Native Language

989 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Is language a key to identity

Language is universal. People voice their ideas, emotions, and thoughts across to the world through language. But, how does people’s native language play a role? A native language is a person's blueprint for their voice. Native language gives homage to people’s culture and home life. It can open doors to education and careers. Native language surrounds people, and molds people. It is plastered in books, and street signs, and helps to recollect their native country. What if language decreased to just English, and no another language existed. People would mirror one another, and have no idea of diversity. So where is it written in stone that language should be limited to English? A native language adds different circumstances in people’s life.

First, a native language provides a content home life. Joan Youngquist and Bárbara Martínez-Griego, both invloved in early childhood education, report in " Learning in English, Learning in Spanish", "approximately 60 percent of enrolled families were Latino, with 40 percent speaking Spanish as their home language." Native languages details people's culture, and used loosely in the comfort of their home offers security. Robert Rodriguez,a Mexican- American author, admits in "Aria: Private and Public", the ease it gave him to hear Spanish at home, and to feel the relief wash over him to hear English vanish almost immediately once he reached the front door (215). Also,a native language practiced at home provides confidence, and allows people to take up new experiences. Bárbara Mujica, a Spanish professor, explains in "To Succeed, Learn in English", about an educational program called ESL (English as a second language) taught by a teachers with specific qualifications. Teachers incorporate En...

... middle of paper ...

...jica reports,"79.3 percent of children who entered ESL programs in kindergarten tested out," (218). Mujica summarizes by stating students that are taught in English are likely to learn the language faster, helping students in the classroom (219). Dual language programs is a stepping-stone from preventing language barrier in their education.

Native languages are shouted, whispered and sounded out in vast amounts. They offer a way of communicating to the world. Native languages offer a connection to those willing to experience new cultures and history. It can lead life in many directions. But, who is to say which language is correct? The people speaking the language are the one who makes that decision. Either Spanish or English, language does not discriminate, Language is a tool used to bellow to the world “My language is a part of me, listen to my words!”

Show More
Related

  • Voices Of The World The Extinction Of Language Summary

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    For this summary I watched a video called Voices of the World: The Extinction of Language and Linguistic Diversity. The video starts off with how people believe that there are about 6, 000 languages. David Crystal talks about how with all these different languages half of them are endangered of becoming extinct. Each different language offers a different point of view of the world and culture. He said that if different languages are lost then “we lose the meaning what is it to be human.”

    Read More

  • Summary Of Bien Pretty By Sandra Cisneros

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this country, we live in a mix culture and a mix race. When we walk out in the street, the first thing we notice is people from different ethnicities. The United States has always been the country where we come to make our dreams come true. Yet we never forget the country we came from. The languages is one thing we do not forget about our country but we should also know the English language. In this country it is essential for a person to know 2 or more languages. Regardless of how many languages we know, we all have a language we prefer over the other.

    Read More

  • In Richard Rodriguez's Mother Tongue And A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood

    1026 Words  | 3 Pages

    Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.

    Read More

  • How To Tame A Wild Tongue By Amy Tan

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    Language is truly part of our identity: our languages shape who we are. That is why we always have to be tolerant and comprehensive with others’ accents, typical phrases, or grammatical errors. Writers that really make an impact when referring to language and identity are Gloria Anzaldua and Amy Tan, with their readings “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and “Mother Tongue” respectively. These two writers, with completely different backgrounds, shared their views about how language and identity are intertwined.

    Read More

  • Bilingual Education in Richard Rodriguez' Aria

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...

    Read More

  • Speaking in Tongues, by Zadie Smith and How to tame a Wild Tongue, by Gloria Anzalduas

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout time the flexibility of different languages within the world today are always being tossed up in the air, if there’s disadvantages or advantages to being capable of more than one language. Although all individuals have there own opinions on being able to speak fluently with different languages, there isn’t any other way to see it besides it being a huge advantage; fully appreciating the beneficial chance to be bilingual or trilingual and sometimes even more. Communicating with more than a single voice will represent who one is and where they came from. Within two articles “Speaking in Tongues” written by Zadie Smith and “How to tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzalduas’s both demonstrate the different languages they encounter. Smith looses her chance in speaking from her voice being forced upon to change without resistance while Anzalduas’s aggressively puts up a battle to be able to keep her voice. The acceptance of varies languages isn’t in everyone category, however in time we should be more accepting and realize from articles like such that’s beneficial to learn and accept the difference languages of different cultures within the world today. Although there may be struggles upon learning the knowledge to something new, its nothing but an advantage to have with one throughout a lifetime!

    Read More

  • Early Literacy in ESL Students

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...r they had all received the same language instruction for three years (kindergarten, first and second grade). These finding conclude that English language proficiency at the time of entering school does not matter. A good early literacy program works for both L1 students and ESL students who enter school at the kindergarten age. Students at that age are very susceptible to learning new languages quickly. The ESL children had difficulties in kindergarten, but by second grade they had caught up and were right on track with the L1 students and some of them even surpassed the L1 students.

    Read More

  • Public Schools Need Successful ESL Programs

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every year, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has grown “significantly.” Chen predicts that by the year of 2020, public schools will have at least 50 percent of students that are non-English speakers (¶5). This shows that it is important that public schools have a successful ESL program. The purpose of ESL programs is “to enhance” ESL students learning, to help students’ “emotional well-being”, and to accelerate students’ ability to learn the new language. According to Chen, some district schools have failed to support ESL students’ learning. For example, Chen stated that “...[some] school districts [have been] accused of not meeting t...

