A controversial topic in my field



  I may have shared this on Canvas, but here it is on my blog!  It's just an introduction and summary of an article on a controversial topic in my field.

  For my field (language education), a very controversial topic deals with what the best way to educate young immigrant students.  Some purport that English-only is the best strategy, so that students are immersed in their new language and learn it almost as native speakers.  Others cite evidence that many of these students feel stigmatized, frustrated, and end out less academically successful than ones who learned academic skills in their native language.  However, bilingual education also comes in many forms.  Transitional bilingual education, maintenance bilingual education, dual language immersion... and I believe there are others as well.  
An article on this controversial topic is by Stephen Krashen, entitled "What Works: Reviewing the latest evidence on bilingual education" deals with this topic. If you can't click on that link, check out this URL: http://users.rcn.com/crawj/langpol/Krashen-McField.pdf
 

          Krashen cites multiple meta-analyses of the research on different bilingual models, and shares the conclusion that bilingual education students succeed at greater rates than students in English-only programs.  Krashen notes that the different investigations found limited evidence for one superior program among the different varieties of bilingual programs, but mentioned that one analysis suggested that late-exit bilingual programs proved more effective than other programs that send students out earlier.
 
This article and the author are interesting to me, but I think for a speech I may choose a different article that provides a little more evidence and nuance in the analysis.