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It sounds like the whole reason some want to force American kids to learn Spanish is because the Spanish speaking immigrants refuse to learn any English and expect us to kearn their language to accomodate them.
We certainly can't learn every language of the world. Greek, Russian, Polish, German, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, and all the many other languages and dialects of every possible immigrant. People should learn what benefits them, many might have more use for Russian than Spanish, others might not need a foreign language at all.
I'm sorry, but that is totally false. I speak Spanish almost fluently, and it's helped me get MANY jobs over ts - none of which were jobs where I was "competing with illegals." I have worked as an ESL instructor, reference librarian, youth counselor, etc, all in regions where knowing Spanish was a huge advantage. And for the record, the majority of people I've helped with my Spanish speaking have been legal immigrants. Of course, the OP requested that nobody bring illegal immigration into the discussion, but you just couldn't resist (so I am responding accordingly).
And yes, I do think we should start teaching foreign languages (any of them) at a younger age. I started speaking Spanish as a child, and coasted through those middle/high school classes more easily than my peers... it also "stuck" more than it usually does for those who start learning in high school, although that partially has to do with the fact that I use it professionally. But in regards to children absorbing languages better than older teens/adults, that is definitely true! My niece and nephew attended a daycare run by Portuguese women, and were speaking Portuguese almost as well as English within a year. They also attended Hebrew Day School for Pre-K & Kindergarten, and again, were grasping the language with ease very quickly. It's time Americans got over their stubbornness on this issue, and joined the rest of the world in becoming multilingual. We're spoiled, I know, but there is no NEGATIVE to knowing multiple languages IMO.
I live right on the border and it wouldn't help me in my job whatsoever but in my job, I deal with professionals, not only ones from Mexico.
I did learn Spanish by studying in Mexico but not for the purpose of helping Spanish speakers come here and refuse to learn English. I don't earn even a dime more an hour for knowing Spanish, the guy in thus job before me was hispanic but he can speak English and he in fact knows no Spanish.
I realize that certain jobs especially social work kind of jobs now require Spanish fluency, but oddly not German fluency, Japanese fluency, or any other because it is really only the one ethnic group that everyone accepts won't be learning English.
In college, I tutored English language learners, adults in fact and from a variety of countries. They didn't want the tutors speaking any language but English.
It sounds like the whole reason some want to force American kids to learn Spanish is because the Spanish speaking immigrants refuse to learn any English and expect us to kearn their language to accomodate them.
We certainly can't learn every language of the world. Greek, Russian, Polish, German, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean, and all the many other languages and dialects of every possible immigrant. People should learn what benefits them, many might have more use for Russian than Spanish, others might not need a foreign language at all.
Force US kids - good one. We can steer children, which is what we do. We provide FAPE, K-12 in most places. But there's not much forcing - other than providing staff, schools, curriculum, textbooks and lots of the extras - band, team sports, libraries and so on. Oh, the law will deal with extreme cases - but usually outcomes (in difficult cases) depend more on a caring staff person or teacher more than on the operations of the Truancy laws or Juvenile Delinquency laws.
Yes, older adults who speak only Spanish (or a native language) can have a tough time learning any new language - especially if they're barely literate in their first language. Do they thereby refuse to learn? If it's organic - that is, like most adults - they can't readily acquire a new language no matter what the incentives - then it's more realistic to not force them.
As to benefits - I think everyone who possibly can should learn a second language. Language structures and categorizes perception - at higher levels, it's hard to think without resorting to language, even if never spoken aloud. Language in the US schools is for communication - a practical goal. But all languages are perfectly suited to the purposes their native speakers put them to - Inuit categorizes snow, ice, weather with much finer gradations than English does, for instance.
The Native Peoples' languages - the smaller nations/tribes - are being lost, because there are not enough native speakers to continue the languages. The sheer esthetics and sociological concerns justify making the effort to retain every language we can.
And you never know - what happens if someday the gods return and all they speak is Eastern Abnaki, or Lumbee, or Powhatan?
They've actually found that learning two languages as a child makes the child grasp the syntax and grammar rules of either language at a much slower pace than they would just learning one. With so many people in this country who already seem to struggle with grammar and spelling as is, I'd hate to see any measures put in place that ared exacerbate that problem.
That said, the psychology and linguistics studies I'm talking about were measuring infants and very young children, not school-aged ones. And I think that since the societies of the world are becoming increasingly globalized and interconnected, being multilingual will give a person a clear advantage now and in the future. So, there's no denying that learning a foreign language is critical.
Totally agree with malamute, though, that we need to prioritize placing a greater emphasis on math and science in our grade schools than on foreign languages - although both are important.
That's true and you can easily observe that here where I live. Kids are illiterate in two languages. It's very common, in fact more common than not to hear phrases like "dame la pencil", or "esta working", and see signs as stupid as "sebende la troka" and "breicas" or "brekas" written referring to "frenos" - no joke, I have seen these. They may think they're speaking Spanish and they certainly aren't speaking English, but who can understand them?
