Two-way Immersion

Recently in my multi-cultural education class, we watched a movie about two-way immersion schools. I was completely unaware of these bilingual programs until seeing the video. Two-way immersion schools are a form of education where students are taught literacy and content in two languages. The school is made up of both students that speak English as a first language and those who do not. The program starts the children out at a young age being fully immersed in two different languages. The most common two-way immersion programs in the United States are English and Spanish schools, but there are a variety of others as well. It was amazing to watch how well the young students spoke two languages. The program seemed to prove itself very successful. The schools are public schools that students can attend depending on a lottery based system. I believe there are two schools in Buffalo and one in Rochester. With these schools being so close I am surprised that there is not more recognition of them locally. These programs seemed to be fool proof in creating bilingualism in students, but then again the video I saw was promoting them so I doubt they would include much negativity. Regardless of it being promotional, the programs seemed to be excellent. I don't understand why we are not making more of an effort to create more of these two way immersion schools to provide a larger amount of students with the opportunity to be bilingual. I know that if I were a parent I would do everything I can to get my children into one of these schools. I think these schools are an amazing advance towards bilingualism in the United States, but there still needs to be a lot more done.
-Ryan Fleming blog post#21