Chipanglish » Multilingualism

Arizona Immigration and Education

Peter — Sat, 01 May 2010 01:46:55 +0000

A blogger for the Wall Street Journal has written a post commenting on the impact the immigration law may have on education.

The new law requires police to question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. The educational implication for this may result in the arbitrary firing of teachers with heavy accents or have less than standard English syntax or morphology.

The reasoning given behind this is, “How can you expect a student learning English to learn it properly from someone who has trouble with the language himself or herself? Whether it be through clarity of pronunciation, mixing syntax and morphology, or otherwise ‘mangling’ the language?”

The question at the core is how to deem one person more “American” than the next, using linguistics as a tool. I know many children who are US born to immigrant parents who speak with accented English and have less than perfect syntax because they learned English simultaneously as their native tongue. Others have become naturalized citizens, are hard-working professionals, who just happen to have accents as English was not their first language. Though they are US Citizens, this new law could potentially threaten the employment of Arizona teachers in these situations.

First, nobody speaks “perfect” English. We all use slang, mix tenses, leave prepositions at the end of sentences, etc. If grammar and spelling were markers for teaching employment, a large majority of teachers would find themselves with pink slips. (I was in a classroom today where the teacher had written “grammer” on the board.) Or what about the many students (and teachers) who consistently mix up “there”, “their”, and “they’re”? Or those who write, “should of” instead of “should have”? Should those individuals be interrogated too?

Second, what about regional accents? There are many accents within our nation that people from outside that geographic region find difficult to understand. Fran Drescher’s New York accent? Or what about a heavy Southern drawl? Or the nasal accent associated with “Wes-caaaahn-sin”?

While I understand why this law was passed and the intention behind it, the whole thing just seems poorly thought out. I suspect it will affect many people in ways that its writers had not previously thought.

Bilingual School

Peter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:36:46 +0000

I recently read a news article about a school in which I have been a substitute teacher. For reasons unknown to the general public, the principal and a teacher have been removed from their positions.

This is the only fully Spanish-bilingual school in a district with a high Latino population. Several other schools have bilingual classrooms, but at White Rock, every class is bilingual. In fact, all classroom teachers are required to speak, read, and write Spanish at the fluency of a native speaker.

What bothers me most are the comments from the public that accompany the article such as, (paraphrasing) “Learn to speak English, this is America… stop wasting my tax dollars.”

First, even at the kindergarten level, most students are fluent in spoken English. The students who come from Spanish speaking households are on par with their native English speaking peers in terms of literacy. As a non-Spanish speaking teacher, I have had no linguistic troubles at the school.

Second, though the school is bilingual, many non-Spanish speaking students attend because of diversity.

Third, it is a school. The point of a school is to have a safe place where students can learn. What better place for students new to the country to learn the primary language here?

Finally, studies have shown that many minority families, particularly non-English speaking families, are apprehensive to be involved in their children’s school due to a language barrier. At White Rock, because most staff members speak Spanish, that fear is gone. Parents at White Rock are not afraid to speak to their children’s teachers and become active in education. Isn’t that what all schools strive for? Additionally, it is a powerful for students to see many of their own heritage as positive role models, instead of relying on stereotypes of what societal roles a Mexican immigrant can and cannot do.

While I do not know what is going on with the school, including rumors it may close or be repurposed as an administration building, it is a special place. The staff and students have been nothing but friendly and welcoming to all who pass through their doors.

An Interesting Debate on English Education at NYTimes.com

Elenita — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:36:04 +0000

Just a quick heads up: it looks like the NY Times has begun hosting a debate on immigration, and is starting with how to teach young children English.

We’ve talked about English education a lot here, but mostly in the context of English as the lingua franca. Learning a country’s dominant language (and I certainly don’t just mean the US here) as an immigrant–or the child-citizen of immigrants–is very different with a very different set of issues, and I’m not sure where I stand on many of them.

Apparently, a feature article on “a Virginia school district that segregates students who are the children of immigrants, and who don’t speak English well, to make it easier to give them intensive support” will be published this weekend. Possibly, this will help clarify my own views; either way, I suspect I’ll post afterwards with my reactions. But, in the meantime, I found the related debate to be fascinating, and encourage people to check it out.

