ABSTRACT
Bilingual education dates from 3000 B.C., when scribes in the Mesopotamia were taught in both Sumerian and Akkadian (Lewis, 1977). The specific languages used in bilingual programs have changed over time in different countries but the rationale for bilingual education has not changed much. Bilingual education is employed either for educational enrichment or to address the needs of a nation’s multilingual student body. Educational systems and families often create bilingual education programs to promote fluency in a second language that enjoys prestige or economic importance. Multilingual nations, mass migrations, colonization, official status of languages, and concerns for language minorities also call for bilingual education. The paradox of bilingual education is that when it is employed for enrichment it is accepted as educationally valid (Baker & Prys Jones, 1998; Fishman, 1976). However, when public schools implemented bilingual education for language minority students over the past 50 years, bilingual education became highly controversial.