    Read More

  • Amy Tan's 'Mother Tongue' By Paul Roberts

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    Language can defined the type of person you become and it has an influence on our choices as well as lifestyle. Language itself has become a way of seeing life in a different perspectives. Tan discusses the many ways in which language has played a role in her life and the result from it. I can relate to Tan’s experience to some extent because I come from a bilingual household too. Just like Tan, I am one of my mother’s main source of communication with people who don’t speak spanish. I believe the notion of Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is stating that just because someone who cannot speak the English language perfectly, is considered less intelligent to many compared to those who can understand and speaks it fluently. But what makes us all unique is that it is rare to find two or more people who speak the same exact English. Even though both Tan and I helped our parent and come from different ethnic backgrounds; Tan came from a Chinese family while I came from a Hispanic family. We both share similar ideas about the language spoken in our household, and it was also a big challenge for both of us while we were being raised by an immigrant parent who spoke only “limited English”(Tan

    Read More

  • Bilingual Education and Latino Civil Rights

    1912 Words  | 4 Pages

    Despite the high number of ELL students, it is difficult to know, because of lack of data to see what type of educational programs they participate in. According to Prospects, a 1995 national survey, reading and math were taught in programs using bilingual education in less than half of first and third grade classrooms serving limited English proficient students. Offered more frequently were programs where instruction was offered only in English, or where instructional aides, not teachers, were the vehicles for native language instruction.

    Read More

  • Hispanics: English, Barriers, and Challenges

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    A large number of people in the Hispanic community whether Hispanics are not able to get the English literacy skills that they need not because they want to keep born in Latin America or the United States, speak Spanish primarily. This is basically because in present day time, Hispanics are more likely to pass Spanish to their kids now than they have done in the past. (Ortiz, P.149) This is seen as a social problem, especially because of the fact that there is an increasing demand that English should only be taught in public school and it should also be spoken within the Spanish community. Even though Hispanics do speak a lot of Spanish most of the time, they still do learn English also, especially the young. But, because of the large flow of immigrants, the use of Spanish is used more often because they are constantly encountering immigrants who speak no English. (Ortiz, P. 150) Before hand there has been said to have been lower achievements when Hispanics make frequent use of the Spanish la...

    Read More

  • Mother Tongue And How To Tame A Wild Tongue

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Anzaldua, “ Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish”(Anzaldua 32). The Chicano Spanish versus Spanish conflict that occurs in Latino society is a prime example of people considering themselves to be right in a situation where there is not a right answer. The Latino’s who speak Spanish that they believe to be normal are disturbed by the Spanish language changing. They believe that their own views are being challenged, they believe that they are correct, and they believe that anyone who challenges their views is inferior. The people who view all other views are, in reality, just trying to make themselves look more powerful. Like in Tan’s essay, people demeaned others in order to promote their own views, therefore, gaining power over the others who they demeaned. According to Tan, “ She said they would not give her any more information(...) And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect english-- lo and behold-- we had assurances the CAT scan would be found”(Tan 2). The doctors treated Tan’s mother differently due to her use of what they considered “broken language”, leading to her being treated inadequately. People have an image of what they consider to be the right English, anyone who does not speak the right English is usually considered to be uneducated. In both Tan’s and Anzaldua’s essays, the lack of open-mindedness is one of the reasons that people want to become more powerful than others. People fail to realize that what they believe in is not always the right answer, like with stereotypes, the people are trying to gain power over others in order to make themselves seem more

    Read More

  • For Once Blame The Students Summary

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    Children are better learners than adults except in the area of the pronunciation of words. That is why the second language program will be accepting children who are in elementary, they will be taught how to read signs, and learn how to speak in the desired second language. The objective goal of the second language program is to get students ready to speak another language as if it were their primary language. The second language program will not be as any other school program because it will require dedication, responsibility, and focus. Kids now are lazy and also don’t communicate well with other people, which is important because they will need to know how to communicate when they graduate high school, but because they were not taught how to they are lacking that skill. Students because they are being taught out the book they don’t get to learn different skills that will be useful when they leave high school. In the program students won’t be learning straight off the book they will be assigned a pen pal who they will be writing to not in English but in their chosen second language, and every so often they will talk on Skype this will show if they are understanding the language; with the interaction that the students will be doing they will develop communicative skills that will be helpful when they are out of high

    Read More

  • Hunger of Memory the Education of Richard Rodriguez; Book Critique.

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    Richard Rodriguez was born in a Mexican immigrant family, the first years of his life he only spoke Spanish; it wasn’t until he started attending a Roman Catholic school that he was introduced to the English language. In his autobiography, Rodriguez describes his journey through education in California as a Mexican American Student with immigrant parents; he had difficulties with both languages, he found himself caught up in between his private and public life. His culture at home involved the most appreciated things in his life such as his family and Spanish, the home language. At the beginning of his education Richard learned to separate his privacy from his everyday life at school; he valued education and spent most of his time reading and studying with the nuns at his school in order to learn English. He felt really close to his family until one day three nuns from school visited their home and told his parents that it would be better if their children spoke English at home in order for them to advance in their education; from that day his parents decided that they would practice their English at all times and that changed things for Richard, he became embarrassed at his parents lack of education and it broke the relationship and comfort he had at home.

    Read More

  • English as a Global Language

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though there are advantages as well as disadvantages, the need for international language for communication, politics, economics and security is necessary and English is the best “language candidate” for that function. English is a language spread all over the world and it is used by millions and millions of speakers. According to my opinion, people should use English as a tool to communicate with all cultures but every country must keep their culture and language is a great part of it. In conclusion, language defines identity of a country and everyone should keep their language and explore others.

    Read More

More about Native Language

Open Document