The concept of immersion makes sense to me. I came to the U.S. in '52 with
nary a word of English under my belt. I was admitted to the local school
system in first grade, regular classes, with no interpreter anywhere in the
building. That was PS49 in the New York school system. I was later moved
to PS20 where even fewer folks spoke German fluently. Within 6 weeks my
performance was improving to such extent that my language skills were to a
state in which they were not perceived by the teachers to be an impediment.
It didn't hurt that there were lots of Yiddish-speaking merchants in the
neighborhoods through which I walked to and from school. Yiddish is quite
similar to German and certainly makes conversation easier.
Note that I said it took 6 weeks to "catch on" and not the seven or eight
years it typically takes here with the ESL/ESOL programs. If a person has
no reasonable alternative, particularly if that person's young and flexible,
and not fet a bunch of SH*T from the community and from the government,
he/she can learn enough to get by in school, which is more than what's
needed to "get by" in life. I think it's the motivation, not the age,
though. If an adult is motivated to communicate effectively, the road isn't
long, though it may be harder than for a kid.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list_at_wfi-inc.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 09, 2000 3:52 PM
Subject: Re: languages
>
>
>On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Mike Ford wrote:
>
>> California has made the correct choice in dropping the whole english as a
>> second language program in favor of english immersion. The sooner you
learn
>> english and become proficient, the better students do in general. This
>> isn't to say that ebonics or any other cultural language doesn't have
>> merit, but points out the peril of "too much" local control in a polical
>> setting. This is like offering "creation" as an alternative to "Darwin",
>> the problem being once you declare "God created the heavens and earth"
you
>> have branched off from the next 10 years of scientific education to a
path
>> that leads to what?
>
>I don't know...Canada (ok, I'm biased a little being Canadian) allows for
>official provincial languages outside of the national official languages,
>French and English. It's a neat system, which I think provides a lot of
>flexibility for subcultures to preserve their language/history. I'm
>definitely not one of the "Speak English or Get Out" crowd.
>
>As far as evolution/creation (oh boy, here we go), I think the problem
>with their original idea of teaching both disciplines fell short right at
>the place where they had to rectify the problem you mentioned, which
>simplifies to the question of where a "safe" re-entry point was in the
>continuum of Science for those who went apostate and chose Creationism
>over Darwinian Evolution...
>
Received on Thu Mar 09 2000 - 22:10:50 GMT