Suppose that a young woman from Argentina immigrated with her family to the United States. She has always dreamed of being a psychologist, but upon enrolling in university education to start her training, she discovers that many of the classes (taught in English) are moving at a pace too fast for her to enthusiastically engage with because English is her second language. She spends more time navigating vocabulary than embracing the ideas communicated by that vocabulary.
Imagine how much better her outcomes would be if she could take that same class taught in her native language, Spanish. This is the purpose of dual-language programs.
Studies have consistently shown that a personโs second language skills are often not equivalent to the proficiency they hold in their first language, and needing to navigate educational environments in a second language commonly results in high stress and lower comprehension.
To mitigate these issues, some educational institutions from Kindergarten through post-graduate studies are seeking to integrate dual-language programs to create more options for non-native speakers. There are many advantages to doing so, including:
- Increased information retention โ Students remember more information when it is conveyed in their native language.
- Greater understanding โ Because they spend less time parsing the meanings of individual words, students taught in a native language understand the material better and, as a result, typically score better on tests.
- Lower stress levels โ Students experience greater levels of burnout when they must constantly navigate learning in a second language. The more stressed a student is, the more their academic resilience and performance suffer.
- Greater enrollment of underserved populations โ When students can enroll in a dual-language program that they can understand, those who may otherwise not have felt equipped to pursue higher education in English can go on to earn academic credentials that are less common in their populations on average.
Why Dual-Language Options Still Arenโt Popular
While dual-language programs are a net positive for students, they come with many challenges that prevent them from seeing greater implementation in the academic sphere. These issues primarily center on:
- Leadership bias โ Historically, even universities that have sought to implement dual-language programs have difficulty convincing leadership that it is the right choice. Leaders worry that classes will not be filled because only a few students on campus are native speakers of the target language, and of those, not all will be taking that class at that time. Is the result worth the investment?
- Professional shortages โ Less of a problem in primary schooling, these programs need professionals who are sufficiently fluent in their language to teach the class. For higher-level university programs, the school often either cannot afford or cannot locate two appropriate professionals for the same class, which places the burden on one teacher to be bilingual at a high level of academic rigor.
- Inequality โ While dual-language programs can make education more accessible to traditionally underserved populations, this may come at a cost. Some educators suggest that students who take classes in their native language are not incentivized to engage with others outside their program, leading to an insular and less well-rounded educational experience.
The Changing Landscape for Multilingualism
In general, support for greater adoption of dual-language programs is mixed and heavily dependent on geographical location. Individuals who live in areas with a large population of bilingual or non-native English speakers are typically more favorable toward the idea, as seen in an Arizona poll showing support for the repeal of the stateโs English-only education law.
However, in ethnically homogenous areas, support for multilingual education is lacking and is often framed as a political issue. Detractors cite the studentsโ need to adapt to the English language environment as fundamental to their success in future workplaces and United States society as a whole, suggesting that a dual-language program could be a form of โcoddlingโ that does not prepare them for success.
While an explosion of dual-language programming in academia is unlikely, certain regions of the United States may be shifting toward a trend that matches much of Europeโgreater availability of multi-language academic offerings, primarily in the most common core niches, such as basic sciences and math. While Spanish sees the greatest support, each area and its population dictates which programs may arise in the future.
