Ukraine’s Use of the Positive Experience of the United States in Forming the Content of Bilingual Education in Secondary Schools

The article deals with bilingual education (teaching academic content in two languages), which provides general and further education to students of different nationalities. The United States is considered one of the most multilingual countries in the world, which is why the American experience in bilingual education is very valuable. Ukraine is a multinational country too. So, it is important to solve the problem of the introduction of bilingual education to determine the components of the content of such education and its main features for its effective functioning and development. The article considers the peculiarities of the content of bilingual education in US secondary education. Based on the analysis of the content of bilingual education in secondary schools in the United States, the most important components that can be used in Ukrainian secondary schools are identified. The article considers and compares the content of bilingual education in some American schools in different states. The introductory course of a bilingual secondary school includes compulsory and elective subjects. In the most populous states, bilateral bilingual programmes are common. They are the most effective and therefore prestigious, but also costly. Low-efficiency programmes are common in many other states, which cannot fund expensive projects, such as transitional bilingual programmes, double immersion programmes, monolingual programmes, etc. The most common minority languages involved in bilingual programmes are Spanish, French, German, oriental, and other languages. To assess the level of knowledge of bilingual students, tests with tasks in the native language of students, accompanied by descriptive explanations and expected answers, are used. This type of testing is called Multiple choice. The acquisition of a second language occurs in parallel with the process of students’ acculturation. The specifics of the multicultural development of students in US schools are revealed in the article. The use of bilingual education is one of the leading trends in developing the content of US school education. That is why the positive experience of the United States is valuable for Ukraine.