English As A Second Language In The United States

All languages are important and realizing it will make you become a stronger, more diverse human being. We need take make an effort not only for ourselves but for other citizens living in the United States who don’t speak English; we need to make them feel welcomed into our country. Marjorie Agosín described that,”here in the United States, where I have lived since I was a young girl, the solitude of exile makes me feel that so little is mine, that not even the sky has the same constellations, the trees and the fauna the same names or sounds, or the rubbish the same smell. These are the dilemmas of one who writes in Spanish and lives in translation”(Agosin 599). Agosín has lived in the United States for quite some time now, yet still feels like she is living a life through “translation”. She should not feel this way, Agosin should feel apart of our country and feel as if she is a citizen. It is important for us to take a stand now to make language become apart of the curriculum within our school systems starting in Kindergarten, so that our children have a more diverse life filled with opportunities. One thing we know about the future for sure is that we will still have our knowledge about language, but it is how we use that knowledge that will depict how we will succeed in life and as a

The growth of English language has increased tremendously over the years and has become the most widely spoken languages in the United States. This observation aims to explore why when moving to the United States, many non-English speakers feel the social pressure to learn English and what difficulties they encounter. After my observation, I found that many feel the need to learn English in order to assimilate into a community, and though straddling two languages is difficult, it opens more opportunities, and language privilege.

First off, it’s important to understand the difference between learning and education. Learning is the ability of an individual’s brain to acquire and retain information for a lifetime, whereas education is an aide to further strengthen a student’s learning capacity with the use of resources: teachers, libraries, classroom environment, etc. All students are essentially equal when they enter the educational environment, however students who don’t speak English have an unfair disadvantage in the american educational system.

born children lived in poverty in the U.S. (Camarota, 2001). “The primary reason for this is that a very large share of Mexican immigrants lack a formal education” (Camarota, 2001, p. 47). Statistics from the Center for Immigration Studies indicate that the average income for adult Mexican immigrants is less than half the income of U.S. born workers (Camarota, 2001). With the location of the Rio Grande Valley right next to the Mexican border, the school districts in this area are heavily populated with English language learners. According to Linn and Hemmer (2011), a rate of “21% of elementary and secondary students spoke a language other than English at home. Of these, approximately two million, or 75%, spoke Spanish.” (p. 1). In addition, school districts along the Texas-Mexico border are considered at-risk for having English language learners overrepresented in the special education programs. According to Artiles and Ortiz (2002), research shows that “English language learners with the least amount of language support are most likely to be referred to special education” (p. 1). Often the children with the least support are from poor families. Another problems consists of assessments methods, both diagnostic and state mandated, that are inappropriate for English language learners. Even if assessments are provided in the child’s native language, this

Currently, there are over 6,000 living languages spoken in the world. Even with these many languages spoken, people are still discriminated in America. Language is a part of many cultures and daily life, for example in Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue", Tan says "I've heard other terms used, 'limited English,' for example. But they seem as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker." Language should not be a border where people today are still treated as "broken".

Movements for bilingual education rose in 1974 with the Equal Education Opportunity Act and Bingual Education Act, which ordered federally funded schools to meet special educational needs for students not proficient in English. Unfortunately, dropout rates and lack of English-language proficiency alarmed the states that these bilingual programs were not efficent. Because of this, arguments between English-only advocates and supporters of bilingual educations emerged. Articles such as the New York Times have proclaimed the failures of bilingual education. One cause could be the resistance of immigrants from English language acquisition, who hold tight onto their first language and culture. Despite this, studies show that generations

It's a regular Tuesday morning, just like any other. A Hispanic mother is called to the school for a meeting for a consultation about her son’s performance. While in the meeting, the principal tells her that her child is in the 2nd grade, but is very behind. He adds the fact that her child does not understand the language the teacher speaks, and consequently, is not learning. The mother feels helpless since she cannot help him by reason of not understanding the language either. Hence, this is the difficult reality for numerous Hispanic families.

