Sophia Martinez
CHS 151
November 12, 2014
Literacy Through Bilingualism
INTRODUCTION
A. Get Attention: I want you all to picture yourselves within a group feeling isolated and disconnected because of lack of communication. This can be said about the way Latino children in schools feel when language acts as a barrier.
B. Reason (s) to Listen: The need to increase bilingual education is important because it creates a diverse language throughout the population. Also, as diversification amongst ethnicities exists, the ability to communicate with others can be beneficiary in understanding different aspects of cultures and beliefs.
C. Speaker Credibility: I am credible to talk about this topic because in my years of being a scholar, I have experienced the lack of bilingual education in the school systems first hand.
D. Thesis Statement: The education system should require integration of bilingual studies, ways to improve bilingual education, and provide the benefits for scholars
E. Preview of Main Points: Today I am going to talk about the need of bilingual education, ways to improve bilingual education, and the benefits of having bilingual education in the school systems.
BODY
I. The need for bilingual education is important because programs that require students to become literate in two languages increases the student’s opportunities in the future. Even though bilingual education is beneficial to have in the school systems, a lot or many of schools lack the option of this educational practice. Some challenges that schools face with bilingual education is not having enough qualified teachers, not enough funds, and students not having equal exposition of both languages.
A. According to the article “Bilingual Education: New Visions for a New Era” by Barbra Miner, “One challenge that bilingual education faces is the lack of qualified bilingual teachers.” The inadequacy such as shortage of funds is one of the major contributors as to why many schools do not incorporate bilingual education in their programs. Another confrontation (challenge) that must be encountered when addressing bilingual education is the exposure of various languages outside of their learning place.
Barbara mentions “kids who are learning Spanish are just not exposed to learning a second language in the same way the Spanish-speaking kids are to English." B. Ramifications 1 “Children have little access to books at home or at school in both the first and second languages” 2. A personal example from my past experiences includes instructors in school not having the sufficient skills and qualifications to properly teach bilingual education.
3. The inability to have adequate materials such as books in order to assess bilingual education at a much more critical level is difficult. Most school systems “do not have the local funding available”.
According to N.A.B.E (National Assocation for Bilingual Education)
4. 74% of Hispanics 5 years and older spoke spanish at home.
5. 23% of elementary and high school students that were hispanic.
6. Hispanic teachers only make up 8% of the teaching workforce.

Transition: Now that I have told you about the problems that occur with bilingual education, I want to tell you about some solutions to improve bilingual education.

II. The solutions that address the improvement of bilingual studies within the umbrella that is the education system include: increasing the funds to provide proper materials for programs and hire more proficient teachers with second language education.
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There is an effective way to increase funding for bilingual education and that is through the application of grants. Through this process, the education system can concentrate and further bilingual studies in that monetary dependency would not be of hindrance.
A. For example, the U.S Department of Education, Adopt-A-Classroom.org, and NCLEA (National Clearinghouse for English