Language diversity
Language diversity is one of the most significant issues that is facing the world today in the education sector. The contemporary world is highly interconnected and globalized. Thus people move freely move around the globe and study anywhere. This has led to many schools having students of mixed cultural and language background. For instance, Perkins High School in State College comprises of students from various cultural backgrounds. Approximately 60% of the students in Perkins High School are English, 30% are Russian while the remaining 10% comes from other minority groups, including the Mandarin, Polish and French. Teaching in such a school is very challenging; besides learning educational concepts, the learners are also learning the language used in teaching those concepts. The teacher’s beliefs regarding linguistic diversity and approaches to teaching a diverse classroom are essential in determining the learners’ success. There are various programs for multilingual learners that can improve universal learner’s performance without favouring the dominant groups in schools that have English language learners.
It is prudent not to overlook the importance of bilingual education. Bilingual education involves the teaching of two languages in accordance with the program model. Bilingual education begets bilingualism which is crucial in the contemporary world (Mayer & Akamatsu, 2013). Bilingual provides the learners with a multidimensional view in regard to the society, family, individual and disciplinary. Besides, bilingualism brings diversity that allows intercultural integration and interaction, which can lead to increased globalization and harmony across the globe (Ovando, 2003). Therefore discussing educational programs that can make multilingual learning successful is very important.
I come from the minority group; one of the programs for a multilingual group that can perfectly work in teaching a multilingual class is the Transitional Bilingual Education. This program is one of the best multilingual programs that support both academic learning and other language learning. Transitional bilingual education program involves teaching the learner in their native language for not more than three years to ensure that the learner is not left behind in essential academic subjects like mathematics, social studies and science while they learn English (García & Kleifgen, 2008). Therefore, this program supports two parallel and most important learning. First, the learner’s academic competence and progress are not affected in any way. Secondly, the learner gets to learn English or the dominant language. This program makes it easy to teach in a bilingual classroom. It is important to note that skills learnt in the native language can easily be transferred to the second language as opposed to learning the skills in the second language that the learner does not understand.
Consequently, Transitional Bilingual Education supports learners to transform into the mainstream gradually. In this program also, the learner’s; language or the minority language is not disregarded; it is upheld and used as a vehicle to develop the learner’s literacy skills and acquire academic knowledge. The main aim of this program is to assimilate learners to English; the learners leave as they become proficient in English as well as prospering in their educational endeavour. Linguistic assimilation without leaving behind academic prosperity is the main composition of the program. Transitional Bilingual education is comprehensively accepted under CR Part 154 as a program that works towards meeting the educational needs of English Language Learners (ELL) and Multilingual Learners (MLLs).
Two-Way Bilingual Education is another important program. Two-Way Immersion is a program that provides teaching in two languages; English and another partner language (García Kleifgen, 2008). This program was designed to make all learners bilingual and bi-literate. In this program, both native speakers of the partner language and native speakers of the English language are enrolled under a program known as the Developmental program or maintenance bilingual program. Two-way program or dual language immersion is, therefore, a program that helps the learner acquire academic content while learning another language at the same time. In this program, the students receive academic teachings like social studies, science and mathematics and others in the target language such as French, Spanish, Chinese or Germany. This teaching approach is good in helping the learners to acquire skills for the subject area at the same time, developing the ability to speak, read and write in another language. The sole goal for this program is to build literacy skills both in English and the other partner language such as Spanish, Chinese or French while attaining academic achievement that is above the learner’s grade level. Besides, this program is very critical since it enables the learner to develop world cultural sensitivity. In essence, the program does not only improve bilingualism but also embrace academic excellence and social cohesion through cultural exchange.
Immersion bilingual program is another program that is important in teaching bilingualism in schools. In this program, the learners are taught in the second language. The learners are engrossed in a classroom where the second language is used to teach the learners (Ovando, 2003) entirely. There are different types of this program; total Immersion, partial Immersion and two-way Immersion. In total Immersion, the learners are taught in the second language while in partial Immersion, half of the classroom time is spent teaching in the native language while the other half is used to teach in English. Two way immersions just like two-way program uses both English and the partner language in teaching the learners (Lara-Alecio & Galloway, 2004). Dual Immersion and two-way Immersion are very effective in encouraging students to work together in groups, thus learning their language differences from each other.
Various challenges are facing the bilingual programs identified. These challenges fall under three broad categories including educational stakeholder category, institutional and governmental categories. First, one of the biggest challenge facing bilingual education programs is lack of bilingual teacher training. There are not enough teachers who can comfortably and competently handle a bilingual class and be able to use or rather teach skillfully in more than two languages. Many teachers in the United States are much ready to use English in teaching than the partner language. The teachers have not received enough bilingual training. However, there have been improvements in upgrading bilingualism in the United States; more teachers who adequately trained to execute bilingualism should be trained.
Lack of adequate administrative support regarding bilingual education is another major challenge the bilingual education programs are facing. Many schools have not put strategies in place to welcome students from the minority groups and fully assimilate them in English, and this is according to CR Part 154 requirement regarding English Language Learners (ELL) (Tedick & Fortune, 2012). Not many schools have tried to incorporate the programs as mentioned above in their curriculum to cater for bilingualism needs. Lack of such administrative support continues to hinder bilingual education in many ways. Fewer resources are allocated to support bilingual programs in many learning institutions, and this stagnates the bilingual programs.
Failure to use vernacular is another challenge to the programs. It is worth understanding that the main reason why these programs should be supported is to improve learner’s ability to learn other languages and increase bilingualism globally. Teachers, instructors and tutors fail to use the vernaculars in teaching. Besides, these teachers are not proficient in the other language, they, therefore, drag the learning behind, and this degrades the learning of the other language. Embracing the use of native language in class or any other place can contribute a lot in achieving the goals of bilingualism.
The role of the community and the society at large in encouraging the in bilingual education cannot be overlooked. The community provides a suitable environment for learning other languages; it is the community that offers resources, human resources and sponsorship of all kind to ensure learning is thriving in these learning institutions. Besides, multicultural education incorporates values, beliefs, histories and perspectives of other people. In essence, multilingualism or rather multilingual education opens an avenue to multicultural education where the learner gets to understand other cultures better through teachings that incorporate the values, beliefs and perspectives of others.
In conclusion, it is important to study other languages. By studying other languages, we learn to appreciate other communities, love the value of diversity and adequately integrate into pooling ideas together, thus bettering the world. Besides, through bilingualism, we can exchange ideas, improve businesses and encourage world cohesiveness. There are various educational programs in schools that embrace bilingual educational and multicultural education; they include transitional bilingual education, two-way program and immersion bilingual program. All these programs introduce a learner to a new language to assimilate the learner to the new language but maintain educational excellence.