I find it very interesting that there is no national language of the United States of America, but all of our legal documents are written in English. In Kate Elizabeth Vieira’s article “American by Paper” she brings up issues that immigrants have with this concept in America. My roommate immigrated from the Philippines when she was one year old to Maryland. When she went to kindergarten she met another Filipino girl who spoke the main language of the Philippines, Tagalog. They instantly bonded over their bilingualism and decided that they would only speak in Tagalog with one another. Their teacher told their parents that if they did not stop talking in a different language with one another they would have to go to English as a Second Language classes.
From that point on her parents only spoke in English in the home until young Jefi learned to speak only in English. This pleased her teacher but made Jefi a very angsty pre-teen. She hated that she was forced to assimilate. She could only understand her grandmother speaking in Tagalog, but could not speak her first language back to her. This summer Jefi went on a mission trip to the Philippines where she was the only one who could speak to the people in the village, but realized her vocabulary was about the same as her favorite three year old.
So I ask you fellow classmates, is this not truly a travesty? Should we learn from the error of our ways and tell kindergarten teachers to let their students speak whatever language they are most comfortable with? Or will those children fall behind in school because they are not learning to speak proper English with superhero like grammar and punctuation? How will it end?
Wow—I really love the point you bring up. How controversial this probably is. My first thought is: well, why come to America if people aren’t planning to assimilate with the rest of the country? What exactly was their thought? That they were going to excel in our country without becoming literate in English? And then I thought a little bit more. Becoming literate in English isn’t really the reason most people immigrate to America in the first place. By choosing to immigrate to America, immigrants are forced to assimilate and become literate in English. Most immigrants come here, it seems, to gain the opportunity for a better and safer life. For your roommate, Jefi, I would assume that being forced to abandon her home language wasn’t something she thought she would have to do at such a young age. I do understand the point of teachers wanting all children to speak in the same language, English, but from their point of view, how is that fair? When America doesn’t have a national language, how is it fair to require immigrants to speak the “most popular” one? Therefore, I’m not sure the point to all of that thought-vomit but I’m going to conclude with that yes, children will fall behind in school because they are not learning to speak proper English. It isn’t entirely fair to them, but by immigrating here, I would think it is an unwritten rule that you must assimilate to excel. So I would ask, for the immigrants, is a better life worth abandoning almost everything about their homeland? If immigrants are going to be so offended that we ask this of them, then maybe they should consider not leaving their home.
Your question makes me wonder if we started making it mandatory that children begin learning a foreign language in elementary school rather than high school would that somehow work to bridge this gap between students who speak one language at home and another in school? For example, if we offered Spanish to elementary school children who do not speak another language at the same time that maybe students who are bilingual are working on their English skills? Or maybe just give those bilingual students the opportunity to improve their language skills, because no native speaker knows all of the grammatical rules, especially small children. I don’t know if this example makes sense the way that I’m explaining it, but basically I’m proposing teaching languages earlier and utilizing bilingual children to do so.
My elementary school did this. The area where I lived was made up of primarily Russian immigrants and their children who all spoke Russian at home. So the school would say the announcements and the Pledge of Allegiance in both English and Russian every morning. They also started teaching Russian to kids at an early age. I wasn’t in the school when they started doing this, but my younger brother was and he was able to learn some of the language because the school made it mandatory.
This has been touched somewhat in other posts this week, but I truly feel that if we, as Americans, are to ask those who come to our great country for shelter and opportunity to assimilate and speak only English, then we should probably make English the official language of the United States. But if we are to continue this facade of being a melting pot, then we should actively try to blend with those who come to us, rather than refusing to budge and making them come to us. I’m not saying that we should try and learn every single language spoken within our borders, but it’s a little hypocritical of us to expect everyone to learn English when it isn’t officially mandated. Additionally, if it was deemed the national language, it would cause less confusion for immigrants, because they would know ahead of time that all documents and the majority of speaking would be done in English, and could seek out help or aid instead of thinking they can get by 100% without knowing English.
Also, it would prevent obstacles for people like Jefi in the future. While she should be expected to do her homework and answer the teacher’s questions in English, there is nothing wrong with her practicing in her other language with a fellow classmate. Tagalong is part of her culture, and it was wrong of the teacher to deny her that. I think a lot of times English speakers are fearful of other languages, or ignorant, and instead of being tolerant they squash any chance of multicultural communication.
I understand the teachers’ desire to immerse the children in English to help them learn it, but forcing them to rely on a language they are uncomfortable with will mostly result in silence in my opinion. I feel that they would fall behind in school as a result of the silence instead of not learning to speak proper English. I think allowing children to speak the language they feel comfortable in won’t necessarily affect their learning of the English language. I don’t think this system will change any time soon, but I don’t feel like it is necessarily bad. I think children are capable of picking up languages far more easily than adults or older children, like Sammix3 said. Like kristieteorsky mentioned, learning English is becoming increasingly crucial. For these children to be successful, learning English well will certainly help. I agree with kristieterosky that forcing English upon bilingual immigrant children is a “necessary evil” and should be encouraged.
It’s interesting that you bring up the point of bilingualism in education. There have actually been many studies done to establish the differences of children who are learning more than one language. All of these actually pointed to an increased level of reasoning, but even more interesting, better grammatical skills. Children’s brains can split into two paths and understand mistakes better, even outside of grammar skills. This is most likely not the reason for not having an official language; however, if we implement the acceptance of bilingualism in the classroom, I believe we wouldn’t have to establish a official language.