Bilingual education uses two languages. The teacher develops English skills and teaches content in the native language. Two-way bilingual education teaches two languages at once. All students learn a second language. The maintenance or developmental approach fosters parallel learning in two languages.
Bilingual instructors teach academic subjects in the students' primary language.
The objective is to create bilingual students. The transitional approach teaches academic subjects in the students' primary language but progressively uses more English. As students' English proficiency increases, the primary language is dropped. This method seeks to place students in English classrooms more rapidly than the maintenance or developmental approaches. It is the most commonly used approach in the United States.