Bilingual Education act

Bilingual Education Act

The Bilingual Education Act is the most important federal legislation to provide equal opportunity in education to students whose first language is not English (Wiese Garcia , 1998 . Through this Act , funding is provided to educational institutions to teach English to limited English proficient (LEP ) students (Stewer-Manzanares , 1988 ' The Act does not require bilingual educational programs in school districts although it was initially designed for Spanish speaking students to learn their own language alongside English in the schools of the United States (Stewer-Manzanares

The Bilingual Education Act came

into being in 1968 , after which it went through several rounds of revision . Initially the participation of schools was considered voluntary . Nowadays , however , all students who need to hone their skills in the English language are qualified to participate in special programs to do so . Qualified personnel are similarly provided English language training under the Act (Stewer-Manzanares . All the same , the Act places a three year limit on the provision of training in the English language , whether this training is provided to students or personnel . Under special circumstances , the three year limit can be extended to five years . Researchers claim that the three year limit should actually be extended to seven years , because it takes five to seven for the average individual to learn a language with proficiency (Wiese Garcia

Still , the Bilingual Education Act continues to be a great blessing for the large immigrant community of the United States . One in three children in the U .S . today is from an ethnic group , while one in seven uses a foreign language at home (Wiese Garcia . The Bilingual Education Act ensures that these children would not be left behind in a world where formal education is a necessity

References

Stewner-Manzanares , G (1988 , Fall . The Bilingual Education Act : Twenty Years Later . NCBE

No . 6 . Retrieved Nov 25 , 2007 , from http /www .ncela .gwu .edu /pubs /classics /focus /06bea .htm

Wiese , A Garcia , E . E (1998 , Winter . The Bilingual Education Act Language minority

students and equal educational opportunity . Bilingual Research Journal Retrieved Nov 25 , 2007 , from http /findarticles .com /p /articles /mi_qa3722 /is_199801 /ai_n8762946 /pg_1 . PAGE

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