Wallace believes that the main reason for opposing bilingual education is that people realize from the reality and results of bilingual education that schooling in two languages is not an effective way to help new immigrants improve their English and integrate into the mainstream society as soon as possible. In fact, "immersion education" has a better effect. Let new immigrant students learn in English, which can encourage them to study English with all their strength. And judging from some voting statistics and the reaction of immigrants, they also hope to master English as soon as possible.
The economic cost of bilingual education is expensive. According to the Constitution of the United States, all immigrants who want to acquire American citizenship must show "the ability to understand English, including the ability to speak, read and write in simple English". However, in some places, especially where new immigrants are concentrated, the driver's license examination is bilingual. In addition, election ballots are printed in two languages. New immigrants with other language backgrounds can use their mother tongue in major political activities such as elections even if they can't master English. However, bilingual courses stifle their learning motivation and make them lazy and dependent. In order to provide bilingual courses, the government has to use public funds paid by taxpayers to train teachers, provide degrees and course time to meet the needs of such courses.
According to Dr. Keith Baker, as early as 198 1, the US Department of Education conducted a study on the effectiveness of bilingual education. At that time, I felt that bilingual courses could not improve students' English level. Since then, some researchers have compared bilingual education courses with English education courses, and the results show that bilingual courses are relatively poor in improving English level. Aguire International has done a four-year project for the United States Department of Education to study the use of language by teachers in the teaching process. The survey shows that for children whose mother tongue is not English, teachers who can use their mother tongue can account for up to 25% of all teaching languages without hindering their English development. There are many all-English education courses that are not worthy of the name. The key is that bilingual courses don't use enough English. Most students should be exposed to English at school, but advocates of bilingual education courses say that at least 75% of the teaching language should be students' mother tongue.
Sahramaa of Virginia believes that bilingual education, which began as early as the 1960s, was originally designed to ensure that students from non-English-speaking countries and English-speaking countries had the same job opportunities. Good wishes have not come true. There is a gap between reality and desire. The main reason is that when we decided to implement bilingual education, we thought that children should learn in their mother tongue at the initial stage of bilingual education, and then start learning in English after their English level reaches a certain level. It takes about three years for mother tongue to change into English. Bilingual education fails to enable children to acquire bilingual ability. On the contrary, the existence of bilingual education hinders children's contact with English and delays their age and time to learn knowledge in English. I think mother tongue education can help students maintain self-esteem and reduce stress. Unfortunately, no research has proved this hypothesis so far. Children in immigrant schools generally show a strong desire and interest in English. If they are allowed to start learning English earlier, they will have enough confidence to finish their studies. The report released by National Education Statistics Center 1995 shows that there is a strong positive correlation between students' dropping out of high school and their poor English ability. Further, this is related to students missing the best age to learn English. If they are allowed to avoid using their mother tongue in education, but to be exposed to English, they may be able to acquire enough English level when they are young.
Investor Daily, a newspaper in Colorado, cited an example of the rapid rise in test scores after the cessation of bilingual education courses in the Oceansid school district in California to illustrate that bilingual education can indeed be stopped. Mainly Spanish-speaking students The newspaper quoted some Spanish parents' views on bilingual education courses in this area. Some parents used to strongly support the course, but now they take the lead in opposing it. Because they found that children have always been resistant to the curriculum. One goal of bilingual education is to let children learn the characteristics of their mother tongue and acquire the ability to read and write in their mother tongue. However, this will greatly reduce children's English ability, leading to poor test scores, not as good as students in pure English courses.