The language of education in Miami (Havana: home, magnet school, community college)

[Mouldy Old Schmo]

In Miami, do all of the schools teach in English or are there some where the language of instruction is Spanish, French, etc.?

[MadManofBethesda]

How do you come up with these ridiculous ideas?

[hurricaneMan1992]

Legitimate question. The County has three legal languages: English, Spanish, and Creole. County documents such as elections are supposed to be printed in all three. However, as far as I know, public grade and high school instruction is primarily in English with a strong ESL component and "Spanish for Spanish Speakers" classes for recent immigrants. Also, GED and night school courses are given in Spanish. Vocational and some Community College courses are taught in Spanish. Miami Dade College's Interamerican Campus in Little Havana is supposedly "the largest bilingual learning environment in all of higher education." Not sure about private elementary and high schools, but private trade schools have a lot of programs you can do totally in Spanish.

[bale002]

Originally Posted by Mouldy Old Schmo

In Miami, do all of the schools teach in English or are there some where the language of instruction is Spanish, French, etc.?

There is a French school in Miami with ties to the government, mainly for children of diplomats and businesshumans.

I know of two public schools, under magnet school rules I believe, that have linguistics programs featuring some combination of German, Spanish, French and Italian, and these programs are in some way sponsored and recognized by the respective ministries of education in Europe.

There are some private schools that claim to be bilingual Spanish-English, but as far as I know these schools are located in the western part of Miami-Dade County and away from the more established eastern corridor, and my impression is that they teach badly both Spanish and English and I don't believe that they have enjoyed any significant success. But there may be some that have been successful.

There may be some charter schools that also claim to be bilingual Spanish-English.

There is one charter school that attempts to be bilingual Greek-English, with varying degrees of success depending on the student.

There may also be some private and/or charter schools that attempt Chinese.


However, the language of instruction in the overwhelming majority of all schools in Miami-Dade County is English, and Spanish is offered as a second language, along with a few others.

Most children of families of Hispanic descent struggle to speak Spanish fluently unless both parents speak Spanish only in the household.

[Bobdreamz]

By the way Miami-Dade Public Schools which is the fourth largest school district in the United States, comprised of 392 schools & 391,000 students has identified over 70+ foreign languages spoken by it's students.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami-...chool_rankings

[Coconut1]

Originally Posted by MadManofBethesda

How do you come up with these ridiculous ideas?

I don't think that's a ridiculous idea at all. I think it's ridiculous we're only teaching our children one language. (And if you try to say "well they take language classes in school," I'm going to really laugh at you.)

[oronzous]

Some good answers above.

I would add that, at least for elementary schools, there are several combinations in between 'full english' and 'ESOL'.

the official list of bilingual programs is at:
Dadeschools.net

[jwolfer]

There are many people who speak Spanish at home who never 'learn' Spanish. They are bilingual but their reading and writing in Spanish is lacking. I write and read Spanish better than some of the native speakers I know

Everyone I know who went to secondary school in Miami whether Hispanic or non Hispanic white or black had nearly all their school in English. I know a few Hispanics who failed HS Spanish because they assumed it would be a blow off class for them since they spoke Spanish fluently; they actually had to learn grammar and some literature.