Bilingual Education Institute: Definition, Models, History, and Benefits

Bilingual education is a dynamic and multifaceted approach to schooling that utilizes two or more languages for instruction. This method goes beyond simply teaching a second language as a subject; instead, it integrates both languages into the curriculum, using them to teach various subjects like math, science, and history.

Core Definition of Bilingual Education

Bilingual education (BE) refers to educational settings in which two or more languages are used for language or academic content instruction, where students typically learn in both their primary (L1) and secondary (L2) languages, separately or concurrently. The aim of bilingual schools is for students to become proficient in both languages. Bilingual schools differ from traditional schools in that they do not primarily teach a second language as a subject. However, instead, students learn both languages as their primary languages and integrate the languages into all aspects of their education.

Models of Bilingual Education

The specific curriculum used in a bilingual school will depend on the school’s goals, the student’s needs, and the resources available. Bilingual education (BE) has a variety of purposes that differ with respect to program goals, populations served, duration, and language use. There are several different ways to categorize bilingual education models, one of the most common approaches being to separate programs by their end goal. These models vary based on goals, student populations, and the extent of language use.

Maintenance Bilingual Education: In a maintenance bilingual education program, the goal is for students to continue to learn about and in both languages for the majority of their education. Students in a maintenance bilingual education program should graduate being able to have a discussion about any content area in either language. Two common forms of maintenance bilingual education are two-way/dual language immersion and developmental (late-exit) bilingual education.
Two-Way Immersion (TWI): Two-Way Immersion (TWI) programs include approximately equal numbers of students who are monolingual or dominant in English at the time of enrollment and students who are monolingual or dominant in the partner language at the time of enrollment. There may also be students who have proficiency in both languages at the time of enrollment. A program that utilizes two languages, known as a dual language program, typically places students in classrooms with a mixture of native speakers for each language. One popular approach to dual language programs is the 90/10 model, where in the early grades 90% of instruction is conducted in the student's native language and 10% is taught in their second language. As the student advances, this proportion changes until an equal amount of time is spent on both languages.
Developmental Bilingual Education: One-Way DLBE programs in which all students are proficient in the partner language but not in English at the time of enrollment are typically called developmental bilingual programs. They use both languages to teach content, and they help students develop proficiency in English while maintaining and continuing to develop their skills in their home language. In a late exit or developmental program, students all have the same native language.
One-Way Immersion (OWI): One-Way Immersion (OWI) programs serve more linguistically homogeneous groups of students. One-Way DLBE whose students are all monolingual or dominant in English at the time of enrollment are generally known as foreign or world language immersion.
Bimodal Bilingual Programs: In a bimodal bilingual program, students are taught in two languages in two different modalities, typically a spoken/written language and a signed language.
Transitional Bilingual Education: In transitional (early-exit) bilingual education programs, the goal is to provide education in a child's native language to ensure that students do not fall behind in content areas such as mathematics, science, and social studies while they are learning the new language. Unlike in maintenance bilingual education programs, when the child's second language proficiency is deemed satisfactory, they transition to using only that language. This approach is based on the common underlying proficiency model of bilingualism which posits that many of the skills learned in the native language can be transferred easily to the second language later. While the linguistic goal of such programs is to help students transition to mainstream, single language classrooms, the use of the student's primary language as a vehicle to develop literacy skills and acquire academic knowledge also prevents the degeneration of a child's native language. Transitional bilingual education is the most prominent special language program in the United States with around 60% of state and locally funded programs having this title.

Language Allocation

Language allocation - the ratio of the use of English to the use of the partner language for instruction - is an important consideration in DLBE. At the French American Academy, full immersion with 80% of instruction in French is used at the preschool levels. Gradually, more English is added until it reaches a ratio of 45% English and 55% French in fifth grade. Along with full and partial immersion, the FAA also implements co-teaching classes, which begin in preschool and continue through middle school.

Bilingual Education vs. ESL

It is important to distinguish bilingual education (BE) from other programs that serve language-minority youth, such as English as a second language (ESL) instruction, where the purpose is to teach English to students who (a) have primary languages other than English and (b) have yet to become fluent in English and are identified as “English language learners” (ELLs). ESL programs are not considered bilingual education programs because they do not aim to have students become bi-literate in two (or more) languages. The goal of ESL programs is for English-language learners to learn English after having acquired one or more native languages. ESL is a supplementary, comprehensive English language learning program common in English-speaking countries and countries where English has an important role in communication as a result of colonialism or globalization. One common approach in ESL programs is sheltered English instruction (SEI). While ESL instruction is one component within BE programs in the United States, in and of itself ESL is not bilingual instruction.

Read also: Bilingual Education: Key Insights

Techniques Used in Bilingual Education

Several techniques are employed to support language learning in bilingual education settings:

Language Immersion: Language immersion is a language learning technique in which learners are fully immersed in the target language. Learners are surrounded by the language they are learning and might receive instruction, communication, and feedback in that language. Bilingual schools may use a combination of these immersion techniques or tailor them to the specific needs of their students.
Translanguaging: Translanguaging or language mixing is a strategy that emphasizes using all languages a student knows to support their learning.
Language Separation: Language separation in a classroom refers to assigning a specific language for a particular time, content, or activity with the aim of helping students concentrate on developing their skills in that language.
Instructional Scaffolding: Instructional scaffolding can be used in all types of education, not only bilingual education. A teacher scaffolds instruction to provide the necessary support for students to learn the content.
Recasting: In bilingual education, teachers may use different techniques to correct students' language errors. One such technique is recasting, which involves repeating the student's statement with corrections for any grammatical or pronunciation mistakes, akin to how parents assist their children in learning their first language.

A Historical Perspective on Bilingual Education in the U.S.

