When English Isn’t First

Re “Report Details Long Road to English-Language Fluency,” Feb. 14: The reality is that children cannot learn English until they have some degree of fluency in their native language. The less literacy you have in your native language, the less likely that you will be able to master another language. If you really want children to learn English, you need to help them achieve meaningful fluency in their native language first. We are just setting these children up for failure.

Andee Steinman

Palm Desert

The legislative analyst’s office reported that, according to projections, English learners in California schools take 3.6 to 7.4 years to become fluent in English. This analysis is based on tests administered in 2001 and 2002, long after California voted to dismantle bilingual education and require English immersion by passing Proposition 227.

Today, nearly all English learners in school are in all-English programs. Proposition 227 stated that English immersion instruction should “not normally” exceed one year. The report shows conclusively that this didn’t happen. Proposition 227 did not keep its promise. Not even close.

Stephen Krashen

School of Education

USC

We find ATMs asking if we want English or Spanish; phones answered with “Press 1 for English” (guess what the other language is); court and government systems that make it easy to conduct civic and legal business in Spanish; voting in Spanish; stores with signs in Spanish only; newspapers, radio and television in Spanish. It’s not only possible but easy to get along with no English at all. Now, why do we think that Spanish-speaking children are “lagging behind most other immigrant children”?

Michele Hart-Rico

Los Angeles

It should come as no surprise that it takes Spanish speakers nearly seven years to become fluent in English when everything in our society is in Spanish and English. If we are going to pass laws like Proposition 227 requiring students to be taught primarily in English, there should not be a loophole allowing parents to teach their children in Spanish. If you want to be part of the “American dream” you need to learn the English language.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is a shambles because more than half of its students don’t speak English.

David Keyes

Laura Keyes

Sherman Oaks