Bilingual Education Programs: Maintenance, Transitional, and Dual Language

Introduction

Over the past three decades, the number of culturally and linguistically diverse students in United States (U.S.) schools has grown at a rapid rate. Culturally and linguistically diverse students (also called English Language Learners and hereafter referred to as CLD) are those students who speak a language other than English and who bring diverse cultural heritages to their classrooms. The group of CLD students in the U.S. is ethnically and linguistically diverse. In 2000, federally funded bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs served 198 different language groups. The vast majority (about 67%) of these students were born in the U.S. and are therefore U.S. citizens. In urban areas, this population is the fastest growing of all school-aged populations.

The linguistic repertoires of CLD students vary widely. Some enter school speaking no English while others are functional in English but lack reading and writing skills in English. Still others have...