Update: Article now available. Started and restarted multiple drafts of my response–this may take awhile.

Dreaming and Language

Elenita — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:37:05 +0000

It’s three o’clock in the morning–at least it is in my time zone–and I’m posting here at Chipanglish after a bad dream.

Actually, since we’re all about language here, that’s not very accurate. To be more precise, there was nothing bad about the dream per se. It’s more that I dreamt in German, and that is considerably disconcerting to me once I wake up.

(Because this is the Internet, let’s get something out of the way here. I am not saying that German is a bad language, that I dislike German, that people who dream in German are bad and/or disconcerting, or some combination thereof. I like German a lot, and wouldn’t have voluntarily studied it–after I’d already fulfilled my foreign language requirement–if I didn’t. Okay?)

As you might have guessed, I don’t dream in German particularly often. For that matter, I don’t use my German particularly often, either. Out of the four languages I claim some degree of competence in, it is the one I feel the least comfortable with. I’ll occasionally write an email in it, or listen to a podcast in it; every once in a while, I’ll read an untranslated article in Der Spiegel. But a completely German conversation, without some code switching into English? I can maybe recall five or six, in as many years since learning the language.

That’s not to say my German is bad, or that I couldn’t manage if I were mysteriously transported to Berlin one day. But it’s the language I personally find most stressful: unlike Spanish, I never got to the point where I could think in German when I’m using it. There’s a lot of mental translating going on, and it feels like I can’t keep up.

Thus, it’s always a little freaky to me when my subconscious does this. Possibly I know more of the language than I give myself credit for. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to fluent, fully formulated German emerging from my brain.

Especially not at three in the morning.

English as the Lingua Franca: How Long Will it Last?

Yvonne — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:24:07 +0000

I thought I’d open up a new thread for discussion as a bunch of things I’ve read recently seem to be converging on this topic. We’ve got Elenita’s comment on my foreign language in kindergarten post, Peter’s post on the English as Official Language contract, and this article in The Economist (via Polyglottally Speaking).

European politicians long feared that the use of English in the EU would lead to the dominance of Anglo-Saxon thinking. They were wrong. The example of newspapers is instructive: thanks to English (and the internet), a genuinely pan-European space for political debate is being created. It has never been easier for other Europeans to know what Poles think about the credit crunch, Germans about the Middle East or Danes about nuclear power. English is merely “an instrument”, says Mr Versteegh of NRC Handelsblad, not “a surrender to a dominant culture.”

There is a second reason why Anglophones are not about to dominate European debate: they do not want to. British readers have access to an unprecedented range of news and ideas from Europe in their mother tongue. They show little interest. Only 5% of Spiegel International’s readers are from Britain (though half are from North America). In recent years, British newspapers have withdrawn staff reporters right across Europe, and not only to save money. Britain’s daily newspapers are less and less interested in European politics and policy. Light, sensational stuff is what editors choose for publication, plus tales of British tourists and expatriates in trouble (a genre known as “Brits in the shit”).

Why bother?
Such parochialism may be linked to a fall in language-learning, accelerated since 2003, when foreign languages became voluntary in England and Wales for pupils over 14. That robs them of such benefits as the humility and respect for others that come from learning another language. But given the rise of English, it is rational, says Philippe van Parijs, a Belgian academic.

To which Polyglottally Speaking adds:

This effect parallels language learning in other English-speaking nations around the world, too, since why torture someone’s ears with gringo Spanish when they speak perfectly good English already? (That was a rhetorical question, I already know why!)

This trend will only continue if English continues to be the main language of business and diplomacy. After all, just a few decades ago that language was French (hence: lingua franca).

I know my parents and many members of the Taiwanese ex-pat community have told me to brush up on my Chinese because they think China will become the dominant power in the next century. Even if that’s true, does it necessarily follow that Chinese will succeed English as the lingua franca? Or is it more likely that the Chinese will just learn English?

Chipanglish » Multilingualism

Arizona Immigration and Education

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