Comparing Strong and Weak Bilingual Education Programs by Thomas S Adsit

Strong Bilingual Programs

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 03:25:32 UTC

A bilingual program is considered strong when it fosters the minority language in the students as well as the associated culture and identity (Baker & Wright, 2017, p. 444). The aim in these programs is bilingualism and biliteracy.

Immersion vs. Maintenance/Heritage Language Programs

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 03:31:29 UTC

These are similar programs where language in the classroom is bilingual. Immersion programs are designed for students in the language majority with an emphasis on L2 and maintenance programs are designed for students in the language minority with an emphasis on L1.

Two-Way/Dual Language

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 03:34:21 UTC

Featuring students in both the language majority and language minority, dual language programs place equal weight on L1 and L2 to achieve bilingualism for all students in the class.

Mainstream Bilingual

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 03:43:21 UTC

In Europe, Content and Language Integrated Learning programs have become popular and these a similar programs worldwide are examples of mainstream bilingual programs. Here, language majority students learn certain content areas in a their L2. In the US, we may refer to these as sheltered English immersion programs.

Weak Bilingual Programs

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 03:46:51 UTC

Pictured here is a steamroller. Weak bilingual programs tend to transition bilingual learners to a majority language to assimilate them to the mainstream without longterm consideration for their own identities. Although it is possible to use education to strengthen a minority language at the expense of the majority language in separatist cases.

Transitional Bilingual Education

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 04:02:40 UTC

In essence, an assimilationist program, transitional bilingual education only temporarily allows minority language speakers the opportunity to use their home language and than gradually increase the use of the majority language as the child advances in education.

World Language Learning

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 04:13:00 UTC

Often found in the United States, languages other than English are taught as subjects in school as world languages. Students likely never attain proficiency and do not have opportunities to speak a world language with native speakers.

Separatist

adsi7138 — 2024-10-23 04:17:45 UTC

Occasionally, minority language groups will exclude themselves from the mainstream to replace educational programs with their own in order to eliminate the L1 from the child's language repertoire. Efforts for these types of programs can be found in Wales and Ireland which look to reinvigorate indigenous Celtic languages in their populations.