Forked Tongue: The Politics of Bilingual EducationToday children who are not fluent in English-legal and illegal immigrants, refugees, and native born-are the fastest growing portion of our population, accounting for more than half the children in classrooms in many city schools. Bilingual education programs established by federal and state laws have required that such students be taught basic subjects in their native languages rather than in English. Judged by most applicable measures-such as achievement scores and dropout rates-these programs have not been successful. This edition includes new material on recent efforts to reform bilingual education, on the growing trend across the country toward English language programs, on the latest national research studies, and on the movement to make English the official language of the United States. Forked Tongue is a devastating inside account of how the twenty-eight-year experiment in bilingual education has failed our language-minority children-and why. Rosalie Porter draws on local, state, and international experience to provide us with the first authoritative account of which policies, programs, and practices actually succeed with the children they are intended to serve. Forked Tongue will be of interest to educators, sociologists, and scholars interested in second language acquisition. |
Contents
Minorities | 14 |
Confronting the Political Power of | 37 |
Reassessing the Assumptions Underlying | 59 |
Learning from Other Multilingual Societies | 85 |
The Fresh Breeze of Innovation in U | 121 |
Language | 159 |
Political Extremes Intensify the Language | 193 |
Decisions for the Future | 222 |
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Common terms and phrases
academic American bilin bilingual education programs bilingual programs bilingual teachers Boston California chil classes classroom dents Department of Education dren educa effective English language English Language Amendment English-speaking enrolled ESL program experience federal French French Immersion funding goal grade grams gual Hakuta high school hispanic home language Ibid immersion programs kindergarten Kriolu language and culture language learning language minority children language minority students language programs language teaching latino learning English legislation LEP students limited-English students lingual linguistic lish majority Massachusetts math ment Minority Languages native language instruction native-language instruction needs Newton program official language parents Paulston percent political promote Public Schools Puerto Rican Quebec reading school districts school subjects second language semilingualism skills social Spanish Spanish-speakers speakers success taught tion Transitional Bilingual Education U.S. English ucation United West German