Forum: Biliteracy Times Read: 8 Date: 05-01-2004 19:15
Author: Fame Kao, Shin <cwfame@cox.net>
Subject Biliteracy
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I always bear a big question in mind that how come the American politicians and educators are still arguing about whether it is necessary to give children bilingual education if they speak languages other than English. The country I came from encourages people to speak as many dialects as possible other than the official languages, which is Mandarin. English is a must for getting into college or finding a good job. Many other Asian countries also encourage their people to know English or other languages other than their official languages. I used to study in Switzerland for one year. There are four official languages there, French, German, Italian, and Roman. I should say more than 90% of Swiss people that I have met speak more than one language fluently and switch in between languages in their daily life. Many people living near the border of two regions even speak two languages or more as their mother tongues. I saw once on a train that the conductor spoke five languages fluently to passengers who come from everywhere in Europe. Using more than one language in schools, in offices, in shops, or anywhere is normal and necessary. They were educated in two languages or more in schools. Bilingual or multilingual education is necessary for Switzerland and other European countries. While the educators in many other countries are spending a lot of time to improve their bilingual or multilingual education in order to help children be able to communicate with as many people as possible in different languages, Americans are still discussing if it is necessary to include bilingual education into public school system. If American politicians or educators still think knowing English is enough and expect children who used to know languages other than English can immerse themselves in English only education system but loose their own language gradually, I should say that these politicians and educators are out of trend. If our children are growing up with such a narrow mind, I can predict that probably in the recent future, when our children grow up, they will loose their roles in this global village gradually and have no competitive ability economically and politically comparing with people from other countries in the world. Therefore, I would like to suggest that every child in this country should learn one more language other than English and be able to speak and use that language fluently in the future. This is something we as educators should consider carefully.