Bilingual Education - Essay Example

Bilingual Education Bilingual Education A learner endures a tough time deciding on a second language to take in school because of the idea of coming across vocabulary that would be difficult to comprehend. However, it was easy to appreciate bilingual education with just a little commitment ensuring I succeeded in my studies. All that a student requires is the willingness to learn, exposure to native or fluent speakers of the language and a positive attitude towards acquiring the required language skills.

Learning a second language can be made simple. It is like learning the first language a child acquires from the community they are brought up in. Learning a second language was crucial due to the need to grow my social network and interact with people from different cultures. It was quite embarrassing to study overseas and require someone to always translate what other people were saying and I had to take the initiative of undertaking bilingual education. According to Krashen, there are two ways of getting to know the second language – by acquisition and by learning.

I had to go through the two processes, acquiring the language skills by interacting with natives and by taking up classes to grow my vocabulary knowledge (Krashen, 1992). Similar to Krashen’s view, it is difficult to monitor the language in which one communicates in. Writing it down makes it easier to analyze. When one speaks, they tend to modify the rules of the language, and at times are grammatically wrong and this can only be noticed in a written composition. This was seen in the way I would pass written language examinations and still find it difficult to communicate fluently by word of mouth.

Krashen’s input hypothesis takes note of the importance of exposure and explains the fact that one acquires a language by being exposed to comprehensible input of it, be it written or spoken. This view can be supported by the fact that one tends to learn a language by living with people who speak it correctly and the learner requires no effort from their side, just the exposure. If the language as used by its speakers is not rendered in a logical and understandable manner, the learner will have a hard time acquiring it (Krashen,1992).

Before embarking on bilingual education, one has to start by being ready to learn, being motivated and believing that they can learn the language and use it like its native speakers. Similarly, Krashen brings out the affective filter hypothesis which looks at acquiring a language through comprehensible input, which must reach the brain without undergoing any filtration by agents such as low motivation, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, fear of not understanding and anxiety. Should these filters exist, then language acquisition is hindered.

To enhance language acquisition among bilingual education students, free, voluntary reading should be encouraged. In this form of reading, the students read books written in the language they intend to learn, with varying difficulty levels of vocabularies and sentence structures, and get to enjoy as well as learn more about the language. Reading comics and story books helped me through my bilingual education. Generally, bilingual education is an important element of modern day schools with the ever growing rate of cultural and continental interactions.

How the second language is taught matters a lot and affects the attitude of students towards that language.ReferencesKrashen, S. (1992). Fundamentals of language education. Torrance, CA: Laredo Pub.