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The History Of Bilingual Education In The United States
Nieto, D. (2009). A brief history of bilingual education in the United States. Perspectives On Urban Education (Spring), 61-72.
Abstract:In the history of the United States of America, multilingual communities have subsisted side by side. Among the many languages spoken throughout the country, we could mention first all the original Native American languages and then a multitude of languages that immigrants from all over the world have brought into the country. Together with English, Italian, German, Dutch, Polish, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese are just some of the more than two hundred languages that have been spoken in the United States. As James Crawford (2004) has noted, “Language diversity in North America has ebbed and flowed, reaching its lowest level in the mid-20th century. But it has existed in every era, since long before the United States constituted itself as a nation” (p. 59).
Full pdf: http://www.urbanedjournal.org/sites/urbanedjournal.org/files/pdf_archive/61-72--Nieto.pdf
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"English Only":
Why Not??
Moving forward into this discussion, we find that an "English Only" environment is impossible to achieve within the U.S. public school system because we have a constant flow of immigrants who arrive on the steps of U.S. schools daily and many of these students are in need of being taught English.
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Debate Over Eradicated Bilingual Education Program
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As Bilingual Education is fading into the pages of academic history,
we have an opportunity to conceptualize, to dream of the potential
and to develop what is to come. Let us now examine the future......