Speech #970241337

Rossiers paper be printed in -om military the RECORD and I urge my colleagues of our gov- to study his theses. ise an army The material follows: ason to sus- BILINGUALISM. sri BILINGUAL EDUCATION. Not e will obtain It is important to understand that bilingualism is not socially undesirable as it is The Senate often characterized by critics of bilingual gram to pro- education but rather can be of positive it residency value not only to the individual but also to they were in society as a whole. The explanation of this 8 respective- is not difficult to understand. if the students we are talking about are immigrants sty is wrong. (a cover term in this article for not only st as wrong. legal immigrants. but also for illegal aliens be dickered and refugees as well). and the vast majority limited. the of the pupils placed in bilingual programs pudiating its are in this category. then our goal should be rders is terri- for them to learn to function well in English. By so doing they will add English of Office esti- their first languagethey will by definition employment become bilingual. Unless we believe that the government ability to communicate in English creates revenues and social division rather than unity. it should be obvious that immigrant bilingualism will nillion unem- benefit our society rather than hurt it. The o percent of key point of dispute. then. has to do with ble to obtain whether students can learn the new lanheld by ille- guage (English) more efficiently by means deficit could of instruction in two languages or in special English programs. nerated and The critic iditures. amlegals would The social division criticism. though. has er four years been the principal weapon in the rather -es not now puny arsenal of the unorganized and relatively ineffectual opposition to bilingual gh and Con- education. Former California State Superinto bluff. The tendent of Public Instruction Max Rafferty. nerosity can for example. blasted the concepts not long erosity must ago in the American Legion Magazine. calliotas of polit- ing it "The Hoax of the 80s." He argued conomic well forcefully that immigrant children should learn English so that the country would not PAUL EOAN.0 be "Balkanized" but then demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of how they were to learn the language by attacking the ION: A phrase "English as a Second Language." a VIEW term that has been used in the United States for at least 15 years to signify a variePresident. I ty of educational programs and methods Iss with my that have one thing in common: the goal of sue of bilin- teaching immigrant students English by Rossiers means of special instruction in English. on: A Non- WHY BILINGUAL INSTRUCTION RETARDS end section LEARNING e of under- What Rafferty and other critics have pertains to missed in the debate is the most telling aras a whole. gument of all. Bilingual opponents generalconcept of ly concede the very point that would most help them to invalidate the case presented that is the for bilingual education by its champions. foreign cul- Quite simply. language number one cannot ing pot has be learned by means of instruction in laniew culture guage number twoEnglish cannot be learned through instruction in Spanish or Chinese or in any other language. For several reasons which never seem to be brought out in criticism of the concept. bilingual instruction retards English language learning instead of advancing it.