Foreign Language Immersion Programs in Public Schools

[Boris]

Here in Palo Alto they just approved a Mandarin immersion program for K-4th grade (I could be wrong on the upper grade level). The proponents stated goal is to extend the program for K-12th grade. The school district already offers a Spanish language immersion program.

I am vehemently opposed to both these programs. The reason is that I'll bet over 95% of the students in these immersion programs have one or more relatives in their household who are a native speaker of the immersion language. This can only lead to more and stronger social bonds within ethnic groups and thus less assimilation with US culture.

Opinions?

[guids]

Im usually a pretty big pro-assimilation guy, except when it comes to kids and learning language, I think everyone should know at least one other language, and getting kids started early is a good thing. If a kid has 1 relative in the household that speaks another language regularly they probably dont need immersion programs though

[MrMon]

Didn't California outlaw bilingual instruction programs a few years ago? Is this an attempt to get around that? If one of the languages were French or German, I'd say the immersion program was genuine, Mandarin and Spanish, it sounds like an end-run.

[Colonel Kataffy]

I know a 10 yearold who is in a spanish program. She speaks english and spanish. Pretty cool IMO and I wish I had that opportunity when I was grade school.

[El Diablo]

Boris,

Not sure if your assumption is valid (I am not familiar at all with this subject, just searched and found this article):

http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/art...-12-7-bil-paul

"San Mateo's version, called dual immersion, differs from Burlingame's. At Fiesta Garden, the goal is to have half the students from Spanish-speaking families and the other half having English as their primary language. That way, the English speakers learn Spanish from Hispanic students and vice versa.

However, in Burlingame there were too few Hispanic signups to use that kind of structure, so a one-way program will be used, made up mostly of kids learning Spanish. Says Burlingame school board Vice President Dave Pine, "It's a challenge ... to make Hispanic parents comfortable with the idea that an immersion program is the way to go for their children. ... It's always difficult to reach out to that community.""

[El Diablo]

Boris,

Overall, I think immersion programs are great. I went to a Department of Defense school in Norway for 5th-7th grades. Back then, the first six months of school in a foreign country at a DOD school involved you spending half your day in language class. It was a great way to become fluent in a language very quickly. I think really learning foreign languages is a great skill to have, and learning multiple languages fluently when you're young definitely seems to make it easier to pick up more languages when you are older. If half or more of the students don't speak this language in their household, this program sounds great to me.

[Mrs. Utah]

Both of my kids are in a Spanish immersion program, just finished 2nd and 4th grades.(one is fluent and the other is coming up on it)
It has been a great experience and I would not trade it for anything.
Mind you, we are in Minnesota so a different demographic. Most of the kids in this school do not have a native Spanish speaker in the home.

[Aloysius]

[ QUOTE ]
Didn't California outlaw bilingual instruction programs a few years ago? Is this an attempt to get around that? If one of the languages were French or German, I'd say the immersion program was genuine, Mandarin and Spanish, it sounds like an end-run.

[/ QUOTE ]

MrMon - from the Diablo linked article:

[ QUOTE ]
A threat to the school was posed when California voters passed Ron Unz's Proposition 227 in 1998, which strove to outlaw classes using a language other than English for instructional purposes. The idea was to expose Hispanic children and others to English immersion only. The same reasoning has been used to push for election materials in English only. However, after legal wrangling which may still be going on, it was felt that Spanish immersion schools were successfully teaching Hispanic kids to read and speak English, albeit at a slower pace than some would like.

[/ QUOTE ]

Anyone know more about this? I'm all for anything that 1) grounds children in English while 2) helping kids learn more languages.

-Al

[Boris]

Diablo, Ms. Utah - If the immersion language is not spoken in the student's household and if most of the students are not ethnically tied to the language, I have no problem with immersion programs.

[TheMetetron]

This is an awesome idea and I wish more students were exposed to it. The way language is taught in secondary and post-secondary school is laughable.