The second weak form of Bilingual Education is Mainstreaming with pull-out or push-in classes.  This is the same form of Bilingual Education as mainstreaming, but with one difference.  In this form, language minority students are taken out of their classes at times and taught content-based ESL or English language skills.  Push-in is where an ESL teacher comes into the mainstream classroom to provide ESL instruction.  Sometimes this push-in ESL teacher becomes a person who stands near the desk of an ELL student pointing to what he/she needs to do while the classroom teacher delivers his/her lesson.  Other times the classroom teacher may work with the ESL teacher to effectively collaborate and reflect together on the progress of their ELL student(s).  While pull-out and push-in ESL is better than nothing, it still leaves much to be desired (Baker & Wright, 2021, 214).

              A third form is Sheltered/Structured immersion.  In Sheltered/Structured immersion teacher modify their instruction for students who are not yet proficient in the majority language.  In California and other states this form is referred to as SDAIE-Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English.  In Sheltered/Structured Immersion academic instruction is designed to make it comprehensible for ELLs.  The teaching is also designed to facilitate the ELLs English language development.  Many times, these types of classrooms contain both language minority and language majority students.  Teacher may end up focusing more attention on the students who have higher levels of English proficiency.  All three of these forms of Bilingual Education are assimilationist.  They fail to build on students’ strengths and neglect students’ bilingual development (Baker & Wright, 2021, 2016).     
          Finally there are Transitional Bilingual Programs, which are much preferable to monolingual forms of education.  However, the aim of Transitional Bilingual education is still assimilationist.  The difference between the three very weak forms of Bilingual Education and Transitional Bilingual Education programs is that the latter temporarily allows the use of the language minority students home language.  The goal is to decrease the use of the students’ home language in the classroom while increasing the use of the majority language in the classroom.  In the US, Transitional Programs usually start when the language minority student enters Kindergarten and seek to fully transition the student to all English instruction by end of third grade (Baker & Wright, 2021, 219).    

Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2021). 1. In Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. essay, Multilingual Matters. 

            Another strong form of Bilingual Education is Heritage Language Education (although it can be weak depending on how it is implemented and developed).  Heritage Language Education refers to a wide variety of programs (both in and out of school) that give students an opportunity to develop higher levels of proficiency in their home languages.  Heritage Language Programs may be considered a strong form of Bilingual Education when the home language of language minority students is used to form instruction with the goal of full bilingualism.  The native language of the students is protected and cultivated while the majority language is developed.  Heritage language programs in the US vary in both content and structure.  The strongest forms of Heritage Language Programs may resemble a 90/10 model of dual language education.  Heritage language education is more concerned with preserving the ethnic language and culture of the language minority student than the two-way dual bilingual schools (Baker & Wright, 2021, 237).  

                 Immersion Bilingual Education is also a strong form of Bilingual Education.  Immersion Bilingual Education aims to help majority language speakers become bilingual and biliterate.  Immersion Bilingual Education is different than two-way dual language schools because the language backgrounds of the students are different.  Immersion schools usually only contain language majority students learning much or some of their curriculum through a second language while two-way dual language bilingual schools function with the goal of containing a balanced mix of children from two or more different language backgrounds.  Immersion schools are located throughout the world and many times have societal, political or and economic rationale (Baker & Wright, 2021, 237).  

 

Baker, C., & Wright, W. E. (2021). 1. In Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. essay, Multilingual Matters.