zwei/dos/deux

drei/tres/trois

vier/quatro/quatre

fünf/cinco/cinq

sechs/seis/six

sieben/siete/sept

acht/ocho/huit

neun/nueve/neuf

zehn/diez/ dix 

Throughout writing this blog, I have found that I am very disappointed in America’s general attitude on foreign languages. In reading articles on America’s foreign language education, I was always glad to find an excuse to rant on this topic. My belief that we must put much more emphasis on learning foreign languages has only been strengthened by this blog.

I hope my love of Linguistics encourages me to read and write more about languages in the future. I look forward to a career involving languages and hope to one day inspire America to pick up the foreign language pace.

Again I find myself writing about politics when I don’t put forth much effort to follow them. I would, however, like to study up before the next election. What better place to start than candidate views on bilingual education? The newsletter Hispanic Link Weekly Report “posed the following question to the staff of 17 politicians competing in the presidential primaries that begin Jan. 3:

What is your candidate’s position, if any, on bilingual education?

I was disappointed to discover that only 7 candidates responded in time to be included in the newsletter. Of these 7 candidates, 5 were democrats supporting bilingual education and 2 were Republicans against it. I shall comment on a few of the more interesting responses.

Senator Clinton supports the notion that children will learn more efficiently by being taught in their native language while learning English at the same time.

I’ve been learning about doublespeak in my linguistics class and I’d say this qualifies. All that is being said is that Clinton agrees that children learn better in bilingual classes. The response doesn’t say anything about what she plans to do with bilingual education or how she thinks it should be incorporated into our education system. I suppose it’s good that she supports “the notion” but I’d rather find out what she plans to do with bilingual education.

The response from Bill Richardson’s staff was as follows:

Bilingual education is a part of guaranteeing equal education for all American students.

True. This is implying that Bill Richardson wishes to guarantee equal education and thus will incorporate bilingual classes into the education system. Whether he will or not isn’t explicitly said, but that seems to be how politicians work.

Obama believes the federal government should be doing more to encourage transitional bilingual education.

This quote is quite a bit more direct than the previous two. Obama thinks that transitional bilingual education should be encouraged.

[Mitt Romney] believes immersion is the best method for learning the English Language.

I would agree with this statement as immersion leads to a greater oral competency in a foreign language and that, I believe, qualifies it as the best method. The kind of immersion I am speaking of also involves a great deal of instruction concentrating on the language paired with the other types of instruction that are also in the language. I do not think Romney has this type of immersion in mind. This statement alone doesn’t prove that Romney is against bilingual education, but the article explains that Romney

told his supporters in speeches that he fought for the end of bilingual education in Massachusetts

That definitely qualifies him for a candidate against bilingual education.

[Tom Tancredo] thinks that classes should be in English only. He thinks English should be the official language in the U.S. and everything should be printed in English.

Well, I definitely do not agree that classes should be in English only. This would make it quite difficult for students who can’t comprehend a word of English. I do, however, agree that English should be the official language of the U.S. I also agree that everything should be printed in English, with some also being printed in other languages in order to aid those who do not speak English, of course. If our nation is to claim English as the official language, we are going to need to step up our foreign language programs. At least now we can admit that many Americans don’t bother learning more languages than English while following it up saying that English isn’t our official language, we do have others. Keeping our current attitude about foreign language while making our official language English would push America over the edge from conceited to pompous. We, Tom Tancredo included, need to learn that there are a whole lot of people in the world who don’t speak English and it isn’t right for us to claim that it is their responsibility to learn to do so rather than our responsibility to learn their language in order for us to communicate.

This article describes what, exactly, immersion programs are and what different types exist. It is important to note that these programs are not merely throwing students in an environment where only the foreign language they are to learn is spoken. There are actually different types of immersion, total, partial and two-way. Two-way is my personal favorite since it helps students to become used to interacting with native speakers of a different language. It involves one to two-thirds of the class being native speakers of a certain foreign language and the rest of the class being native speakers of the language used in the country in which the class is taught. This type of classroom has numerous cultural and linguistic benefits, most importantly to me being that it helps students to develop a pronunciation in their foreign language that is more near to that of native speakers than students who learn in a different style of language classroom.

Language immersion programs are the best way for students to become better at spoken language. Not only to achieve better pronunciation and the ability to call to mind the words that you wish to say, but also to become confident in their abilities and able to carry on casual conversations. They are a great way to learn the language in a way that will be the most useful.

Immersion programs mean getting away from your typical magical phrases that are never really used to more useful content-based literacy language that students can use in life.

I experienced this when I took classes in Germany. The things I learned in class were completely practical and I found myself using them in casual conversation outside of class. This made it quite a bit easier for me to remember and keep using these things.

Immersion programs often involve teaching other subjects in the language being learned. The author of this article describes how most programs operate with regards to this,

The reason some programs use science and math is because they are very hands-on, and that motivates the kids to learn the language through the content, whereas if you go with language arts, then you are going to focus on the language.

I found this to be a very good point. If you concentrate on a language itself, you will actively think about using it. If you use a language to learn other things, such as math and science, you we be concentrating on the concepts themselves rather than the language you are using. This will greatly improve language skills and help students to think in that language automatically instead of paying too much attention to what they are saying and translating from their native language. This is a vital skill for foreign language speakers to achieve fluency. I can only hope that I someday work at a school where classes are taught in this way.

I found this article quite interesting and informative. I’m not one to follow politics, but I’m glad to learn a bit about the current legislature of language education. The first bill discussed is a House Bill titled “Enhancing public school world language instruction.”

Its focus was on reinstating the position of Worlds Languages Supervisor at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

This would be a great help to language education. It would cause a greater emphasis on it’s importance in schools. It was sent as an amendment to a larger bill which was vetoed. I don’t know what was on the rest of the amendment, but I’m disappointed in America’s lack of caring about languages.

The article also describes a Senate Bill, “creating a pilot program of Spanish and Chinese language instruction.” This requested about $1 million,

a rather modest amount compared to the $30-$40 million dollars requested for math and science.

It didn’t make it out of the Legislature. Again, I am quite sad with this result. That foreign language education for two very important languages in our world today can’t even get a thirtieth of what math and science get shows that America doesn’t feel the need to make any effort to increase communication with other countries. As the author of this article says,

It’s great that the Chinese are learning English, but what does that say about us that we’re either unwilling or unable to show the respect due by making some effort to learn Chinese?

Do we honestly believe that everyone else should learn English and we shouldn’t have to bother learning their languages? That sounds pretty egotistic and self-centered to me.

I did find some good news at the end of the article. “World Languages and International Competencies” is prioritized #12 out of 28 this year. Doesn’t really sound that great, but, as the article says, all 28 are quite important. Being in the upper half of a group of priorities seems pretty good to me. Even better than that, #1 is K-12 Education Funding, which “entails a new definition of basic education that includes World Language.” It would make me quite happy to see more languages incorporated in Elementary school. I just hope this inclusion of World Languages into basic education isn’t just a class or two of foreign language. That’s more like an introduction to one World language. I would much prefer that students reach at least basic proficiency in a Foreign language and also have the option to continue further in this language and/or take another language.