A common joke says “What do you call someone who speaks two languages?” in which the person being asked the question would usually respond with “bilingual.” It goes on to ask about those who speak three or four languages, but then there is a kicker. “What does one call someone who only speaks one language?” to which the punch line is “an American.” According to the 2006 General Social Survey, only 25 percent of American adults are fluent in a foreign language, while only 7 percent cite the source of this education to formal schooling (Devlin 1). Large amounts of evidence point to the benefits of being multilingual. Although the United States has a few laws that help immigrants assimilate through dual language programs, there is little to be

There is a saying foreigners use that goes “If you speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you speak one language, then you’re probably American.” Living in America, the home language is English. So when foreigners come and are unable to pronounce or understand the traditional language, they come off as a useless individual to some members of American society. On the contrary, America is one of the few countries that is so heavily dominated by just one language. There are around 40 million Spanish-speaking citizens in America, however, compared to America’s population of over 320 million people, that is under fourteen

When it comes to students that have not officially mastered the English Language, schools should give students the opportunity to learn it. Schools are supposed to arrange services for students who are not familiar with the English Language. All students should be treated with the same respect and all students should receive some type of education no matter what their background comes from. English is a language that is very popular today in this world. When it comes to legal obligations for students that are English language learners, every student is supposed to have equal access to their education. It was mentioned that in the year of 1970 the Federal Office for Civil Rights, distributed a letter to all school’s districts mentioning that

We are surrounded by people who speak fluent English, partial English, and, sometimes, no English at all. There are times when you can't communicate with others because the language he or she speaks is not understandable. People often ignore these people without noticing; if they have something to say, others don't take it as important, they don't take it as seriously, or think it’s worth listening to. People who are able to communicate with more than one language, have the opportunity to be able to connect with other people. If you listen, others may see things the way you would never have. What one has to say, doesn't make it less important if he or she can't speak the same

For many years the United States minority population mostly consisted of African Americans. In 2003, the statistic changed to Hispanics becoming the largest minority population in the United Sates (Parrado & Kandel, 2010). With the increase of the Hispanic population, education concerns of this population have started to arise. In some cases, Hispanics are being over referred to special education programs. This phenomenon is linked to the presence of a language barrier as well as other characteristics of the children in this population (Guiberson, 2009). Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specify that language barriers should be ruled out, it seems that this phenomena continues, but could be

This tactic is effective because not only are the students getting used to the language, but, they are not being forced to speak English regularly. They can speak whatever language they like around their friends or family, but when it comes down to business, they better know how to use the English language.

The number of Languages spoken throughout the world is estimated to be 6,000. Although a few languages are for wider communication around the world, these are very often spoken as second, third, fourth, or later-acquired languages. Fewer than 25% of the world 's approximately 200 countries recognize two or more official languages, with a mere handful recognizing more than two. Despite there being lots of bilinguals and multilinguals, there is also a bunch of monolingual people in the world. The adult population is allowing their children not to learn a foreign language, drastically underfunding language courses in middle to high school level classes. Because they think it 's not necessary in this century, thinking they don 't require communication with other people from other countries. But the truth is that it can actually benefit in more ways than people think. The United States school system has started to not require foreign language class for graduation requirements, this places the U.S at a disadvantage in the world scene.

Vocabulary plays a significant role in English as second language learning process. For the majority of English as Second Language(ESL) learners, the ultimate goal of learning the language is to understand (read and listen) and communicate (write and speak) with little difficulty and the lack of sufficient vocabulary may be the constraint of such goal (Folse, 2004). As the bedrock of English and as well as language, vocabulary also facilitates the development of other language skills: lexical richness leads to the progress in the use of language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing skills (Nation, 1994). Reversely, The improvement in such skills may enhance learners vocabulary size as the exposure to more learning materials improves the capacity to acquire new vocabulary. (The importance of learning vocabulary/ why vocabulary?)