|||| If I interpret, Chris is saying teach all ESL students w/ |||| native-speaking English instructors, not in their native tongue. ||| ||| Perhaps so. If so, that's the kind of stupidity that needs to ||| be railed against. Teaching English to students who speak ||| Bantu is much easier for a Bantu speaker who is a conmpetent ||| ESL teacher than for a non-Bantu speaker who is otherwise ||| as well qualified. || || First, where you gonna' find one--particularly in small communities || where many of the newest immigrants end up working in places like || packing plants, etc.? Second, the Eyetalians, et al. seemed to || have managed in the 20s and before--why are the current kids so || much less capable than they were? | | you find them within those same communities. if there are enough | people of a given ethnicity in one place to make this discussion | even remotely worthwhile, that community will have some teachers | within it, and some english speakers. remember, it's mostly | americans who don't figure there is any value to speaking more than | one language.
As a short-term (2 yrs) ESL volunteer teacher, I was surprised to find that my students /knew/ English fairly well - but had somehow managed to convince themselves that they couldn't. I don't know that they were typical; but most of my work was oriented toward confidence-building and helping them comprehend a culture very different from what they were used to.
Their kids (after two months) sounded as if they'd lived here all their lives.
I'm not sure the comment about Americans isn't an unfair stereotyping. At least a simple majority of the Americans I've known have taken the trouble to learn at least some key phrases in at least one language other than English. That's admittedly not the same as becoming fluent; but it does indicate that they find some value in communicating in another language. I'll stick my neck out and guess (right out loud) that most people won't have much problem with "buenas dias", "por favor", "gracias", "bonjour", "s'il vous plait", and "merci".
I think the biggest problem for most people (including Americans) is that of not wanting to speak a language /badly/.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
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