...Not everyone enjoys reading. Some might hate it and only do it because they have no other option, like students and especially college students. But again without the beauty of reading many of us would be lost in this world. Some of us find companion and safety when it comes to reading. Personally, I enjoy reading romance novels, horror novels and non-fiction novels because it helps me escape of my reality for a short amount of time. There are times that I loose track of time when reading, I get caught up in my own little world and can’t seem to put down the books. But like I mentioned not everyone might have the same perspective as me. As a reader you either learn how to love reading or hate it. Growing up in a bilingual home I was constantly...
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...Growing up Bilingual: A Spanish Heritage Speaker’s Views The role of bilingualism and multilingualism in a child’s growth and development is highly debated. On the one hand, there is a majority of people who grow up speaking multiple languages and dialects, while on the other hand, there are the minority who only grew up speaking one language. Through it all, there is a tension in the educational and societal ranks about whether or not there is an advantage to knowing a language beyond knowing what others are speaking. This is the story of a heritage speaker who grew up in a English-Spanish speaking household, and her views on this tension. Erin grew up in an English-Spanish speaking household, speaking in varying degrees of Spanish and English...
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...In the essay, “Aria:Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez exposes the readers to the nature of being bilingual and living in America. Richard Rodriguez not only emphasizes the sound of language but also the context behind it. Through his paragraphs, he goes into depth about the education system, the public, private, and intimacy language, and how much coming home has changed over the years for him. In his essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, Rodriguez uses anecdotes, strong arguments, and his own voice to successfully argue that bilingual education is impractical, and a child using their native language as well as English in school and public life is not needed. In the first chapter, Rodriguez talks about the struggles of growing up in a Mexican home but when he leaves his house, he enters a whole new world. Using anecdotes Rodriguez states, “I was a bilingual child, a certain kind - socially disadvantaged - the son of working-class parents, both Mexican immigrants” (Rodriguez 322). Rodriguez uses many anecdotes like this throughout the essay to persuade his readers that being bilingual isn’t an advantage. As a child it can be very difficult going to a school where English is the primary language, and so Rodriguez felt that his native language was one that was private. His language was not socially acceptable by others and so he felt that he was obligated to learn the public language which was English. And until he learned English he didn’t feel welcomed...
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...Growing up knowing more than one language has many advantages but then again people do face challenges. An advantage in being bilingual would be the obvious of getting a job adding to that would be the salary being received. Another up would be being able to travel to where your second language is spoken and not feeling like an outcast. Now having that in mind if you are an immigrant that has recently moved somewhere where your native language is not spoken that would be a problem because now you would feel like an outcast. On top of being an outcast you have no way of communicating with anyone because your native language is, let us say Spanish, and you live in Houston where the dominate language is English. But, after a while you learn your second language and can start passing up your downs and receive your advantages of being bilingual. As your growing up your learning your “new” language but before that you were “socially disadvantaged” as said in Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”. This is said to be a disadvantage, not of being bilingual but it is the step you have to take before being able to be considered bilingual. As Rodriguez stated in his short story he was also the “problem student” only because he was not completely familiar with this new language he eventually had to take up. His family was also part of being “socially disadvantage” they hardly knew any English and had trouble communicating with their surrounding neighbors. They spoke what...
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...Jose Santos Professor McGuire English 111 26 July 2014 Bilingual, Bilingualism, and a Forgotten Language In the essays “Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” written by Richard Rodriguez and “Loss of Family Languages: Should Educators Be Concerned” written by Lily Wong Fillmore, the authors are concerned about immigrants forgetting their native languages as they get Americanized. Both authors are targeting a mature audience of immigrants, which have come to America to become citizens. Both authors use concerned tone with hopes that their audience will want to contribute to change. Furthermore, Fillmore draws her evidence from stories of other writers’ essays. Rodriguez, on the other hand illustrates his evidence from personal experiences and memories of his life while growing up. This essay exemplifies the differences and similarity of the evidence used, tones, styles, and the intended audiences. Fillmore’s and Rodriguez’s evidence are similar and different, in their support of the idea of bilingual education in schools. Fillmore’s evidence differs from Rodriguez’s as she uses statics, research, and other writer’s quotes as her support. She uses this Supreme Court’s ruling to show that the court believes immigrants require assistance staying bilingual, “… Lau v. Nichols held that these children must be provided instructional help to overcome the linguistic barrier…” (Fillmore 260). She also cites the story of a Chinese immigrant family that falls apart as the kids...
