Why our public schools should not offer bilingual education

[missypie]

My son goes to a VERY competitive suburban north Texas high school. In any given year, the bottom of the top 10% of the class is about a 5.5 on a 5.0 scale (they get extra points for AP classes). Our neighbor's daughter is one of the smartest people I've met, and she graduated about 18th in her class.

Anyway, this year, our salutatorian is a girl whose family came over from China 7 1/2 years ago, not speaking any English!!! That means she had only been speaking English for three years when she started high school, and managed to graduate second in a VERY smart class!

I can't help but think of the life she would be facing if someone would have felt sorry for her and decided to educate her in Chinese. What would her prospects be THEN?

 

[ZuZugal]

I have often wondered this myself. Our HS teaches Spanish and German, but it's not enough to really "submerse" the kids in another language.

I would like to see a second language taught in our schools starting at the elementary level. So many other countries teach a second language starting in elementary school, but for some reason we do not. I think it would benefit the children in more ways than just learning another language.

Does anyone here have children who attend a school where learning a second language is offered?

 

[Planogirl]

I think that I must have misunderstood your point. Bilingual education benefits everyone, whether it's English speaking people learning another language or those who don't understand English learning English. JMO.

Look at northern Europeans. Most of them are quite fluent in English.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

I'm not sure I understand your point?
What would her prospects be then? She is obviously an extremely intelligent, gifted, and driven individual. People such as this excel academically period.

I don't think receiving her World History class in Chinese rather than English would make her suddenly stupid. I have no doubt that going to High School accelerated her English skills, but I suspect she would develop them regardless.

Her prospects would still be excellent.

 

[Christine]

I have often wondered this myself. Our HS teaches Spanish and German, but it's not enough to really "submerse" the kids in another language.

I would like to see a second language taught in our schools starting at the elementary level. So many other countries teach a second language starting in elementary school, but for some reason we do not. I think it would benefit the children in more ways than just learning another language.

Does anyone here have children who attend a school where learning a second language is offered?

Our elementary school offers a Foreign Language Immersion Program (Spanish). My DD went through 5 years of it. She picked up a lot of Spanish but, overall, I wasn't impressed with the program.

 

[Chicago526]

I think it depends on the bilingual program. The school I went to as a child taught kids who didn't know English (or know it very well) how to read and write in English while at the same time keeping up with their studies. Once they knew the language, they were put in regular classes. Start to finnish it was usually two full school years for most kids (some did better than others, of course!). I have no problem with these kind of bilingual programs. I object to those that only teach the kids in their native language and no effort is made to teach them English (which I never understood the point of).

 

[RoyalCanadian]

People with a demonstrated fluency in foreign languages stand a better chance of securing highly sought after employment positions in the international job market. While the language of the business world is English, it is rather arrogant to expect the rest of the world to play to the lowest common denominator -- that being our inability to speak their language.

By the time a student in Germany has graduated from their equivalent of high school they are able to communicate with fluency in at least three languages. If the job competition were between the German with three languages, the Canadian with a very little French they learned in elementary school and the American with a very little Spanish they might have learned in school -- I'm thinking it's going to be the Canadian and the American who are going to be looking for another job.

 

[NMAmy]

Does anyone here have children who attend a school where learning a second language is offered?

DD learned quite a bit of Spanish and Navajo when she was in elementary school. It was what I consider to be a huge advantage of living in a diverse area where all three languages (English, Spanish, and Navajo) are spoken.

Oh, and just a side note--most of the families of the Spanish speaking people I knew in New Mexico had lived in the area for generations. They also spoke English. Being bilingual is not a bad thing. My best friend's little boy learned Spanish and English at the same time as a baby.

 

[bananiem]

I think it depends on the bilingual program. The school I went to as a child taught kids who didn't know English (or know it very well) how to read and write in English while at the same time keeping up with their studies. Once they knew the language, they were put in regular classes. Start to finnish it was usually two full school years for most kids (some did better than others, of course!). I have no problem with these kind of bilingual programs. I object to those that only teach the kids in their native language and no effort is made to teach them English (which I never understood the point of).

This would be ESL or ESOL classes. They are not meant to be bilingual. They are for catching kids up so they can be completely immersed in the classroom. In our district over 60 languages are spoken in the homes of our students. Obviously they aren't teaching the kids in each of the first languages, but they do a high intensity ESOL class for children who have been in the US less than a year and it's very successful.
ETA- I think being blingual or trilingual is a great asset.

 

[zulaya]

My kids go to a Spanish immersion elementary charter school. Probably 99% are not native Spanish speaking families. The kids start Spanish from Day 1 of Kindergarten and are taught pretty much exclusively in Spanish through Grade 1. English reading is taught in school starting in Grade 2 and English Language Arts are taught as well.

Check out the research...immersion has been shown to activate more areas of the brain and learning a second language at a young age is supposed to help you learn other subjects (not just languages) better and the student is supposed to test better as well.

This school only started 2 years ago, and my kids started in 2nd and 3rd grade, so my daughter is in full immersion and my son in partial. However, the maintenance program is in place for middle school and is being designed for high school as well. These kids should come out of high school as fluent in Spanish, both bilingual and biliterate.

