I’m no fan of what usually passes for bilingual education, but it’s quite likely that one size does not fit all.
It’s a scientifically proven fact that young children pick up langages very quickly. But what do you do with the kid who is 15 yrs old when his family comes to the US?
Perhaps diffent lengths of time for kids of different ages.
But then you have the problem of who get’s bilingual education. Usually there are enough Spanish speaking kids to justify something, but what about the dozens of other languages of immigrants? Do you recquire there be a certain critical mass of speakers? Seems like you’d have to (going back to my statement earlier that I think common sense tells us a lot about what should be done).
How did mono-lingualism become such a source of pride?
Growing up in LA, I wish someone had forced me to learn Spanish as a kid. It would come in a lot handier than knowing how to convert exponents to logarithms.
Amen! You’re not such a Dumbguy at that. There was a second language requirement when I was in high school, but none in elementary school, where it would have been much more effective and easier to learn. I live in southern California, too, where knowledge of Spanish would have been very helpful, both in employment and socially. I took German because my counselor told me it was the language of science (this was the 1950’s). It has been of no use to me, and I’ve forgotten most of it.
Although it’s popular among the “elite” to chastise the monolingualness of most Americans, it really does make sense that native born Americans are relatively week in the lnaguage dept. We live in a big, fairly isolated country speaking the most popular language in the world, and so the “market value” of a foreign language to an American is much lower than it is to almost anyone else in the world. Americans are, as a group, no dumber or smarter than the rest of the world. If it were necessary, Americans would become more mulit-lingual.
I’m all for teaching foreign languages as early as possible. But the truth is most people will not use it and will forget it as soon as school is out. A few will retain some of it, but let’s just say that we’re never going to be Switzerland.
I’m not defending mono-lingualism pre se, and I myself very much enjoy the study of other languages. I think speaking as many languages as possible is a wonderful thing. Just trying to be realistic about the situation in the US, though.
You are perhaps right about your market-value theory.
The problem is, not everything can be measured from capitalistic viewpoint. If you do only things with high “market-value” then you can soon forget about humanism and cultural values.
flonks, I think JM’s “market value” explains American linguistic patterns, it does not attempt to justify them. How do I put this? It’s not that “you only do things with high market value”, but that things with high market value tend to get done w/o my having to make a concerted effort to convince people to do them.
And market-value is not necessarily financial. It’s just that you are getting something you want or value out of it in exchange for your investment of time and effort. Hardly ANYTHING is done “just because”.
The Trekkers who have learned the grammar of the Klingon language, for instance, find that their enjoyment of their pastime is worth the time and effort, and it bonds them to a community of fans with whom they share good times and fellowship – it HAS “high market value” AND a “cultural” value.