| This study investigated the value of using a bilingual education teaching technique as a possible remediation for ESL students who could not read. These students, who could not read in their native language, were having difficulty learning to read in English using conventional methods. This research sought to determine whether the Bilingual Education technique of teaching reading in the native language would advance their English reading skills. By teaching them to read in their native language, they were able to advance their reading skills by a significant amount in a short period of time.; A Beginner's ESL class was divided for reading class. The intervention group was taught to read in their native language and encouraged to write and discuss content in their native language and encouraged to write and discuss content in their native language, but all final drafts of their work and all class recitation had to be in English. No other changes were made to their curriculum. The students in both groups were given the computer version of the SRI as a pretest/posttest. The intervention group's mean gain score was significantly higher than the comparison group's mean gain score.; This is in accordance with the assertion that reading transfers across languages. Furthermore, it confirms the hypothesis that learning to read in the native language at any time during the second language education can facilitate learning to read in that second language. |
