Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bilingualism
In todays global society, the ability to speak
more than one language is a valuable asset.
Americans fluent in languages other than
English enhance our economic competitiveness
abroad, improve global communication, help to
maintain our political and security interests, and
promote tolerance and intercultural awareness.
(Pratt, 2002; Sollors, 2002 in Working Together to
Build a Multilingual Society: brochure prepared by
the Center for Applied Linguistics).
Characteristics of immersion
education:
Additive bilingualism with sustained and enriched
instruction through the minority language and the
majority language is promoted
Subject area instruction through the minority language
occurs for at least 50% of the school day during the
elementary school years
Teachers are fully proficient in the language(s) they
use for instruction
Support for the majority language is strong and
present in the community at large
Clear and sustained separation of languages during
instructional time
(CARLA: The Center for Advanced Research In
Language Acquisition)
Genesee, 2001
Interesting facts:
The Spanish-speaking population is the fastest
growing language group in the United States. In
2007, 45.5 million Latinos lived in this country,
constituting 15.1% of the U.S. population (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2008) CAL
Over 32 million people in the United States
speak Spanish at home (Pew Hispanic Center,
2006; U.S. Census Bureau, 2005).
Hispanics/Latinos accounted for 49% of the
countrys growth from 2004 to 2005; 70% of
that growth is in children younger than five
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). In Los Angeles,
nearly 40% of residents older than 5 speak
Spanish at home. CAL
Bibliography
http://www.cal.org/sns/
http://www.carla.umn.edu/immersion/faqs.html
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
Carreira, M., & Armengol, R. (2001). Professional
opportunities for heritage language speakers in Working
Together to Build a Multilingual Society-brochure by the
Center for Applied Linguistics
Genesee, Fred. Bilingual Acquisition (2001)
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_
view.aspx?ArticleID=38
Hamers, Josiane F. & Blanc, Michel H. A. Bilinguality and
Bilingualism (2000) Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Pratt, M.L. (2002). Whats foreign and whats familiar? in
Working Together to Build a Multilingual Society-brochure by
the Center for Applied Linguistics.