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Originally Posted by meadmice  Talking about minority/majority...yeah... When one of my little cousins started school a few years ago here in dodge, he was the ONLY little white boy in his class. From my understanding, the entire rest of the class was hispanic kids. I don't know if it's true or not, but I was told that the teachers were teaching one week in spanish, and then one week in english, and my poor little cousin was completely lost. I am a firm believer of the learn the language thing... If you move to the US, make a strong attempt to learn the language. I'm not going to move to Turkey and expect everyone there to learn english just so I can live there in comfort, and sometimes that seems to be just what's happening here. When I worked at a grocery store several years ago, I would always have someone come in and have their 6yr old kid translate for them because the adult couldn't speak or understand a word of english. Makes me sick... And please don't tell me, oh it's too hard to try to learn a new language, have you ever tried, yes, I have. But, I didn't try super hard because I didn't live in a country that spoke that language. If I were to move to, say France, I would make absolutely every possible effort to learn the language. Maybe I really am in a minority there... |
When I was around 13, I lived with a foster family. They were Hispanic, and they spoke Spanish in the home because the grandmother, who had Alzheimer's disease, only spoke Spanish. After a couple years, I too, could speak it pretty good. It's called the immersion technique. I was immersed in it, without someone sitting their translating the words into English.
Spanish teaching methods incorporate the immersion technique which is touted as the best and the quickest method to teach a person a new language. Teaching them a foreign language, with directions in their spoken language is counter productive.
It's really not fair to the Hispanics to speak to them in Spanish, if our goal is to teach them English as quick as possible. How do babies, with their underdeveloped brains, learn to speak English in a couple of years? The immersion technique.
To teach in Spanish only serves to coddle and slow the learning of English for the Hispanic kids and also serves to hamper the education of the rest of the non-Hispanic kids.
I am gratefull, for my opportunity to learn a second language, and in Dodge City, it comes in handy quite often. I don't think I would have learned it as fast as I did without being totally immersed in it, and being forced to pick it up quickly. In my opinion, it's the only way to learn a second language - Whithout a lifeline.
05-27-2008, 07:22 PM
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