Bilingual education causes many questions to come about in today's society. Some of these questions are: should we teach our English Language Learners (ELLs) in their native language or should we teach ELLs only in English? Who should benefit from a dual language or bilingual program? Therefore the question arises, does bilingual education increase student's academic success and/or how do we focus into a population constantly increasing? How do we help ELL's become successful lifelong learners? Is the answer implementing bilingual education? The purpose of this literature review is to deal with some of these questions as well as investigate the lasting effectiveness of bilingual education. Included in the research are various models used in teaching bilingual education and their effectiveness. According to Cummins (1981), students who experience additive bilingualism will show cognitive benefits. These might include greater metacognitive ability and greater mental flexibility. Subtractive bilingualism typically has a negative effect on students' educational experience (Cummins, 1996).
Does Bilingual Education Improve Academic Success in Students?.
More times than not it seems that the term dual language and bilingual education are confused to be one and the same. The state of Texas has dual language falling under the bilingual education umbrella. Two types of dual language programs exist which are the one way and two way ( Lapayese, 2014) The one way dual language says that all the students in the classroom consist of the same native language. An example of this would be if the students are native Hispanic students learning English and Spanish at the same time. In the two way dual language has the same number of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students and native English speakers. The two way dual language is the most common program found in the state of Texas. . Therefore the ultimate differences between the one way and two way is the population of the students.
