to get the student to understand, such as hand motions or repeating what she said

but slower with an emphasizes on pronunciation, after a couple trys the student would finally

understand. I found that students who are in the dual program were more involved in the

classroom, they had more energy. When it came play time the students would interact more with
their counterparts. They also helped their counterparts when they were struggling, they were also

dominant in both English and Spanish. For those students who did not speak Spanish they were

learning, they knew a couple words. I believe that as they get older and continue to be in the

Dual Program they will be more dominant in Spanish.

I also observed East Midvale Elementary school, which is the school that my younger

sister attends and it does not have a Dual Program. I observed a first-grade classroom as well, I

also noticed that students who were from a diverse background were not as involved as those that

were in the Dual Program. There also wasnt very many diverse students in the classroom. The

students that were diverse werent very dominant in English, they struggled more and asked for

help more frequently. They were also the ones who seemed to be getting in trouble more often

because of side conversation with other students who had diverse background like them. The

students who were diverse seemed to interact with each other more often than with their

counterparts.

Overall, I found that Dual language programs are effective in the classroom. Research

suggests that the bilingualism developed by students in two-way dual language education has

potentially long-lasting effects on their lives by influencing their affective, cognitive, and social

perspectives. (Christian, 2011). Although, there is still a lot of work to be done to better these

programs to help low SES diverse students succeed academically. When researchers report

academic achievement, they fail to distinguish between LEP students. To know just how

effective Dual programs are we need to eliminate the problem of selection bias. We need better

studies to investigate the effectiveness for varying students under varying conditions. This is the

way that we can improve the program and make sure that we are meeting everyones educational

needs not just high SES students.


Work Cited

Christian Donna. Dual Language Education: Current Research Perspectives. International

Multilingual Research Journal, Vol. 10 no.1, Jan- Mar2016,pp.1-5.EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/19313152.2016,1118666

Berger, Kathleen. Invitation to The Life Span Second Edition. Worth Publisher, 2014.

Crawford, James. Educating English Learners, Language Diversity in the Classroom Fifth

Edition. Bilingual Education Services, INC, 2004.

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