Bringing students who are struggling with English to a higher proficiency level has undergone an interesting makeover, the Houston Chronicle reported last week.
The experimental education places students who are struggling in mastering English with proficient English-speaking children, but the classroom is taught in two languages.
The end result: bilingual students – at least that’s what legislators hope.
And the debate with America being a one-language nation has started up once again. People fail to recognize, though, that the program’s main concern is for struggling students to bolster their academic achievement – in English. Being bilingual is just a sweet surprise in the end.
Immigration isn’t up for debate, either. Leave that for another piece of legislation. The challenge for educators across the country is to educate any child that crosses those doors, no matter in what condition they may be.
After all, 731,000 children in public Texas schools don’t speak English as a first language, the Chronicle reported – not to mention the age-old adage on how America is one of the few countries where many of its citizens don’t know how to speak more than one language.
Success has already been documented in dual-language educational programs. An elementary school in Spring Branch Independent School District will be ranked exemplary after two years of recognized ratings after a test run of a dual language program, the Chronicle reported.
The standard academic curriculum can be difficult enough for a proficient English speaker, but dual language programs give an extra boost of help for those who aren’t proficient.
