Running head: BILINGUAL EDUCATION ACT
Bilingual Education Act
Gaberielle Miller
Kennesaw State University
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BILINGUAL EDUCATION ACT
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Bilingual Education Act
The Bilingual Act of 1968 authorized schools to provide bilingual education programs.
Under this law, schools were to teach students content in both English and their native language.
Although this act went through many changes, its main goal was to provide funds to school
districts that wanted to develop a bilingual program, research the program, train their staff, and
provide educational resources. All in all, the Bilingual Act gave Spanish-speaking students the
chance to appreciate their native language and their culture (Orr, 2011).
According to Krashen, bilingual education is a combination of approaches in the
classroom that uses the native languages of English language learners (ELLs) for instruction. The
goal of a bilingual program is to teach English, foster academic success, acculturate immigrants
to a new society, preserve a minority group’s linguistic and cultural heritage, empower English
speakers to learn a second language, and develop national language resources (Krashen, 2014).
I had the opportunity to analyze an article written by Dr. Jose Cardenas. Dr. Cardenas has
been a strong advocate of multicultural and bilingual programs for 25 years. In his article,
Current Problems in Bilingual Education, Cardenas states that although general bilingual
programs have been effective, the program has not generally been accepted by the education
community. Dr. Cardenas feels that the program could be more successful if we address the
problematic areas: lack of language development and opportunity, limited use of the native
language, premature transition to English, inadequacies of instructional materials, lack of
bilingual teacher training, lack of administrative support, failure to use the vernacular,
xenophobia, low expectations and lastly rules and regulations. In summary, Cardenas feel that
bilingual education is not successful because they are reluctantly implemented and adequately
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staffed. Furthermore, bilingual programs are poorly administered and there is a limited amount
of resources available. (Cardenas, 1993).
Lightbrown & Spada pointed out that children who already know one or more languages
and who arrive at their first day of school without an age-appropriate knowledge of the language
of the school, have often been misdiagnosed as having language delays or disorders. For this
reason, the student might be placed in remedial or special education classes because schools are
not equipped to provide an adequate assessment of children’s ability to use their home language
or of their general cognitive abilities or their knowledge of school subjects learned through
language (Lightbrown & Spada, 2013).
In order to stop the misdiagnosing of limited English proficiency (LEP) students, I think
that all schools should have a bilingual program. Not only will this program use student’s native
language to teach academic content, but this program will also provide additional English
language instruction. Moreover, it preserves children’s sense of pride in the language of their
parents, allows them to move freely in an English-language dominant society, and it helps
protect their sense of identity (National Latino Children's Institute, 2013). By doing this, teachers
will help students develop academic aptitude they need to succeed in life (Lightbrown & Spada,
2013).
As you can see, implementing the bilingual education act has its benefits; however, there
are a few modifications that need to be made in order to make the program effective. First off,
schools need to make certain that they are implementing the program with educators who are
willingly to go above and beyond to make sure that their students are successful. Additionally,
schools need to provide meaningful professional development opportunities to create master
teachers. Schools need to make sure that they provide teachers with adequate resources and
BILINGUAL EDUCATION ACT
effectively administer assessments. Addressing these issues will open doors to many personal,
social, and economic opportunities (Lightbrown & Spada, 2013).
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References
Cardenas, J. (1993). Current Problems in Bilingaul Education. Intercultural Development
Research Association, 2.
Krashen, S. (2014). Bilingual Education. Retrieved June 26, 2014, from National Association of
Bilingual Education: http://www.nabe.org/BilingualEducation#What_is_bilingual
Lightbrown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2013). How Languages are Learned. Oxford, United Kingdom:
OXFORD University Press.
National Latino Children's Institute. (2013, July 1). Retrieved June 23, 2014, from The Benefits
of Bilingual Education: http://www.nlci.org/press/Past%20articles/bilinged.htm
Orr. (2011, 5 7). Bilingual Education Act of 1968. Retrieved 06 23, 2014, from Immigration in
America: http://immigrationinamerica.org/379-bilingual-education-act-of-1968.html