INTRODUCTION:

ATTENTION GETTER:
Vamos a suponer que estamos en una escuela primaria. Yo soy su maestra y ustedes mis alumnos. Hoy es el primer día de clases y antes de empezar la lección tengo que pedirles alguna información. Primero quiero que levanten la mano si me están entendiendo. Ahora, en un papel escriban su nombre e indiquen si van a regresar a casa en camión o en carro.
REASON TO LISTEN:
A) Did everyone understand my instructions? You have just experienced what more than 3 million of immigrant children with limited English skills experience in American schools. These children feel inadequate, overwhelmed, unable to understand their teachers in their first years of school when they don't speak, read or write English. And yet, the first years in school will be extremely important to determine their educational success.

B) I am interested in Bilingual Education because as an immigrant I know how difficult it is to adapt to a new country, its culture and language.

SPECIFIC PURPOSE:
I would like to give you some information that will stress to you the importance of bilingual education.

FORECAST:
I will start by providing some history about bilingual education, then I will discuss the benefits of bilingual education, and later I will mention some of the argument against it.

BODY
Point #1
Let me start first by giving you some history about bilingual education. Immigrants have always faced the language problem in the United States. During the 17th and 18th centuries, immigrants in America were considered lazy, illiterate and unwilling to assimilate. The fact that they did not speak English aggravated their situation.
During the 18th century, minority schools were created and bilingual education was common in the Midwest. However, the teaching of another language was considered damaging to the health of children. And this was the educational theory of the day, which held as late as the 1950's. According to Dennis Baron it was considered that bilingualism led to confusion and academic failure, and that it was harmful to the psychological well-being of the child. In fact, in 1926 one psychologist claimed that "the use of a foreign language in the home was a leading cause of mental retardation."

Today, although more than 97% of Americans speak English there is still a great number of immigrants who do not. As I mentioned earlier, more than 3 million children have limited English skills. And as the number of immigrants arriving in the United States keeps increasing so do the number of children who do not speak English.

However, there are still some who believe that bilingual education is only an instrument to delay English fluency. In California bilingual education was abolished in 1998, through Proposition 227 which replaced it with "a system that favors English-only instruction."

Point #2
Now, I will discuss some of the benefits of bilingual education. Researchers have found that bilingual education works very well when it is done right with appropriately trained teachers, principals and budgetary support. It has also been found that bilingual students who receive a strong cognitive and academic instruction in their first language along with English as a second language are more successful academically than those who don't receive a formal instruction in their native language first.

Bilingual and ESL researchers contend that four to seven years of a combined "high quality instruction appears to ensure that, by the end of high school, typical limited English proficient students will perform as well as typical native speakers of English."

On the contrary, according to Dennis Baron, a professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois, those students who have very limited English skills and are immersed in English-only classes "are left to swim or sink as they were for generations, and they will continue to fail at unacceptable rates."

Bilingual education was precisely designed to prevent new generations of immigrants from repeating the failure experienced by past generations; to keep them in school and to provide them with equal opportunity in education.

Point #3
Finally, let me mention some of the arguments that exist today against bilingual education. Opponents of bilingual education debate that keeping limited English proficient students too long in bilingual education is useless, and that it only denies them the basic tools to prosper in America. Instead, they propose to immerse these children in English lessons for one year then move them into regular classes.

They also argue that bilingual education programs may be the reason for the high Hispanic dropout rate in schools, and that it is expensive and should be cut down to the minimum time possible in order to supposedly move students faster to reach their academic success and at the same time save money.

CONCLUSION:
SUMMARY:
In conclusion, I have provided you some history of bilingual education. I also discussed the benefits of bilingual education and some of the arguments against it.
FINAL NOTE:
The basic purpose of bilingual education is to make it easier for immigrant children to assimilate to their new country, culture and language. I hope you realize that instead of banishing bilingual education, we should reunite efforts to make it better and more efficient. Let's not forget that after all, the United States is and will always be a nation of immigrants.

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