Sustainable high-quality bilingual education programs cultivate students’ knowledge while developing bilingualism, biliteracy, and cross-cultural competencies. These programs are characterized by a strong commitment to bilingualism/biliteracy, structures that promote continuous learning, and close collaboration with families. As a result, students receive robust instruction for several years that affirms and expands their cultural and linguistic assets, leads them to high academic achievement, and prepares them for success in college, career, and life in a global society.
NYCPS DML Working Definition
Research has shown that ELLs schooled, for several years, in high quality bilingual education programs will outperform their peers in non-bilingual education programs. These resources will support your school teams in the design and implementation of sustainable and high-quality bilingual programs.
Strong core instruction in biliteracy programs requires that educators leverage students’ languages in service of building their content knowledge and literacy development. It requires planning for strategic and aligned literacy instruction in and across two languages. These resources support bilingual educators as they plan for biliteracy and academic achievement.
Professional Learning opportunites
Bilingual pedagogues must receive training on evidence-based literacy practices that are effective for MLs/ ELLs, bearing in mind that these are emergent bilinguals, students who have varied levels of bilingualism and whose linguistic repertoire includes more than one language.