Mom Seeking Advice About Dual Immersion Language Programs

Nothing in the world compares with a full time, nurturing, patient, loving parent that takes the time to lovingly correct behavior and work with the child on any areas they made need extra help, such as math, shyness, manners, character, integrity. Children may have a genetic predisposition to many great and/or worrisome things. A full time parent will invest the time to help the child form great habits. Also, there is nothing like an orderly home with home cooked meals everyday. It creates a calm place for your children to grow peacefully. As far a dual language programs, I feel they are fine for the child when they are very small. I worked for a hospital in the Middle East for four years. One of the American couples there had a baby while they were working there. They were of Hispanic decent. Since the child attended the hospital day care with children from all over the world, he learned, by the time he was two and some months, to speak fluent English, Spanish and Arabic! He didn't know they were separate languages. He just thought there were three different names for everything.
I attended school when immigrant’s children who didn't pick up English in some months were placed in special needs classes with Down's Syndrome children. I am 56 years old. My grandchildren have attended these dual language schools and it appears it only works if the classes are very small.

make the sacrifice for the sake of the kids

HI M.-
I am a mother and also an early childhood teacher. A dual immersion program would be a wonderful thing to expose your child too. What better gift could you give your child than a second language? I sure you will see that your child's school experiences will be just as beneficial and memorable as being in a school in your "home" neighborhood. If you end up not liking the program after a year, you can always change schools. Another thing you might want to do is "observe" a dual immersion classroom for a few hours before you enroll so you can be sure that you are totally comfortable with it.
Good luck.

I am not sure what dual immersion means. Is this newspeak for bilingual? I was briefly involved in bilingual education in the LAUSD in the 1970s and as far as I could tell the children were essentially illiterate in both English and Spanish. The earlier that a child learns a language the easier and more permanent the language skills will be. For instructional purposes of math, history, etc, I think one language only should be learned. My husband spent two years in France at the ages of 9 to 11 and is still fluent today in French. His classes were in English but he spent the day conversing in French. What you should probably do is see if you can get the test scores for the children that come out of this program to see how they are functioning say in High School? Where we live now has English immersion for non English speaking children with back up help an hour a day. Two our our friends children that came from Europe were fully fluent in English within a year and have not forgotten their native language. They came here as the ages of 6 and 4. Both girls are now college graduates. So I really don't know what to tell you but to be very careful and check out the program and maybe you could talk to some of the children in program and see how they like it and how you think you are progressing next to children in a regular program.