¿Habla Español? Your kids may soon

The Skagit Valley Herald ^ | 12/01/2003 | Steve Howie

[MontN]

¿Habla Español? Your kids may soon
By STEVE HOWIE

MOUNT VERNON — The school district is studying the possibility of converting one or more of its six elementary schools into dual language programs where the day is divided between lessons in Spanish and English for all students.

"Research says that's the best delivery model," Superintendent Mack Armstrong said. "Then the question is, Why wouldn't we do it?"

...

Armstrong's enthusiasm for the idea follows a visit to the district two weeks ago by Richard Gomez, bilingual education director for the state education department in Olympia.

In the last three years, Gomez has spearheaded efforts to create 17 dual language schools in the state, primarily in eastern Washington. In his previous job in Texas, he helped establish 50 of the schools.

Click here for the whole enchilada...

[pacpam]

India remained united as a country when the British left because it declared English as the official language of the country. This country can't be just two languages if it goes down that road - how dare we leave out the other minorities. English is the glue of this country. I for one don't want it to come unglued.

And answer me please why it is okay to teach Spanish immersion for English speaking kids because it works best, but Spanish speaking kids need bi-lingual, not immersion?

[Ed_NYC]

"My kids will never learn Spanish. If they want to learn a foreign language, it can be German."

My colleagues and I make a comfortable living thanks to something called emerging markets and knowing Spanish is the key to it. Germany has one of the strongest economies in Europe but instead of learning German I would go for Chinese… Numbers make the world go around.

[c-b 1]

Just as we advocate students coming to the U.S. who do not speak English to be immersed in it, so students learning another language would experience the same.

The dual language programs I am familiar with do not include immersion. They fail to educate in either language.

[Ben Chad]

Whatever happened to Latin?

Español es cerca de Latin. Italiano es màs cerca.

[Guillermo]

German won't be very useful to them.

I'm totally against any language other than English being used by government in official business, but to refuse to let your children learn Spanish seems to be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Choose Ye This Day]

Yep. I'm still mad my daughter never had a chance to get in a program like this. I once judged some poetry and drama competitions done in Spanish by kids in language programs in schools all over the state. Some third graders came in from one of these dual-language programs, and just blew everybody else away. Their pronunciation, verb conjugation, everything was absolutely great. All these little blonde haired, blue-eyed kids (and others as well) speaking fluent Spanish. It put to shame all the slacker high schoolers who only get about 2.5 hours of classroom instruction in the language each week.

I see nothing sinister in this at all. I think every child should be fluent in another language (Spanish, German, Arabic, whatever). If the resources are available to do this in a charter school, I'd say "que lo hagan."

[The Bronze Titan]

Spanish speaking children NEED to learn English.

English speaking children SHOULD learn Spanish.

I do not believe in bilingual arrangements.

I do believe in immersion learning, because it is the best.

Let us not confuse one issue with the other. Don't beat your chest and stick your head in the sand, at the same time.

[Ben Chad]

The dual language programs I am familiar with do not include immersion. They fail to educate in either language.

You fail to mention that many uni-language programs fail to educate.

[FITZ]

It didn't work very well, actually, mostly the American kids just sat there and looked at each other.

One of my kids is in dual language but it's not working that well. The American kids (including Mexican-American) aren't picking up Spanish --- and when the Mexican kids are exposed to English, it's all they want to speak. They'll be putting the emphasis back on "bilingual" which really means monolingual Spanish. They can't let these kids learn English and integrate.

Also if they require a language it shouldn't be one particular foreign language over any of the others. Just offer several foreign languages -- including Spanish and let them choose.

[Scenic Sounds]

More bad news, MontN.

[longtermmemmory]

This is not about training a second language. This is about teaching core classes in non-english. This is damaging.

[FITZ]

English speaking children SHOULD learn Spanish.

You mean English speaking children SHOULD learn Spanish, or French, or German, or Russian, or Latin, or Greek, or Japanese, or Swahali, or Arabic........

[Ben Chad]

You mean English speaking children SHOULD learn Spanish, or French, or German, or Russian, or Latin, or Greek, or Japanese, or Swahali, or Arabic........

Good point except did you really mean to include French?

[Unassuaged]

Why not, assuming you could control trier lives, why would you want to do that.

[FITZ]

They've got a problem. We must become mulit-cultural, multi-language etc. But the English speaking kids do better on standardardized tests (even when they're Spanish surnamed). They translate the tests into Spanish for the Spanish speaking kids and they do just as badly. It's not fair and we can't achieve this multi-cultural society with this happening. So make all the kids Spanish speaking and they can do equally poorly.

[MontN]

Why Spanish then? Why not Latin?

Lest you think me a xenophobe, let me cite an example of someone I admire. About three years ago we met an elderly gentleman of Mexican descent who came to the US as a child and worked in the fields, worked to learn English so well that he achieved the American dream, served in the armed forces and later went on to teach medicine at UCLA. His family CHOSE to learn English as Americans so they could achieve a better life for their children. They kept their culture but excelled because they learned to integrate into the American culture.

[FITZ]

Well yes --- for the sissy kids.

[marron]

I could imagine a dual-language program that could work but it would have to be rigorous, and everyone involved would have to be motivated. Thats hard to do across the board in a public school setting. It may be possible as a special program offered that kids can volunteer for. But, as I say, the only example I am personally familiar with didn't work very well. It wasn't "rigorous" and the kids weren't motivated.

What they did was to offer the hard classed in English, and the "soft" classes, such as art, music, and gym, in Spanish. But the classroom spanish study was not sufficient and consequently the kids were clueless. And, frankly, didn't care, either.

But I would like to see more importance attached to foreign language training. At one time Spanish was commonly taught in the lower grades, and Spanish, French, and German were common in the upper grades. I don't know what happened to all of that, but its gone in a lot of places.

[Ben Chad]

Also if they require a language it shouldn't be one particular foreign language over any of the others. Just offer several foreign languages -- including Spanish and let them choose.

Budgets may vary. Also, take a scan of your radio and TV stations --- how many Russian, German, French, Italian, Portugese, etc. stations do I get? Zero. How many in Spanish? 10-20 in Dallas Tx. I took Latin in HS. It was a complete waste of time because there were no opportunities outside of Catholic churches to hear the language in practice. Es verdad?

[JusPasenThru]

Has Pree Republic become the official mouthpiece of the Know-Nothing Party?