Bilingual Education Research

“Defining bilingualism is difficult. There are four basic language abilities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) for which bilingual individuals can exhibit different degrees of proficiency in each of their languages. Conveniently, the term “balanced bilinguals” refers to individuals whom competencies in both languages are equally well developed. Balanced bilingualism also implies biliteracy, which describes the ability of reading and writing in two languages. For example, a child who can understand the delivery of the curriculum in school and operate in classroom activity in either language would be considered a balanced bilingual [1].

Research has shown that balanced bilingual children are likely to benefit from cognitive advantages, such as superior divergent and creative thinking, as well as increased meta-linguistic awareness and communicative sensitivity[2].“Lindholm-Leary [13] has shown that children in dual language programs were performing about 10 points higher in reading achievement and math tests than the Californian state average for English speaking children educated in English only.

One additional outcome of dual language education is positive cross cultural behaviours, and high levels of personal and social competence, which mostly results from the two languages of the school having equal status, and from children having very positive attitudes [13].

”Dutcher [7] claims that strong forms of bilingual education create cost savings for the education system and for society, by providing higher levels of achievement in fewer years of study, whereas weak forms of bilingual education (e.g. submersion education),incur higher dropout rates, which mean lower potential for the employment market. [1] C. Baker, Foundation of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 3rd Edition, Multilingual Matters Ltd., Clevedon, 2003.[2] E. Bialystok, Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy, and Cognition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.[7] N. Dutcher, The Use of First and Second Languages in Education: A Review of International Experience, World Bank, Washington DC, 1995. [13] K. Lindholm-Leary, Dual Language Education, Multilingual Matters Ltd., Clevedon, 2001.