Is the two-way bilingual immersion program successful?

What is it? A two-way immersion, also known as two-way bilingual education, is becoming more and more accepted in schools across the United States. Students who speak English are put in the classroom with students who speak another language, such as Spanish. A typical classroom with this program will be instructed by two teachers. one teacher will only speak English, together teacher will only speak the other language, and in this case will only speak Spanish. (Other languages include French, Portuguese, Japanese, Navajo, Russian, Cantonese, and Korean.) This program allows for all of the students to learn another language, and be bilingual in the best way possible. Learning another language from a book takes far longer than learning from a native speaker. In this example, the Spanish-speaking student will learn English from English-speaking student, and English-speaking student will learn Spanish for the Spanish-speaking student. Genius! Constant exposure to both languages benefits everybody involved. They do not only grow appreciation for language, begin appreciation of a whole other culture. 

What are the concerns? Though there are few concerns, one concern is that after the language has developed, ongoing support will be needed to maintain it, in there are only a few two-way programs that continue on through high school. Also, without the community and parental involvement, these programs would not continue on.

A little extra? "Various reports and statistics reveal that the two-way approach is effective not only in the teaching of two languages to both language groups but also in the development of academic excellence."(Lindholm and Gavlek, 1994).

There's so much more to learn about this topic: A program started in nearby Cambridge, MA, statistics about the program, cost for keeping it up, etc.

What do I think? I think that this program is absolutely genius. There seems to be only positive results from it. I wish that there were something like this when I was growing up. I think that schools should adopt this program for the benefit of everyone. 

Click here for more info on two-way immersion :)