I found an interesting article. If you have children and you live in an environment where the child is exposed to another language, yet they aren’t picking up on it as fast as you had expected, you may wish to read it.
Here are a couple of questions that the author asks the reader:
Does your child know who speaks which language and when? Are you going back and forth, speaking different languages randomly?
Are your children exposed to their second language a minimum of 30% of the time (on average)?
Read the full article to see what suggestions are given, here.
OK guys and gals. Here is a story from the Telegraph.co.uk
According to the article, 1 in 6 children (in England) speak ANOTHER language at home.
To quote the article,
“Before taking office, the Conservatives said the overall increase in the number of pupils without English as their mother tongue was “shocking” and illustrated “how difficult life is for many teachers” because of Labour’s long-term failure to control immigration.”
To get a counter viewpoint, here is a quote from the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, taken from the article:
“But teachers’ leaders have said that an increase in children with other languages improves schools’ cultural outlook and acts as an inspiration to British born pupils.”
Should we throw this argument into the “blame it on the foreigners” basket?
Or is this a really a major problem that needs to be addressed?
What do YOU think?
RANT TIME:
Geeze.
Is supporting children to learn a second language, REALLY such a problem?
Well, of course teacher’s will be “burdened” with extra training. Of course the government needs to spend money (dare I say “invest money“?).
But will not the long term benefits of having these immigrants growing up in England, outweigh the short term costs per child? Before asking me what exactly are the “long term benefits (benefits to England and the child)“ if you are interested, I suggest doing some research into diversity in culture.
These are not foreign adults who are sucking up social security and food stamps without making any effort to acculturate.
No. These are children (who have no choice of their own). Let’s leave their parents out of the argument.
Research into child language acquisition has demonstrated that children have minds that are extremely flexible when it comes to learning a 2nd language. I’ve read that some children have been found to speak 10 languages, or more.
History has shown us that the children will adapt to a 2nd language relatively quickly – just as millions have done before them.
It’s not like the government will be burdened by each individual child for the rest of their individual lives.
BOTTOM LINE:
I would be happy to have my tax money go to helping these children learn English. I think England will be better off nurturing such children and letting their roots grow strong in the fertile soil of the English culture and language. The hybrid fruit that the country itself will reap, in my opinion, outweighs the initial labor of sowing these ‘foreign’ seeds.
’nuff of my rant.
What do you think about this article?
