Dr. Jay Fuhriman, who has taught bilingual Education at Boise State University for two decades, says there are four overarching objectives of successful bilingual education programs. They are:
These components, Fuhriman says, are critical to helping students learn successfully. For example, students who are retained for just one year are half as likely to graduate as those who are at grade level. Retain a student for two years, he adds, and chances of graduating are reduced by 95 percent.
"It is so detrimental to retain children, especially for language," Fuhriman says, "It is much more effective to teach them the content area in a language that's understandable to them while at the same time teaching them English. If we teach them content in their native language, they can stay at grade level, albeit in a different language, but still at grade level. You know, math is math regardless of the language. Knowledge is knowledge regardless of the language."
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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