Lyn Alweis’”Denver Post / Getty Images Scene from a bilingual classroom in Denver in 1987: Juan Estrada (11) and Anthony Vasquez (9) write an introduction to themselves on the blackboard in the language that each of them knows best. Due to Morocco’s long history with French colonialism, alongside neighbouring countries including Algeria and Tunisia , sole French-medium education is very widespread, with Arabic being introduced and taught as a second language, as well as the study of a third language later on, usually either English , Spanish , or Italian (in Libya ).
In the United States, proponents of the practice argue that it will not only help to keep non-English-speaking children from falling behind their peers in math, science, and social studies while they master English, but such programs teach English better than English-only programs.
It was during this same period that segregated schools for African American children were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and equality of educational opportunity for ethnic minority students evolved as a desirable goal for public education.
In the early 1990s, the school district shifted the focus of its instructional program from student limitations to student strengths-from remedial programs emphasizing English language development to enriched programs emphasizing total academic development; from narrow English-as-a-second-language programs to comprehensive developmental bilingual education programs that provide dual-language instruction.
A 2015 meta-analysis of dual-language programs showed that, over time, students on average performed at least as well as, and often better than, peers in full English-immersion programs, along with the cognitive advantages of developing multiple, mutually reinforcing language abilities.