What is Bilingual Education?

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Bilingual education is one in which the contents of the teachings are taught in two languages ​​or languages. Academic content is generally taught in the mother tongue and a second language.

For example, some bilingual schools teach some subjects in Spanish and others in English. The number of classes or subjects given in each language depends on the educational model of each bilingual school or educational institution.

Is a school that has English classes considered a bilingual school? No.

We must differentiate between teaching in a language (as a medium of instruction) and teaching a language (as content of instruction). A class where you learn English is not the same as a math class given in English.

So to be considered a bilingual school, the institution must use English or French or any other second language as the medium of instruction and not just as the content of instruction.

The Importance of Bilingual Education

The objective of bilingual education is to enable the mastery of one or more languages ​​to which the student does not have access in his or her social and family environment.

Bilingual schools expose students to a foreign language so that they can master it and then use it outside of school.

Learning another language has many benefits, from job opportunities and communication with people from other cultures, to positive changes in the brain.

For example, some scientists say there are physical differences between the brains of people who speak multiple languages ​​and those of people who only speak one. Watch the video below to learn more.

As you can see, learning a second language is very important in education and, in our Latin American context, especially English.

Mastering English allows young people to have many more opportunities to study abroad, to obtain better-paying job offers, and to expand their knowledge by accessing content not translated into Spanish.

Types of Bilingual Education

According to some Spanish researchers, there are four types of bilingual education programs: segregation, submersion, maintenance and immersion.

Let's look at the four types in more detail:

1. Segregation

Instruction is in the mother tongue and the second language is a subject taught for a few hours a week. It is called segregation because the second language gives more social prestige and those who have a greater ability to learn it end up obtaining more benefits than other students. The groups are segregated between those "good at English" and those "who don't understand anything."

2. Submersion

This model generally applies to foreign students who must study all academic content in a second language without ever having studied the language itself. For example, a student who moves from Colombia to the United States and enters school to study everything in English, without having learned the language before.

The majority of these students do not develop sufficient proficiency in the new language to enter university (in that second language), because educators are not prepared to meet their linguistic needs and little time is given for special instruction to guarantee mastery of the new language. The student must learn the academic content as well as the language of instruction.

To avoid these problems, some schools have developed "transitional bilingualism" programs where classes are taught in the original language and the new language is introduced gradually until it completely replaces the mother tongue.

3. Maintenance of one's own language and culture

These programs are aimed at minorities to preserve the language and culture of the minority group. Learning the second language and its culture is accompanied by maintaining the mother tongue and one's own culture.

Generally, these programs begin using the mother tongue as a vehicle of instruction and progressively incorporate the second language into the teaching of content. The curriculum is taught in both languages ​​until the end of schooling.

4. Immersion

In immersion programs, the second language is used to teach all or most of the curriculum subjects over a period of one or more years. This teaching can begin in preschool or at different times in primary and secondary school. The sequence and intensity of instruction in the mother tongue and second language changes over time depending on the model in question. Classes include only native-speaking students of the mother tongue.

Experimental evidence shows that only immersion and maintenance programs make students bilingual and bicultural. Segregation and submersion programs, unfortunately, do not develop proficiency in the native language and in the second language they produce low levels of academic achievement.