Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PSY:1100
10/09/2017
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
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
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
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
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
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