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...The issue of bilingual education in the United States has come up quite frequently throughout history, and whether it would benefit the students whose mother tongue is a language other than English. In Aria by Richard Rodriguez, he goes into the past and present of his life growing up with Spanish being his first language in school in the U.S. He later goes on to say, how he in fact, was and is against having a bilingual education in the school system, for it took away an individual's private language and turned it into a public language. However, such a statement seems to contradict to how he ended up to be with language, which is the fact that Spanish ultimately faded away from his life, no longer making it the private language he strongly...
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...What is a Bilingual? A Bilingual person is someone who can speak or write in more than one language. A person who can speak/write in more than two languages is considered to be a multilingual. Bilingualism and multilingualism isn’t unusual. In fact, it’s the norm for most of the world’s societies. It is possible for a person to know more than one or two languages, most especially when the country is not in the western part of the globe, usually, people can speak two languages—that is, their L1 and L2, which, in this context, L2 is usually the English language. People become bilingual when they learn two languages at the same time, or, they learn the second language sometime after they acquired their L1. But then, it is more possible for a person to learn a second language sometime after he has acquired his L1. The problem is, the older you get, the harder it is to learn to speak a new language as well as a native speaker. Many linguists believe that there is a so-called “critical period” wherein the child can easily acquire any language that he or she is regularly exposed to. Under this belief, the structure of the brain changes at puberty, then after that, it becomes harder to learn a new language. In some countries, nearly everyone is bilingual or multilingual. Except for United States of America, of course. Since their L1 is already English, they are rarely encouraged anymore to learn an L2. A Bilingual can either...
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...in today’s world compared to bilinguals in terms of communication with people of other cultures, cognitive abilities, and health due to their lack of capability to speak a language other than English. Being bilingual comes with the most well-known advantage, the ability to communicate with people from different cultures. ¨It [bilingualism]...
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...The direct purpose of this essay is to explore, research, and discuss bilingual language education throughout the United States and other countries. It is estimated that throughout the world approximately 6,000 different languages are spoken and that fewer than 25percent of our world’s approximate 200 countries recognize two or more official languages (Grimes, 1992 ). Grimes (1992) also goes on to surprise us with this unbelievable statistic, being that only a mere handful of these 200 countries recognizing more than two. Despite the above conservative figures, data has shown that there are many more bilingual or multilingual individuals around the world than there are monolingual (Tucker, 1999). It is estimated, that there are many more children...
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...we go today, you see a foreign language used in one way or another. Think about when you go out for Sushi, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, or any other foreign food, the employee's speak different languages. There is a growing demand for people that have mastered a foreign language, like the military, that send troops or aids to foreign countries, businesses, that send their employee's to different countries, and schools wanting their teachers to be bilingual. In today's society, it seems that if we do not know a second language, we would not be able to communicate with different cultures that are rapidly moving here. In the last 20 years I have seen a great number of different nationalities come to America, and it seems to me that everyone wants them to speak our language, instead of learning theirs to understand a culture within the context of the language. There has been a growing global demand to understand different cultures, because of all the aid we send to different countries around the world. Many people have skills in their chosen field, however, by not being bilingual may leave them out of promotions, advancements, or even getting the position in which they are qualified. I have been left out of getting some jobs because I did not have the bilingual skills they were asking for. Travel is more difficult when you do not know the language or the culture of the country you going to. For example, my spouse and I were planning a trip to China with a group of people, and...
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... Schaefer (2006) wrote that “until the last 20 to 30 years there was an effort to devalue the Spanish language and to discourage Hispanics from using it in schools” (p. 242). In the 60s it was not any better, the school boards in Florida and in New York City enforced a “No Spanish” rule and up until 68’ it was illegal to teach in any other language than English in California. The program English as a second language or ELS tend to emphasize bilingual but not bicultural education (Schaefer, 2006) which help with multi-language teaching but did not interfere with their culture. Some Hispanics were strongly against bilingualism, they believe that English-only education, even for very young children is the key to success (S. Freedman 2004; H. Mason 2003). The growth of the Hispanic population has moved Congress toward recognizing the multilingual culture of the United States. The number of the Hispanic population is increasing yearly which will influence the government’s decisions on this topic, it is a federal law that bilingual ballots be provided where necessary. There is many reasons that immigrates come to the United States but one of the main reasons is education, most come here to give their children a chance at a better education that they would not have been available in their country of origin. The education system might not be perfect...
