Sunday, March 21, 2004
This Globe article following up on the current state of the new English-Immersion policy in Massachusetts schools almost blind-sided me with another argument by the foes of immersion - the parents aren't able to communicate with their kids as well, thus their authority is undermined, and they worry that their kids' language and culture will be diluted. Welcome to the club. If this is so, then it puts the lie to the idea that bi-lingual education was doing all it could to bring the kids along, or else this would have been of concern before - the kids just would have been growing more distant and assimilated more gradually. The concern of assimilation is the same for all immigrant groups since time immemorial, and it's simply not the government's place to be concerned about it. But further, I read another success here. In an effort to keep up with their kids, the parents are being forced to learn English at a new, rapid pace.
It's a double win.
Boston.com / News / Local / English immersion hits home
Are her children learning English so quickly and completely that it will end up blotting out their native language and culture?
If that happens, will there be a day when her three sons and only daughter become so fluent in English, and remain so rudimentary in Spanish, that they no longer understand their parents, who are fluent only in Spanish?
Last school year, Otis Elementary was a bilingual school where children who spoke little or no English received classes in their native languages. As required by the state's new English immersion law, the school began teaching students almost entirely in English in September.
Before school began, Carmen and her husband, Genaro, worried that the abrupt switch would become a roadblock in their children's education. But, so far, that has not happened...
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