Force US kids - good one. We can steer children, which is what we do. We provide FAPE, K-12 in most places. But there's not much forcing - other than providing staff, schools, curriculum, textbooks and lots of the extras - band, team sports, libraries and so on. Oh, the law will deal with extreme cases - but usually outcomes (in difficult cases) depend more on a caring staff person or teacher more than on the operations of the Truancy laws or Juvenile Delinquency laws.
Yes, older adults who speak only Spanish (or a native language) can have a tough time learning any new language - especially if they're barely literate in their first language. Do they thereby refuse to learn? If it's organic - that is, like most adults - they can't readily acquire a new language no matter what the incentives - then it's more realistic to not force them.
As to benefits - I think everyone who possibly can should learn a second language. Language structures and categorizes perception - at higher levels, it's hard to think without resorting to language, even if never spoken aloud. Language in the US schools is for communication - a practical goal. But all languages are perfectly suited to the purposes their native speakers put them to - Inuit categorizes snow, ice, weather with much finer gradations than English does, for instance.
The Native Peoples' languages - the smaller nations/tribes - are being lost, because there are not enough native speakers to continue the languages. The sheer esthetics and sociological concerns justify making the effort to retain every language we can.
And you never know - what happens if someday the gods return and all they speak is Eastern Abnaki, or Lumbee, or Powhatan?
I think for languages, it's better to learn Visual C or Java. Programming languages help the brain.
Here on the border, the worst scores in standardized tests are with the bilingual students, especially in math snd science, it's the bilingual students with high dropout rates. Even here, English only speaking kids outperform the bilingual kids.
I think for languages, it's better to learn Visual C or Java. Programming languages help the brain.
Here on the border, the worst scores in standardized tests are with the bilingual students, especially in math snd science, it's the bilingual students with high dropout rates. Even here, English only speaking kids outperform the bilingual kids.
If bilingual students are doing poorly, I think it's likelier that it's the low reading levels in English and Spanish (and any other language involved), rather than the fact of two or more languages being involved. After all, the Jewish & German & Japanese & Chinese & other high-performing cultures/families of students stress language/culture retention, but they also stress study, academics and intellectual performance.
Yes, you're half-joking about programming languages, I get it. But it's going to be hard to teach a synthetic language when the students only half grasp their own native languages.
As a country, we need to get our students to do better with math and science and language (and history and civics and so on). If we mean to still have a high-functioning country after three or four generations, we need to impart a love of learning. Otherwise, we'll wind up like the oil emirates or the Imperial Romans, importing poorer laborers or clever Greeks to do the labor-intensive or technical work for us. The problem being that Janissaries are never content in the long run to merely be mercenaries.
Yes, but it will never happen in this current education environment. They can barely continue to teach the children any science, let alone another language. My child is in elementary school and there was zero time devoted to science in the lesson plan for an entire trimester this year. When it did show up for the other two, it was as an 'if we have time' sort of thing, which I find personally appalling. This is the age children are asking the most questions and eat up science. I asked my child the last time any classroom time was devoted to learning any science and she said at the very beginning of the year. That is backed up by the fact I have never seen anything come home but LA and math worksheets. But that is the world we live in where the only things that matter are passing a test that has no science on it. This is a big part of the reason I'm going to be homeschooling next year.
If bilingual students are doing poorly, I think it's likelier that it's the low reading levels in English and Spanish (and any other language involved), rather than the fact of two or more languages being involved. After all, the Jewish & German & Japanese & Chinese & other high-performing cultures/families of students stress language/culture retention, but they also stress study, academics and intellectual performance.
Yes, you're half-joking about programming languages, I get it. But it's going to be hard to teach a synthetic language when the students only half grasp their own native languages.
As a country, we need to get our students to do better with math and science and language (and history and civics and so on). If we mean to still have a high-functioning country after three or four generations, we need to impart a love of learning. Otherwise, we'll wind up like the oil emirates or the Imperial Romans, importing poorer laborers or clever Greeks to do the labor-intensive or technical work for us. The problem being that Janissaries are never content in the long run to merely be mercenaries.
I made the big mistake of putting one of my sons in a dual language program. I figured it would work for him because he was a very early talker, was ahead. It was bad. They spent half a day with an English speaking teacher learning all the usual subjects, the other half of the day was all in Spanish. He got far behind in math and it took him middle school and most of high school to get caught up.
It sounds good on the surface -- learn all kinds of languages but that takes time away from math and science which are at least as important and at least as valuable in developing the brain. None of the kids in his class, and all the rest were hispanic, ended up speaking much Spanish. The other half didn't learn much English.
I would think it would be a good idea. For all sorts of reasons. It would be a great way to study other cultures. Also, once they got to high school language would come easier for them.
Without a doubt. Children in American schools should begin studying one European language and one non-European language in elementary school. The younger the better.
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What you mean, "We"?
