Dual (Two-Way) Immersion Education

Dual language education is generally well regarded in the United States and is seen as an ideal model for all students, both English speakers [Page 743]and English-language learners (ELLs), to participate with each other in authentic bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural education. This model promotes positive attitudes toward each language and culture and fosters full bilingual and biliterate proficiencies.

Dual language education is neither a new concept nor limited to the United States. Canada, Switzerland, Spain, and China, among many other countries, have successfully practiced and encouraged this form of bilingual and multilingual education. In the United States, the success of bilingual education programs established in Florida after the Cuban Revolution inspired the implementation of dual language programs across the nation. Coral Way Elementary, a dual language English-Spanish school established in 1963 by Cuban exiles in Dade County, Florida, continued to operate in 2012.

Bilingual education in the United States is generally designed for English-language learners in prekindergarten through 12th grade schools who are not yet proficient in English, offering different amounts of native language instruction (such as Spanish or Chinese) as well as English as a Second Language (ESL). The goal of all bilingual education programs, regardless of model, is to assist ELLs to reach full proficiency in English and achieve at grade level academically. However, bilingual education in the United States follows several types of models that fall under either additive or subtractive language paradigms. Subtractive models, such as transitional bilingual education, use students’ native language typically for a period of three to four years as students develop proficiency in English through ESL or sheltered English instruction. Once students have become proficient, as determined by language proficiency standardized evaluation, students exit into the general English medium classrooms.

Subtractive programs add a second language, in this case English, and subtract the native language. Additive language programs, on the other hand, promote the continual development of the native language and maintenance of the home culture while adding a second language and culture. Additive models, such as maintenance, developmental, and dual language, do not drop the students after they become proficient in English. Rather, students in additive programs continue to develop their academic native language as well as academic English. Unlike subtractive programs, the goal in additive programs is for students to reach full biliterate and bilingual proficiencies.