Bilingual education is education in an English-language school system in which students with little fluency in English are taught in both their native language and English. It involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.

The majority of U.S. high school students in the United States are required to take at least one to two years of a second language. The vast majority of these classes are either French or Spanish. In a large number of schools this is taught in a manner known as FlES, in which students learn about the second language in a manner similar to other subjects such as mathematics or science. Some schools use an additional method known as FLEX in which the “nature of the language” and culture are also taught. High school education almost never uses “immersion” techniques.