Official Language Battle

    

        The topic of this posting is designating an official language of the United States.  The reasoning behind this choice of topic is to make an argument that there are good points and bad ones even with the current bills in both the House of Representatives (H.R. 997) and the United States Senate (S.503) to make English the official language of the United States. What both of these pieces of paper are trying to do is to unify the United States into a non diversified country of ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds in which we continue to benefit from the rich diversity. Should these bills pass in both the House and Senate it would mean that all official matters would be written and spoken in nothing, but English. For over 30 years both the Senate and House of Representatives have been trying to make English the official language of the United States. Therefore, I hypothesize that should these bills pass they will effect more than just what language we speak, but also how English learners will be taught in the United States and cause a sever conflict for those trying and wanting to become United States citizens.  

Facts about the language barrier in the United States.

     Looking back in history the founding fathers never would have thought make a law to have English has the official language of the United States, since when they wrote the Constitution it was done in English. The interesting part of this history is that of the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, only eight were not born in the United States. Even though no information has been found about what language the others spoke it is safe to assume that English was their main language. The only exemptions to the colonies being all English were the few German areas in Pennsylvania and Virginia.(U.S.-English.org, Census 2000) With 322 languages spoken at homes in the United States, the most common of these languages being spoken are as follows: Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Russian, Korean, and Vietnamese to name some of them. Even with the possible passing of the English Language Unity Act of 2011, and the amended National Language Act of 2011, sure it would not only help cut down on the cost of printing bilingual voting ballots and pamphlets, and encourage new immigrants to learn English, (U.S. English.org) stop all of the mixed messages that government is sending, and making it almost impossible to file tax returns, vote, and become U.S. citizens and receive a host of other services in a variety of languages, immigrants will understand that they must have knowledge of English to fully participate in the process of the government. (U.S.English.org) Effective English language instruction is an essential anti poverty tool for working immigrant families. Poverty and the need for public benefits, such as food stamps, are more closely related to limited English proficiency than with citizenship or legal status. According to research done by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute in April of 2002, the number one excuse for not gaining college level knowledge is the current language barrier. 96 percent of Spanish speaking parents asked in the three biggest cities hope their own children will further their education by attending college.     

Introduction about the Bills

            If, the English Language Unity Act of 2011(H.R. 997 and S. 503) passes in both the House and the Senate, not only will it make English the official language of the United States, but it will hamper the education of dual language learners even with Senate bill 1158 introduced to help educators come up with clever ways to teach English learners and to aid States and local

schools with the continual growth of non-English speaking students, seeking an academic education of a high-quality that meets State college and career ready standards.   Under this bill it describes a possible way that teachers will be able to teach students in their own languages. Thanks to the following section of H.R. 1164.  (English Learning and Innovation Act of 2011, pg.15 line 24-pg16 line 11) “DUAL LANGUAGE PROGRAM- the term ‘dual language program’ means an instructional strategy for English learners in which students are taught literacy and content in English and another language, and use the other language for at least half of the instructional day, and that foster is bilingualism, dual literacy, awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and high levels of academic achievement through instruction in two languages.” Thus, with the passing of H.R. 1158 it would make it difficult for non English speaking people to vote with the loss of this program and not having dual language ballots. 

            Under the amended bill H.R. 1164 written by the Congressional Research Service- The National Act of 2011 would make English the official language of the U.S. Government. Meaning that all business conducted  in Congress would have to be done in English, all paperwork, pamphlets, and  any information, in order to help make English the official language. (H.R.1164 pg.3, line 8-17) “It means that other languages can be used for religious purposes, for training in foreign languages for international communications, or in school programs designed to encourage students to learn another language. It does however; allow the government to provide interpreters for persons over age 62. “(H.R.1164 pg.3 line 21-pg.5 line 16) Although this sounds like a good thing, it rebuts the Voting Rights Act of 1965 concerning bilingual election conditions and findings from Congress of voting discrimination against language minorities,and the banning of English-only elections, and other remedial measures. As of right now the Voting Rights Act of 1965, says that all states or governmental subdivisions have to have some kind of help for voters, if over five percent of the citizens that are of voting age do not speak or understand English well enough to partake in the electoral process, also that the amount of people who did not complete the fifth grade is higher than the national amount of age appropriate citizens voting that have finished fifth grade. This means that 335 jurisdictions in 30 of the states have to have signs, ballots, and registration forms and information in several languages. While, this improves the Immigration and Nationality Act to require that public ceremonies in which the oath of allegiance is allocated to the pursuant to such Act is administered solely in English. The impact of this change will, have a large effect on those learning to speak English in all of the public or private schools. 

