Bilingual programs are often reluctantly implemented, inadequately staffed, limited in resources and poorly administered. The success of bilingual programs in this country would soar if attention were paid to problems in implementation. The following article describes ten of the most common problems found in bilingual education programs. In its simplest form bilingual education is the use of two languages. In a more sophisticated context, such as an educational response to the problems of limited English proficient students in American schools, bilingual education is the use of the native language for instructional purposes while English is being learned as a second language.
Pedagogues tend to make the rationale of bilingual education unnecessarily complicated.
Interrupting and delaying cognitive development and the acquisition of skills and knowledge until a new language is acquired is a waste of time and produces academic retardation and overagedness, which in turn produce under performance and a propensity for dropping out of school. At periodic intervals I go out and buy a new suit. Invariably the new purchase has to be fitted and altered before it is delivered. It is unnecessary, undesirable and a waste of time for me to sit naked in my house for two or three weeks waiting for the new suit to be delivered. I continue going to work in my old clothes until such time as the new suit arrives.