Re: Connglish

Daniel and Mark,

After I admit that I know nothing about this subject, I'm amazed that
Europeans would object to a bilingual upbringing as Daniel described.
Perhaps this is a Central European opinion thirty years ago?  Or is it an
opinion expressed by educators in Western Europe as well?  Europe has always
seemed to me to be tolerant, for social, political, and geographical
reasons, of bilingualism.  Non-bilingualism seems to belong more to
Americans in their linguistic isolation.

Mark writes below: "I have never figured out why anyone wants them to learn
*only* English."

Not having children myself, I haven't directly encountered this opinion, but
I imagine that it is both pedagogical and ideological: our second language
in the US is obviously Spanish, but Latino culture is roundly looked down
upon here, even though the majority of Americans take Spanish as their
"foreign language."  And the huge debates about Ebonics in the last decade
shows that Americans are very suspicious of bilingualism IF the first
language derives from what is considered to be a "subculture": Latin or
African American.  I'm sure Mark could speak with more experience about
whether teachers disapprove of American children who are bilingual in, say,
German and English, French and English, Greek and English (there is a big
Greek culture here in my Upstate town), or Hungarian and English, etc. etc.,
i.e., cultures (usually European) that "pass approval."  Don't know about
Arabic and English, Hindi and English, etc.

Sally


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: Connglish


> On 11/19/06, daniel prohaska <danielprohaska@...> wrote:
>> I can imagine that the resistance in the US has more to do with ideology
>> than pedagogy.
>
> Whatever the motivation, it mostly comes up in a pedagogical context.
> Whenever there's an issue with the child's performance, no matter what
> the issue is, the first suspect is the bilingual education.
>
>> The consensus still appears to be that the children ought
>> assimilate into an English speaking environment and become valuable
>> contributors to Anglo-American society.
>
> Well, there is a definite poltical trend thataway, with English now
> the "National Language" of the US and several states having taken it
> further to the status of "Official Language".  And while I
> wholeheartedly agree that all children in the US should learn to speak
> fluent English, I have never figured out why anyone wants them to
> learn *only* English.
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>

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