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Leah Williams

Professor Fields

UWRT-1102-012

3 March 2017

Entering the Conversation

The gap I found was the difficulty a child may face should their parent not have

achieved fluency in their chosen second language. If a child does not have a home

environment in which they can practice the language effectively (apart from traditional rote

learning), the success rate and timeframe of gaining complete proficiency may not be

realistically attainable. This gap exists because the United States has not yet implemented

effective methods to truly learn a language. The traditional style of sitting in a classroom

oriented specifically on learning a second language is not optimal because it does not allow a

learner to fully grasp the colloquial components of a language. However, to fully tackle this

issue, dual-immersion is the best plausible solution that has been constructed thus far. The

issue with dual-immersion is that when it is first implemented, most childrens parents will

not have the proficiency to adequately assist in language learning. Regardless of this setback,

it will never be completely solved until the United States executes the program. In other

words, there should be no delay or excuses; this gap is not fixable unless direct action is

taken.

While the gap is not a complete obstacle and dual-immersion should not be dismissed

because of it, it does present a big impact to language learners. Ultimately, children will not

be learning to their full potential because they wont have outside help apart from the

classroom. While the first of those to partake in the program will not have the privilege of

parents who have also gone through it, it is still beneficial to put into effect at the first

opportunity. Putting it off offers no resolution. The gap illustrates the United States passivity
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towards dual-immersion programs. This gap would be inevitable regardless of when the

United States had or would implement dual-immersion, however, had it replaced traditional

style learning earlier, the gap would likely be filled by now.

This gap is necessary to address and fill because if it is ignored, bilingual learning will

never reach full development in this country. It cannot be solved instantly but is something

that will gradually decrease over time and it is important that this decline start as soon as

possible. The most straightforward way to fill the gap is to simply start dual-immersion

programming as soon as possible in public schools, not just schools in the charter or private

sector. Once this program is a requirement, eventually the gap will steadily diminish as each

generation will have more experience in both dual-immersion and language learning. Unless

a better outline for language learning is developed, dual-immersion offers the most promising

results. It is only because the United States has not completely considered the possible

success of dual-immersion that there is a lack of bilingual learning. Once this setback is

attended to, the chances of complete attainability and proficiency are favourable; it is simply

the process of utilizing the program. This is only one relatively minor issue in the dual-

immersion program, as long as the United States can adopt the program as an expectation in

the way language classes should be taught it will effectively vanish in time.