The effect on the education of Non-English speakers

    Many of the states currently have laws in place such as Arizona, Missouri, Alaska, Oklahoma, Florida, California, New Hampshire, and Louisiana to name a few (U.S.-English.org) making them English-only speaking states. (pg. 103 line 1-4, para.4, line 1, para.5 Calderon, M,

Slavin, R., and Sanchez, M.) Thus, impacting the already large population of growing students attending U.S. schools (either in the public or private sectors) that are children or adult immigrants, half of which do not speak English well enough and are assigned the label of English learners no matter what age they are. Although the federal government requires school districts to provide services to English learners, it offers states no policies to follow in identifying, assessing, placing, or instructing them. Based on studies presented in their report; Calderon, Slavin, and Sanchez assert that the quality of instruction is what matters the most in educating English learners. “As larger numbers of English learners reach America’s schools, K-12 general education teachers are discovering the need to learn how to teach these students.Therefore, schools must improve skills of all educators through comprehensive professional development-an ambitious but necessary undertaking that requires appropriate funding”  (Hegemony of Discourse, Bratt, K.R. July 2010). Children whose native language is not English have been put out of portion with others in the schools, by being placed in special education classrooms and the No Child Left Behind policies have not addressed the needs of English language learners. Currently, there are bilingual teachers on the Mexico-US border who are at risk of being fired for helping Spanish speaking students struggling to learn English and understand the basic concepts of Math, History, Science and Language Arts. While, interviewing teachers at this Mexico-U.S. border school Kristin Bratt found that most of the teachers realize that some use of Spanish at the school does help with the student’s degree of idealization understanding or to question the right in ideal learning. This school and many others are in monolingual (Spanish only) communities where the parents encourage the teaching of English to their children, but do nothing about trying to reinforce English anywhere else. The group of teachers, went on saying that the home-school connection in the community was lost and that what the state itself expects of the students growth, as make-believe. With the loss of the home-school connection not only does it tie the hands of the teachers, but with the rising elevation of the standardized testing and outside evaluators as a hurdle to their forward movement. The tests and evaluations discourage the teachers who can see great productivity even though the results show the students and teachers as failures. However, by letting these teachers and other bilingual teachers teach these students in their native tongues, not only would there be a better understanding of Math, History, Science, but many bilingual students would not receive a failing grade in Language Arts. The teachers of this school went on to explain that school and state policies deny the importance of Spanish and that being bilingual is valued in other parts of the country.In a nation where education research points to the need to maintain and support home languages, so that children are able to progress in a second language, teachers’ are being forced to come up with back-door methods to teach these students and possibly lose their jobs for speaking the home language of these students. (Bratt, K.R. July 2, 2010) Based on a report from The National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, in 1997 more than $100 million had been used in the last 30 years to determine the need of bilingual education, two very interesting conclusions were made by on study: (1) that no clues that a program of home languages teaching has enough impact than any other type of learning program, and (2) Teaching children to read in English instead of their native language, had no adverse results. This large volume of research was done even with the $665 million a year that the federal government already spends on bilingual programs. As a nation we need to realize that learning English is extremely important for Hispanics, since 29 percent claim that language is the major barrier stopping Latino from achieving their goals in the United States. They (Latinos) also, believe that educations in bilingual programs need to be more focused on guarantying students learn English well.  So basically, either we as a nation need to figure out what language we are going speak officially, or we keep dishing out millions of dollars to teach and print other languages of the citizens and immigrants that make up this countries “melting pot.”

The Conclusion

Based on all the information collected it is easy to see that this is an ongoing fight to make English the official language of the United States. Even with several good reasons to make it a law. We as a nation have an uphill struggle for the present teachers  and the future ones  to help  English learners to be proficient in a new language that will benefit them in their later years of life as well as an American citizen who (us-English.org)”will benefit from elevation of English to official status.” Making English the official language of the United States will help lower the needless cost of having to reprint important information in several different languages, the cost of having interpreters, and improve the percentage of American households that are verbally isolated from the outside, and allow the government to put the money to better use by improving the multi-linguistic services that are currently, being taught in English-only schools across the United States. The money currently spent on multilingual classes will not only help strengthen the way teachers are trained to help students gain the academic level needed to pass classes,(H.CON.RES.8,Jan.7, 2011) but allow our own military forces to use the new languages learned to advance cross-cultural relationships and gain a better understanding of the different racial and ethnic groups of the United States and other countries that support the ongoing need of military support in a time of need.  The United States needs to realize that even with 92 percent of the residents speaking English, according to the 2000 United States Census, there really is no real need to designate any official United States language or to embrace parallel constrained legislation.

                                                                                                                                      

References

Calderon, M., Slavin, R., & Sanchez, M. (2011, spring). Effective instruction for English learners.

     Future of Children, 21(1), 103-127. Retrieved from ERIC database. ((EJ920369))

Bratt, K. R., & Elbousty, Y. (2010, July 2). On dangerous grounds: bilingual teachers of bilingual 

     Students in English-only schools on the daily risks of exercising one's professional judgment 

     [Hegemony of discourse] (Monograph). Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov (ED510701)

English Language Unity act of 2011, H.R. Con. Res. H.R. 997, 112th House of Representatives Cong. (March 10, 2011), h112-997 (govtrack.us).

 English Learning and Innovation Act of 2011, S. Res. S. 1158, 112th Senate Cong. (June 8, 2011), s112-1158 (govtrack.us). 

 English Language Unity Act of 2011, S. Res. S. 503, 112th Congress  (March 8, 2011), S112-503

 (govtrack.us). 

 English Plus Resolution,H. CON. RES.8,112th Congress (Jan.7,2011),H.CON.RES.8  (govtrack.us).

 National Language Act of 2011, H.R. Res. H.R. 1164, 112th Cong. (March 17, 2011), H.R.1164 

 (govtrack.us).