Dual Language Immersion
"Tener otro idioma es poseer una segunda alma". -Carlo Magno
"Tener otro idioma es poseer una segunda alma". -Carlo Magno
Former U.S. Secretary of Education, Richard W. Riley, stated: “Proficiency in English and one other language is something that we need to encourage among young people. Our nation can only grow stronger if all of our children grow up learning two languages. Our global economy demands it; our children deserve it.”
In the U.S. alone, 41 million people speak Spanish at home, more than twice the amount in 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012).
"If heritage speakers in dual immersion are to maintain their Spanish language skills to a sufficient degree for them to transmit the language to their own future children, this study suggests that they need to be encouraged to cultivate strong investments in identities as Spanish speakers."
"English language learners are in fact emergent bilinguals. That is, through school and through acquiring English, these children become bilingual, able to continue to function in their home language as well as in English, their new language and that of school. When officials and educators ignore the bilingualism that these students can and often must develop through schooling in
the United States, they perpetuate inequities in the education of these children. That is, they discount the home languages and cultural understandings of these children and assume their educational needs are the same as a monolingual child."