Essay on Bilingual Education

At present, the problem of bilingual education is the focus of a number of different researches. The issue of bilingual education is under discussion every day, and the relevance and progressiveness of bilingual education was proved for many times in practice. Nowadays bilingual education is considered to be a very promising direction, and my previous experience allows to agree with the statement that it is better to know several languages than one. Moreover, living many years in Europe, I have understood that it is impossible to overestimate the necessity of speaking more than one language because it not only helps to communicate with others, but the knowledge of several languages also helps me to raise a child in a bilingual family.

Summarizing my previous knowledge about bilingual education, I can state that I not only have read a lot of different literature and explored opinions on the subject of bilingual education, but I have also witnessed several practical examples of bilingual education in families where parents raise their children in a bilingual way. This experience allows me to realize all the advantages that these children have over others.

I have a strong goal in acquiring new information through my research because I hope to broaden my knowledge about the topic, as well as, solidify the decision to raise my child in a bilingual family. Moreover, since education on a bilingual base becomes very important and extends perspectives in the modern educational system, we must understand that bilinguals are not born but they develop their potential throughout their life, and exactly parents who raise their children in a proper bilingual way may help them to learn several languages without big difficulties in the process of learning (Bialystok, 2001). In addition, I need to state that I have rather strong feelings on the issue of bilingual education because being a member of the military stationed in Europe, I constantly remember about my mission, and I need to be a worthy Ambassador for the United States. Taking into account my experience in different contacts with the local population, I understand that it is important to speak with the people in their native language for the purpose to build strong and long-term relationships.

Sharing new information about bilingual education with other people, I want them to learn benefits of this kind of education, stating that large-scale changes in all spheres of human activity we witnessed in the last two decades such as the globalization of the economy and politics, the information explosion, the rapid development of communication set new requirements for the quality of education. In modern conditions a person who is able to self-education, a qualified analysis of the situation and decision-making, and who has developed the ability to communicate in a multicultural environment is in demand (Brisk, Burgos and Hamerla, 2004). Thus, the relevance of education on a bilingual basis is determined primarily by a general tendency towards integration in the economic, cultural and political spheres that determines the trend towards integration of subject knowledge, focus on the knowledge of a complete picture of the world in the field of education.

In conclusion, there are no doubts that bilingual education has a lot of advantages, and taking into account all the above mentioned information and considering various trends given in bilingual education, it was found that bilingual education provides students with a broad-based access to information in a variety of subject areas, it helps people to acquire new information according to individual needs, and increases the competitiveness of the experts at the European and world market.