I can only see that taking them so many places. There are so many jobs that I see in the paper where it says, "Bilingual preferred." If my kids maintain their fluency, they have a skill that will only benefit them in life.

 

[Bob Slydell]

I'm with TobysFriend -- I don't understand the point of the story in regards to bilinual education.

 

[missypie]

My point is that there are public school classrooms that teach Spanish speaking kids all day in Spanish...they teach English for one period a day (as a foreign language). Those kids get out of school being barely fluent in English; if they had been emersed in English, they would have learned English, while still retaining the Spanish they learned at home.

I'm normally quite liberal, but I think educating kids in their own language holds them back.

 

[Bob Slydell]

My point is that there are public school classrooms that teach Spanish speaking kids all day in Spanish...they teach English for one period a day (as a foreign language). Those kids get out of school being barely fluent in English; if they had been emersed in English, they would have learned English, while still retaining the Spanish they learned at home.

I'm normally quite liberal, but I think educating kids in their own language holds them back.

And this would affect the bright Chinese girl how?

 

[Toby'sFriend]

I guess I look at it as a balancing act.
I agree that it is better for a child that will most likely be spending the rest of their lives living in the United States to learn to speak English well as quickly as possible. Immersion works much better at younger ages however. In order to learn to speak by immersion, there has to be things going on in the classroom that the kid understands. For instance, the teacher says "everybody come to the front of the room and sit in a circle" and then the student sees all the kids coming to the front of the room and sitting in a circle.

By the time the kids reach the older grades, the classes are much more lecture orientated and Immersion just does not work as well. I know that if you were to sit me down at a desk for 50 minutes a day and blab at me in German on how to work differential equations - I most likely would come out of that class unable to speak German AND unable to do differential equations.

I don't think schools offer ESL classes because they feel sorry for the kids. They offer them because they feel it is the best and most efficient way to teach the kids to speak English as well as address their other educational needs.

But still in the case of the Chinese girls - there are MANY students in American Universitites who have very poor to non-existent English skills. I think most of them TA for Chemistry and Statistics.

 

[maddiel]

Check out the research...immersion has been shown to activate more areas of the brain and learning a second language at a young age is supposed to help you learn other subjects (not just languages) better and the student is supposed to test better as well.

I can only see that taking them so many places. There are so many jobs that I see in the paper where it says, "Bilingual preferred." If my kids maintain their fluency, they have a skill that will only benefit them in life.

Those are some of the reasons why it was really important to me that my kids be enrolled in French Immersion. Canadian Parents for French has some interesting research on this.

My girls are in grade primary and grade seven of an ealy French Immersion program and I hope they will be able to continue the program through high school. It's fascinating to see how their brains soak it up.

It also amazes me how many of their classmates speak a third language. My five-year-old daughter's best friend, for example, speaks primarily Greek at home, French in class and English on the playground. I'd estimate 10-20% of the kids in their classes speak/read/write a third language fluently. I know my oldest has definitely expressed an interest in learning Spanish in High School and maybe more languages after that.

M.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

But still in the case of the Chinese girls - there are MANY students in American Universitites who have very poor to non-existent English skills. I think most of them TA for Chemistry and Statistics.

Isn't that that truth.

As for bilingual educations...I feel we are doing a diservice to our children by not teaching them a second (or third) language beginning in elementary school. This is a highly sought after skill, and often it means more money.

I also agree with Toby'sFriend with regard to high school students really being past the point of immerssion and the need to teach students in their native tongue. I know when I got to French 3 in high school it was total French and I was lost. That was pretty much a year wasted with regard to my learning anymore French. I can't imagine have seven or eight classes a day like that.

With all that said, people living in this country should learn English, but that doesn't need to their ONLY language. AND I don't know what the spanish-speaking students have to with this one, bright Chinese young lady. Oh and chances are that in China she was all ready learning English.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Well, keep an eye on the lawsuit filed against DS's elementary. Things are about to get very interesting in regards to bilingual education.

The elementary is about 80% Hispanic. DS just finished 4th grade and he was one of only 16 4th graders who are native or fluent English speakers. To balance out the classes the school had the English speaking 3rd & 4th graders mixed together for homeroom and "specials" like PE, art, and music but split them up for academic instruction. Mixing the 2 grades meant those sections were full, so any child wanting to move out of the bilingual classes couldn't because there was no room.

A Hispanic mom has filed a class action lawsuit claiming her children are fluent in English and are being discriminated against by having to be in a bilingual classroom. BUT her kids DO speak Spanish, so it isn't like they can't understand what is being said.

Logic tells me there MUST be a class for kids who ONLY speak English. You would have to fill those slots with the English-only kids first, then fill remaining slots with kids who are proficient enough in English to keep up with all English instruction. But then what about kids who are legitimately proficient in English who can't transfer because there is no room? Is their education being compromised? Who gets top priority here? And would it be fair to put my child in a class where the teacher speaks Spanish part of the time, even though DS speaks NO Spanish? Not to mention DS has ADD and can't follow a lecture from start to finish even when it is entirely in English! If there aren't enough English speaking kids to fill one class then it might happen that DS ends up in a class where they speak Spanish part of the time. That would be a disaster. I guess I'll find out soon enough just how this all fits together. It will definitely be interesting.