Bilingual education has been a part of the American educational landscape since before the United States was forged from a collection of fractious colonies. The country's history reveals a complex and often contradictory approach to bilingualism.

According to one report, the first instance of bilingual education in the future United States occurred with 17th-century Polish settlers in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia. At the time, the colony was in severe need of the Poles’ manufacturing skills for shipbuilding and glassworks. There have been German bilingual schools in Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and other states; bilingual schools for Scandinavian languages in the Dakotas, Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, among other states; Dutch bilingual schools in Michigan; Czech bilingual schools in Nebraska and Texas; Italian and Polish bilingual schools in Wisconsin; French bilingual schools in Louisiana, Ohio, and throughout the northeast; and Spanish bilingual schools in the southwest and, most recently, in Florida and the northeast.

Indigenous peoples faced federal language eradication policies, largely through English-only boarding schools that separated youth from elders and severely punished children for speaking indigenous languages. In contrast, during the mid-to late 1800s, European immigrants were able to implement native-language instruction in public and parochial schools at a time when local control was prevalent in nonindigenous communities. In addition to language education maintained by immigrants, autonomous language communities continued to exist, in both the colonial and expansionist eras, incorporating a range of language communities, including French-speaking communities in the Northeast, German-speaking communities in Pennsylvania, and Spanish-speaking communities in the Southwest that had existed before becoming part of the United States.

At the turn of the 20th century, learning English took a more central role within an ever-expanding public school system, largely in response to the rise of mass immigration from southern and eastern Europe and the corresponding waves of anti-immigrant sentiment directed toward non-Anglo and non-Nordic newcomers. English education formed a critical part of a school system charged with “Americanizing” immigrant-origin youth. The trend toward monolingual English education was later exacerbated by the United States' involvement in World Wars I and II, which placed additional restrictive pressures on non-English language programs that were increasingly viewed by the English-speaking society as unpatriotic and “un-American.” However, with the end of World War II and the emergence of the Cold War, an interest in foreign language learning resurfaced, especially for business development and military uses. Folk bilingualism-the development and maintenance of bilingual communities-was not encouraged.

The rise of contemporary forms of BE in the United States began with domestic and international political shifts in the 1960s. In 1963, a bilingual program was established at Coral Way Elementary School in Miami to assist Cuban refugees. Meanwhile, domestic civil rights struggles were becoming more prominent. By the late 1960s, Mexican American and American Indian groups began demanding schools in which their languages and cultures were used for teaching and learning. The civil rights movement, the War on Poverty, and the success of the Coral Way School created conditions that favored the passage of the Bilingual Education Act (1968), which provided funding to serve children who were not fluent English speakers. Subsequently, the Lau v. Supreme Court decision ruled that schools were required to have language accommodations for students who entered school with “limited English proficiency,” and to ensure that students had equal access to instruction.

For the next 30 years, through different presidential administrations, the status of bilingual approaches to educating language minority students rose and fell. Studies, evaluations, and research reviews appeared that presented differing views of bilingual education’s effects on student achievement. Polemics proliferated. At times, bilingual education was favored, or at least not slated for elimination. At other times, most recently with the 2001 reauthorization of ESEA under the No Child Left Behind Act, bilingual education was left far behind, no longer part of the federal framework for the education of English learners as it had been since 1968.

Benefits of Bilingual Education

Since the 1970s, research has shown that learning in two languages opens the door to many benefits, including enhanced cognitive development, improved problem-solving skills, and increased cultural awareness.

Aside from developing greater cultural and language skills, bilingual education provides students with many cognitive benefits, such as better problem-solving skills, multitasking, and a more remarkable ability to focus. Those benefits occur due to the unique demands of bilingual education, which requires students to switch between languages, think in two languages, and compare and contrast different concepts and ideas from different nations’ curricula. Bilingual education gives students more extensive language skills and the ability to communicate effectively in different cultural settings. It also promotes cultural diversity and understanding, exposing students to different cultures and ways of thinking.

Apart from the obvious intellectual and cultural advantages of speaking two or more languages, bilingualism has been linked to a number of other positive outcomes. Beyond the cognitive benefits, recent studies suggest that bilingualism may also have economic benefits for young adults related to employment, promotion, and earnings.

Challenges and Considerations

The disadvantage of bilingual education is that it is a long-term journey. Resistance to bilingual education is sometimes rooted in xenophobia and ethnic prejudice, although clearly not all bilingual education skeptics are prejudiced xenophobes. For many Americans, this national identity is tightly bound to speaking English.

Bilingual programs for language revitalization are tricky; each language is different, and there is a lack of educational resources and training for teachers in that specific language. Furthermore, there is not enough research done on what the goal for bilingual programs is: is it cultural acknowledgment or bilingualism? Quite often there is a clash between the government educational policies and the actual implementation of said policies.

Bilingual Education Today

It is not surprising that bilingual schools are gaining popularity. In today’s increasingly globalized world, the advantages of bilingual education are undeniable. In Oregon, an explosion of interest in dual-language programs led the state to award nearly $900,000 in grants for additional programs in 2013, adding to the programs that already existed in 70 schools throughout the state. Parents and students in Washington, D.C., have also demonstrated their desire for bilingual programs. At one of the city’s eight dual-language immersion schools, nearly 1,100 applicants applied for 20 spots in 2013. The Seattle area now boasts 30 bilingual preschool options, and the parents driving this demand are not necessarily bilingual themselves. School districts, seeing the benefits bilingual education offers to their students, are also actively fighting for these programs. Despite legislation in California that has come close to eliminating bilingual education, 30 percent of students in the San Francisco Unified School District are enrolled in bilingual programs. This is in large part due to the district’s efforts to reach out to parents and notify them of the option to authorize their children’s placement in one of these programs.

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