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Problems with the Bilingual Program

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Submitted By cocacola1
Words 1554
Pages 7
Sandra Saenz
Mr. Jose M. Jimenez
ENG 102
20 July 2014
Problems with the Bilingual Program Today in schools in the United States there is an increasing number of students who do not speak English. According to the Brain.org , indicates about “1 in 5 United States citizens spoke another language other than English in their homes. Even though the findings that do not imply to these people that do not speak English too, the census also revealed that about 10 percent speaks English less fluently or not at all”. Thanks to this increase, school districts have implemented bilingual programs that help to improve the skills of students in English language development. These programs have been so well received that other programs were created to meet the same academic level in English, such as Spanish. In this way, the Spanish language is maintained and improved. “We could talk about bilingual education, which often turns out to be monolingual education and in the wrong tongue.” (Kennedy et al. 505) Multiple studies show the benefits of bilingual education, but bilingual programs do not receive the support required to carry out an adequate bilingual education. These problems are; lack of management support and lack of qualified personnel. These are the main challenges that bilingual education faces at this time. Lack of language development opportunity complicates the situation of the bilingual program. Bilingual education is the implementation of two languages; this is an educational response to the problems of students with limited English proficiency. Bilingual education is the use of the native language for instructional purposes while student are learning English as a second language. Bilingual programs generally tend to be underserved, given limited resources, and mismanaged. The main problem that is hurting the bilingual program is its poor implementation.

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