|
I'm down for that, mixedmedia and Baraka.
I'm from an immigrant family--I'm a first generation American on my father's side of the family. He immigrated here as a child with his family and grew up speaking mostly Dutch at home. My grandfather worked in the hotel industry and had already learned English back in the Netherlands at hotel school. My grandmother had a much more difficult time of it, and it wasn't until my father had a sympathetic teacher in early elementary school that my grandmother was able to receive some extra language instruction. The teacher took it upon herself to teach my dad and grandmother English. This is, of course, well before the development of English Language Learner programs. My dad was basically expected to sink or swim when it came to learning the language, and that is the prevailing attitude still when it comes to teaching adults how to speak English.
Learning a new language as an adult is difficult, certainly not as easy as it is when we are children. There are distinct sensitive periods for language development. Optimally, everyone would learn a foreign language before the age of 12 (when neuronal pruning really starts taking off). However, we live in the United States where people are seemingly afraid of foreign language, which strikes me as bizarre in an increasingly globalized world.
The point is, we need to offer adult English Language Learners appropriate support and help them to learn English. My grandfather had already learned English before he came here, and so it was easy for him to assimilate. He learned English during a time in his life where language learning was easy, and hotel school structured language lessons so that he not only learned English, but he was fluent in French and German as well, and had a working knowledge of Spanish and Italian. That isn't uncommon in Europe--almost all of my Dutch cousins speak 5 languages. But for my grandmother, who hadn't learned English and who initially didn't have support learning it, it was much more difficult, and a good teacher made all the difference in her ability to learn and master the language of her new country.
We shouldn't expect people to learn English if we're not offering them any help in learning it. I have the utmost sympathy for English Language Learners of all ages, given all the stories I've heard from my own family. This country was built on the backs of immigrants, and statements like the one in the OP do nothing but spit in the eye of all the immigrants who worked hard to make this country what it is, regardless of what language they spoke.
__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
|