Bilingual Education Pros And Cons

Learning a language is a lot like learning itself. It doesn’t matter if you’re 15, 30, or 60. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rocket scientist, an investment banker, or a cafeteria owner; the learning never stops. A language and its sense are always evolving and even if you’re a professor of that language, you never stop learning. You can never fully tame it. The learning must go on! Okay, enough of the showmanship. All this while we were talking about just one language so you can imagine what level of learning is required if one is to learn two languages. A whole lot of it! This is the reason why bilingual education is such a heated topic in the education systems around the world. Bilingual education involves teaching the academics in two languages, one in native language and the other in English (considering it as a universal language) with an aim to ensure that the child develops the same fluency in the second language as well. The world is shrinking and a second language like English can always come in handy. Moreover, command over it broadens your horizon and opens up new possibilities. Continue reading further to know about what the advantages and disadvantages of bilingual education are.

Advantages Of Bilingual Education

It’s true that, if taught from a young age, a child can easily grasp the vocabulary, grammar, and other nuances of the non-native language. Going further and learning the third and fourth language can also come just as easily to them since quite a few languages owe their origination to Greek and Latin.
This is a global world we’re living in. It only makes more sense to add another language in the repertoire of your kid.
A child who’s exposed to two languages has better chances of expressing himself/herself, learning and appreciating different cultures of the world through reading books or interacting with people. He/she may also develop the ability to attach different meanings to the same words (as is the common case in English) and improve on his/her flexibility in thinking.

Disadvantages Of Bilingual Education

On the flip side, failure to grasp the second language can dishearten and make the child lose hold of the native language as well. Moreover, bilingual education is an expensive medium of education as compared to singular education.
In the people with older school of thought, there’s a prevalent sense of losing out on the national identity. This ideology hinders them from admitting their children in bilingual education schools.
Although it has made its way as a common practice, there still seems to be lack of funds to promote bilingual education. Also, the large gap between the demand and supply of qualified and talented teachers act like a hindrance.

The advantages of bilingual education outweigh the disadvantages of it, regardless of the facts that it is an expensive medium of education and demands more of qualified teachers.

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