This study examines the teaching and learning of a foreign language at the middle school level. Effective teachers are constantly seeking ways to make improvements on their instructional practices, their assessment techniques, and their engagements of students in the subject matters. Therefore knowledge of best practices encourages teachers to implement teaching methods that are more authentic, experimental and challenging (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hide, 2012). Many schools at every level are constantly balancing their budgets and offsetting reductions in government allocations by eliminating foreign language requirements, even though the demand for and enrollment in foreign language courses is at its highest level since 1968. At public K-12 schools, enrollment in foreign language classes between 2007 and 2008 reached 8.9 million individuals, about 18.5 percent of all students. The United States is largely monolingual. In fact, only about 15 to 20 percent of Americans consider themselves bilingual, compared to 56 percent of Europeans surveyed in 2006 by the European Commission (Franklin, 2013).This lack of foreign language education for students persists to this day, despite much research suggesting that bilingualism has a significant positive effect on student’s …show more content…
2001).While the United States does not have a national requirement for students to learn a foreign language in school, the typical European student must study multiple languages in the classroom before their teenage years. According to a 2012 report from the Pew Research Center, a second foreign language for at least one year is mandatory in more than 20 European countries (Devlin K.
Americans have hidden behind the excuse that everybody important knows English for too long. The United States is the only country in the world where a student can graduate from college without ever having learned a foreign language. Most countries start foreign language instruction at ten years of age or younger. It is time we did something ourselves and stopped letting everyone else do the work. One credit of foreign language instruction should be required in order for graduation from high school in Laramie County School District Number One.
The debate now is whether there is sufficient studies proving the effectiveness of Bilingual education and the need to continue it in many states. In 1998 Los Angeles County passed Proposition 227 to create bilingual education programs. (LA Times October 23.1998) Because of the passing of this bill many students were left in limbo waiting for teaching plans to be made. As well as the budget to be reformed to accommodate the extra expenses of a bilingual education programs, books, and to hire the proper teachers and aids to assists in the new bilingual classes. Often there are only a few children in a classroom being taught in their native language whil...
The United States is filled with many different ethnicities, cultures, customs, languages, etc. Supposedly, our public schools are equipped with classes, teachers, curriculums and materials in order to educate that part of the student population whose first language is something other than the English language. Bilingual classes, transitional classes, ESL classes are just a few of the programs that have been developed to instruct non-English speaking students in order for them to acquire the English language.
Learning multiple languages opens doors for people not only in their local communities, but on a global scale. It has also been proven to advance cognition by improving conflict management, executive controls, and sound recognition. Students who are bilingual have two active languages in their minds and create flexible minds by constantly processing and translating in both languages. These mental activities are displayed to be beneficial through impressive academics. For these reasons, bilingual education in the United States is critical. Language is the single most important asset in human civilization. Prior to it, cave men communicated through grunts and images. Not only does language tie people together, but it also has an impact on one’s mentality and personal
The current bilingual education program in ineffective in teaching non-English students English and assimilating them into the English-speaking American society. It's ineffectiveness is seen in the students not learning English, or being able to speak it; students who are capable of speaking English abusing the system because it's an easy way out; and the waste of money the current system is.
There are many things wrong with the world right now and that does not exclude the US, while there are many issues with dealing with an increasingly global society but none of them are as easy to fix and as urgent reforming language education. Although it is important for language to be standardized so that we can all understand each other, the state of language education is holding back non-native and native speakers alike.
Most Americans learn a second language in adulthood. Many public schools do not begin teaching second languages until high school, and all college students must study a foreign language in order to graduate from the university. Another population within the United States that is learning a second language are those immigrating from other countries, particularly Mexico. Most of these immigrants who are learning are adults, their children will not have to deal with learning a second language because they will most likely learn two languages, English and Spanish.
The U.S. government has acknowledged the demand for foreign languages, but managed to reduce funds that support language programs for K-12 grades. However, advocates have been emphasizing the importance of learning a foreign language at a younger age to promote the program. School districts have developed a plan to incorporate a foreign language curriculum in grade schools, which is designed to improve communicative competencies. Learning a language at adolescent years helps with the memory, creativity, and critical thinking. Also, students develop a positive attitude towards diversity and are receptive to learning about other cultures.
Experiencing those days where people would laugh at other for the broken English; the grammar and pronunciation are the toughest parts of the language. People with English as a second language always stumble upon difficulties; however, the determination of learning a new language do not decrease easily as the motivation is still surrounding one’s mind. Today, English has become an international communication; even the teaching and learning of the language has already spread throughout the world. English is known as one of the most common use language and has been offering classes everywhere for years especially around Asia; additionally, the world common language has now become the number one language uses in every fields of career that is being offer everywhere. Non-American students should be required to take English class as a second language in school
Although some people believe the entire world should speak English, the reality is that all Americans should have some degree of formal education in a foreign language. Foreign language skills could have a positive impact on race relations in America. The number of minorities in America is rapidly increasing. In fact, "minority" groups will soon form a collective "majority" of the citizens of America. Considering the fact that many minority groups speak English as a second language and America has no official language, compulsory foreign language classes are viable options.
Even though bilingual education is expensive, costing 800 million dollars in 2011, it has raised test scores, increased the amount of money earned and increased the chances of getting a job and maintained the United States’ varied cultures (Peek). These 800 million dollars only represent 0.0002 percent of the education budget. People may not want to learn English with the fear of losing his or her culture, but bilingual education helps these people learn English and integrate into the United States (Bilingual Education). People say that bilingual education exa...
However, during the last 20 years language learning trends have noticeably changed in favour of the study of English as a foreign language, ...
As time goes by and as the global community develops, the world grows more and more international, making second or third language acquisition become necessary to the majority. With the growing importance of multiple language ability, more and more parents think of bilingual or multilingual education, which means acquisitions of two or more languages, for their kids. In fact, we do have many reasons showing why multilingual education is important and beneficial, such as aspects of interpersonal relationship, employment, brain health, and so on.
In 2009, teachers of a New Jersey school banned foreign languages and stated, “any language other than English will not be tolerated" (Debaron 1). This situation was soon no longer allowed. While over ten percent of the total adolescent education systems contain emergent bilinguals, a whopping sixty percent of those students are educated in only English (Bale). Maria Estela Brisk, a Boston College Education professor, believes, “schools has wasted much energy in the search for a "perfect" model and the best way to learn English” when they could just focus on proving “quality education” to every student in the system (1). Teacher’s main priority should consist of effectively teaching their students to prepare them for the future, but currently there are a lack of certified bilingual education teachers. When students are taught more in different ways, they can educationally benefit their cognitive abilities, involving the brain with “mathematics, problem solving, logic and memory”, can be improved to create an overall better student. Even by learning another language at a earlier age can contribute to __________. Learning another language will be
In today’s schooling system most high school students are required to take at least 2 to 4 years of a foreign language in order to graduate. However, some people do not understand the importance of taking a different language, until it is time to get a job or while they are in their current job. It is significant that we take at least 2 years of a foreign language in both high school and college and try to learn as much as possible because learning a new language can open up so many doors.