And There Isn’T A Clear Answer To Which Side Holds The

Teachers are forcing kids away from taking specific classes due to bias opinions, which is why for many schools in the United States language is not looked at as a priority. Picture growing up in a small town, in Maine, which in the data table from Shin and Kominski’s report showed to be a state with the least amount of citizens that spoke a language other than English as their primary language, shows that for some people language is hard to see has being important. In High School some have found a passion in language but don’t receive the proper curriculum that would allow them to succeed. Instead of introducing language in High School, our school systems should focus on adding it into the curriculum that is taught in elementary school and middle school. By starting when you are young, the time you are graduating high school you can speak at least one other language and classify yourself as bilingual. Dianne Steinbach explained it as, “Something that many of us took for granted when we were younger people is now disappearing” (First Speakers:Restoring). Since there is such a large increase in language diversity

“Language is power. If you cannot understand or be understood you have no power. You are at the mercy of everyone.” – (Rudat, 1994, Stow, Dodd 356) Should Americans be required to learn Spanish as a second language? The construction of our nation stands on documents written in English, however English is not our official language nor has it ever been. America is a “melting pot” in which English is the most prominent language, followed closely by Spanish. Requiring Americans to learn Spanish is a great controversy; I strongly believe that it should be a requirement, because it improves academic achievements, career success, and cultural and social understanding. The controversy has great counter arguments such as the double standard Americans are held to, and further division of the country. Regarding the counterarguments, I still firmly believe that it should be a requirement because the integration of a second language in our schools is more beneficial to our country’s success as a whole.

This semester I participated in a service learning partnership with two other students. Through the semester I spent a little over ten hours with each of my partners. Most of the activities we participated in were activities in which we were able to get to know one other on more of a personal level. The thing that made this partnership interesting was the fact we were all from different parts of the world. Which means the way we had grown up was very different for each of us.

She maintains this will allow them to generate cognitive and linguistic progress that nurtures their transition to English (Stover, 2015). Therefore, according to Dr. Vonderlack-Navarro, the “English only” approach can be detrimental to learning English (Stover, 2015). Vonderlack-Navarro contends school board members need to endorse specific strategies and support multilingual classrooms in response to the question, “How does the school board make these literacy gains in a classroom with English language learners who speak different languages?” (Stover, 2015).

The problem with both bilingual education and English-as-a-second language instruction in the United States lies in our unwillingness to treat English for non-speakers as an academic subject (Haas, 2007). While the bilingual programs in California are thought to be mostly for people who speak Spanish, there are also Asian students that need to be taught proper English before continuing their education. As one anonymous teacher points out: "I have had 32 different languages spoken in my classroom over a 25-year period. Eighty-four languages are spoken in our district."(Anon 1998 & Haas 2007). Which for most teachers mean that it is both educationally and economically impossible to teach every student in their own native language.

The great thing about America, is that it’s a country that accepts people of all different cultures as citizens of the country. This is a distinguishing quality that no other country in the world shares. By having this unique quality, it drew in nearly every imaginable kind of person to this country, a country with just one primary language, English. With that came hundreds of new languages spoken by the immigrants. To this day there’s still people who isolate themselves within their ethnic groups, instead of learning to speak English, the most prevalent language used in America. There’s something to be said for learning at least a little of a language whether someone is visiting a country for a day or planning to live there for the rest of their life. It shows that person cares about the place they’re in, and that they respect its residents. According to Brice, “Making English the official language would encourage new migrants to learn the language of the country they have adopted as theirs. The end goal is to unite the American people, while improving the lives of immigrants and native born inhabitants.” Speaking and

I also believe that students should have every option explained and available to them so that they may continue to educate themselves. I find it astounding that most students do not understand that there are other ways to attain success other than the traditional high school to college route.

There are millions of people traveling between the U.S. and other countries each year, each person bringing and taking our culture and theirs with them. If we were to make English the official language to be spoken, it would cause many people to feel unwanted or in other words unwelcome and cause them to not +want to stay or visit with us. So if we were to tell them that they needed to change and learn a new language that is like taking away who they are and where they are from. Many people argue that, if they choose to come to this country, they should choose to learn its language. Anywhere you go the people from that country expect anyone to learn that countries language due to respect on coming. "If I were going to Mexico" they say, "I would expect to learn Spanish." This argument ignores two important aspects about immigration

The article “English Only” Laws divide and Demean by Warren Blumenfeld states the author’s view against enacting a law making English the official language of the federal government. Mr. Blumenfeld’s premise in "English Only" is that the law is unnecessary and divisive in the United States. He is seeking a call to action in his home state of Iowa against the “English -only” law because he believes that it will negatively impact the beliefs that our nation is founded upon, rather than celebrate and promote our uniqueness as a nation of people from different cultures seeking the freedom to be individuals. He is an opponent of this law since he believes it has the potential to create prejudice and discrimination toward our citizens because

However, for the nontraditional student, this is hardly ever the case, and that it’s likely constraining these assumptions to a student will not motivate any type of success (Vega and Moore 20).

There is no argument that students will do better academically when the school provides material and instruction according to the native language. For school districts that deal with one other language like Spanish that requirement should not be extremely difficult to accomplish. However, not all school district are not alike. For example, Spanish makes up only 23% of the TOP TEN languages that students speak in our district (Anchorage School District). Hmong comes in at 21% (Anchorage School District). Just between those two languages you still are under fifty percent mark. Add to the mix, the ten percent that the district classifies as “other” which could include anything like Arabic, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, and not to mention

This tactic is effective because not only are the students getting used to the language, but, they are not being forced to speak English regularly. They can speak whatever language they like around their friends or family, but when it comes down to business, they better know how to use the English language.

So what does society really expect from students? It is clear to all who work in Higher Education that student expectations have changed over the years. These expectations are now of greater complexity. In the 1980’s what was expected from students in highest educational institutes? To obtain a degree, support by government funding, and few expectations of teaching quality. What about in 2005? Flexibility and choice in the delivery of education, a two way communication process between themselves and with the University, and honesty with respect to whether his or her needs can be met or not.

A survey done by the Center for Applied Linguistics in 2008 found that "The findings indicate a serious disconnect between the national call to educate world citizens with high-level language skills and the current state of foreign language instruction in schools across the country"(Cal:Research). This is concerning as all of the competition for the U.S. is gaining a step and we 're doing nothing . If the U.S. expects to continue to be competitive in the global market we need to have bilingual citizens. In order to ensure this, we must require a foreign language be learned in high school.

Students: including those studying from full-time to part-time, locally or by distance, from high to low socio-economic backgrounds and of varying ages