A New Approach to Language Arts in Bilingual Education.

Literature on current methods of teaching language in bilingual education is reviewed and a new approach is suggested. It is suggested that a specialized sequence of native language courses should be offered to populations of language minority students with the same vernacular language. The approach proposed integrates bilingual education, English as a Second Language, and native language arts as a foreign language, in transitional programs. The characteristic making this program unique is the offering of the native language as a foreign language through elementary and secondary education. A significant limitation is that in order to be cost effective, such a program must serve a large population of students of the same native language group. This approach, while having been implemented to some extent, has not yet been validated. (MSE)