Speaking of English
Re "English immersion," Opinion, July 11
Conservative America's paranoia regarding the English-only issue is really wearing thin.
The ability to communicate in two or more languages is a sign of intellect, not political weakness. Yet everyone in the world knows that when one travels to the United States, one had better speak English. This fosters a mindset that we are too arrogant — or simply not bright enough — to learn one or two other languages.
For many of us, communicating in another language while traveling is one of the highlights of any trip abroad. Conversely, some Americans become infuriated at the mere thought of being unable to communicate with others in English — while in a non-English-speaking country.
The last time I checked, English was, for us, a borrowed language anyway.
Michael Barton
Huntington Beach
I found it disappointing that The Times chose Alice Callaghan to present arguments regarding the education of language-minority children.
Callaghan is a well-known English-only political activist. She claims that a single factor — English-only schooling — is the overriding element in the academic success of English learners. In making this argument, she neglects an enormous body of research that indicates that the most successful English-language development, when measured along language, academic, social and cross-cultural dimensions, is that delivered as part of a dual language program.
Callaghan also neglects to explain the failure of schools to educate adequately many ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic status students whose only language is English.
Hopefully, readers will seek out more accurate information on this topic. The nature of future educational opportunities for California's more than 2million students who speak a language other than English at home depends on the public overcoming its lack of understanding of these programs.
David P. Dolson
Sacramento
The writer is a former administrator of the Language Policy and Leadership Office, California Department of Education.
Re "What works?," Opinion, July 11
For too long, the politics of language have driven our failed policies to effectively educate our English learners. Kudos to Bruce Fuller, Laurie Olsen and Shelly Spiegel-Coleman for shifting the conversation to the merits of language.
The research is clear that students perform at higher academic levels when they master their native language and learn a second language. Also, in order to globally compete in the 21st century, students need to develop linguistic and cultural literacy and functional proficiency in multiple languages.
Last year, the Los Angeles Unified School District approved the World Languages resolution acknowledging the linguistic assets that English learners possess and institutionalizing the importance of multi-lingual proficiency as a crucial skill in the global economy. The resolution calls for the district to increase the number of dual immersion programs that promote simultaneous acquisition of two languages.
Our challenge now is implementation. The district must take this opportunity to effectively meet the needs of English learners and become a leader in preparing our students to be global citizens.
Yolie Flores
Los Angeles
The writer is vice president, LAUSD Board of Education.
We have two groups of children — one speaking mostly English and one mostly Spanish — seeking to enter the global marketplace as bilinguals in two of the three most spoken languages in the world. Instead of forcing one language out of the classroom, why not have students learn from each other and learn another language?
Christopher George Hughes
Portland, Ore.
I am puzzled by Sunday's discussion of the difficulties young Mexicans have in learning English.
Back in the day, in the aftermath of World War II, the schools were filled with displaced persons. Somehow, despite their language of origin, they mastered English.
An Estonian beat me out for the physics prize. Is a Mexican's brain somehow different? I don't think so. The solution is, as it always has been, total immersion.
Phillip Good
Huntington Beach
As a former school board member of the Burbank Unified School District, I was drawn to your Op-Ed articles on bilingual education. I hoped for some new insight, but apparently there is nothing new to add — just the same old rhetoric, cultural bias, excuses and scapegoating.
I ask again, as I have been asking for more than 20 years, why the argument for bilingual education — which initially gives token mention to all cultures — always boils down to focusing on the cluster of Spanish-speaking students who lag woefully behind?
Where are the data that analyze why students from Japan, India, Israel, Lebanon, Korea, Colombia, Chile, Russia, etc. seem to succeed and often excel with an English-only education in public schools?
