< back to Pre-K TUITION-BASED PRE-K A dual language program in a school is designed to create students who are fluent and literate in two languages. Teachers provide content instruction for approximately 50% of time in one language and 50% in another language. It is designed to be a fun learning experience, not an intimidating, scary one. The goal is to teach the same content but to take advantage of a cognitive development window to include the learning of a second language. When possible, it's best to have a class of kids where some have one native language (maybe Spanish) and some have the other (English). This creates a system of teaching and learning cooperatively among peers on a regular basis. This is successfully happening in schools all across the U.S., including Chicago. There are many advantages, obvious and discrete, to a dual language program in elementary school. The biggest impact of a dual language program is the effects on cognitive development. Research has shown that the developing brain isn't always the same. During different stages of cognitive development, different "doors of learning" open and close. This is most evident as we watch our children learn the English language. It's common knowledge that there's a window for language acquisition. Two year olds learn a new language in record time when compared to grown adults learning a new language. The most important aspect of this is still not fully understood by scientists, but as we acquire language, we develop other cognitive skills linked to other mental skills, most notably problem-solving. From this, longitudinal studies are showing that students who learn two languages during this particular window of development are far surpassing their monolingual peers in high school and throughout college. Besides being fluent and literate in two languages, our children will develop the enhanced cognitive skills and get a social education that is second to none. The unseen advantage is the global education on culture. We want our children to have an understanding and an appreciation of another culture, but more importantly this program can teach our children how different cultures can learn together, play together, and work together. This social aspect of this real-world is extremely important as our world keeps changing. This sometimes sounds scary for traditional monolinguals, but here are some resources to check out: http://www.cal.org http://horacemann.usd259.org/dual_language.htm http://njrp.tamu.edu/2004.htm