What is the difference between bilingual and dual language?
Outside the United States, the terms are pretty much interchangeable. However, in the United States, the term “bilingual education” has taken on a very different meaning. In most states “bilingual” programs have come to mean “teach them in their own language until their English is good enough” and then they can be mainstreamed into English. The problem with this approach is that if their own language (most often Spanish) is the language of the home, TV, friends (inside and outside school) and neighbors then there is a very real danger that they will never develop good levels of English. On the other hand, students who are in a 50/50 setting are obliged to learn to speak, read and write in BOTH languages, thereby making them genuinely bilingual.