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...Seif C.A.R 2 March 27, 2012 Response to “Why Bilinguals are Smarter” Researchers have discovered people who are bilingual are smarter. The profound effect of bilingualism improves cognitive skills not related to language and helps prevent against dementia in old age. Bilingualism was considered an interference that hindered a child’s academic and intellectual development. The interference happens because the brain activates both languages so they obstruct each other. However, this interference is in fact a blessing in disguise because it actually forces the brain to resolve internal conflicts which gives the mind a workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles. Some instances were bilinguals surpass monolinguals in intelligence are at solving certain types of mental puzzles. The article explains a 2004 study conducted by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee were “bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were asked to sort blue circles and red squares presented on a computer screen into two digital bins. In the first task, the children had to sort the shapes by color, placing blue circles in the bin marked with the blue square and red squares in the bin marked with the red circle. Both groups did this with comparable ease. Next, the children were asked to sort by shape, which was more challenging because it required placing the images in a bin marked with a conflicting color. The bilinguals were quicker at performing this task.”(nytimes.com) ...
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...(Destination Casa Blanca, 2009). Children who struggle with language barriers would benefit from bilingual and early education programs to detect in what areas students are in need of help as they start their learning development. Yet others state that many immigrants and other students have achieved their goals without such programs and they would therefore be a waste of tax money and resources that could be better spent elsewhere. The issue is strong in education. Many immigrants and Americans that have children attending public schools have different views and organizations to support those feeling and beliefs. Schaefer (2006) states that “until the last 20 or 30 years there was a conscious effort to devalue the Spanish language and to discourage Hispanics from using it in schools (p. 242). In the 1960s, the school boards in the Southwest, Florida, and New York City enforced a “No Spanish” rule and up until 1968 it was illegal to teach in any language other than English in California. English as a second language (ESL) programs tend to emphasize bilingual but not bicultural education (Schaefer, 2006). Some Hispanics strongly oppose bilingualism, believing that English-only education, even for very young children, is the key to success. The growth of the Hispanic population has moved Congress towards recognizing the multilingual culture of the United States. Federal law has mandated that bilingual ballots be provided where necessary. Bilingualism in politics in the United States is...
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...Bilingual Education is a way to label a huge term used to describe a wide variation of programs used in the United States. These programs are engineered to use full bilingualism, which is the use of two languages to teach academic content in the classroom. There are various different types of bilingual programs that are designed however, but all are geared to have the same exact outcome. The outcome for all of these programs is to use two languages proficiently in the classroom. The true question is whether bilingual programs are more effective in the long run over only English programs in raising students’ academic achievements. There are very many political and economic concerns that revolve around bilingual education in the U.S. Since...
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...some, bilingualism means an equal ability to communicate in two languages. For others, bilingualism means the ability to communicate in two languages but with the possibility of greater skills in one language. There is a lot of criteria that goes along with bilingualism. For this research paper, the criteria I focused on were: The history of bilingualism laws in the United States, pros/cons of bilingual education in America’s school system, who benefits the most from bilingual education programs; youths in elementary or the youths in high school, bilingualism in the labor market, and bilingualism in the media. In the society that we live in today, Bilingualism has become just as it is important to learn as to learn the language from the country of a person’s ethnical background. Bilingualism has come a far way in the last 20 years to where it is today. Whether we notice it or not bilingualism plays a part in every person’s day to day life. Bilingualism is highly researchable subject is given a lot of political, as well as ethical attention. Twenty years ago in the school system bilingual education programs were almost never heard of much in elementary schools for English speaking students to have to learn another language. Most often the kids who didn’t t know English well would leave the Reed 2 classroom and go to another classroom for language programs such as E.S.L for example. What is the ESL program and does ESL even exists in the American School System today? ESL is...
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