Methods of Teaching Non-English Speakers

Please, give succor to my thoroughly perplexed brain! On July 17, “O.C. Districts Search for Bilingual Teachers” described the extensive measures of school districts to find and hire Spanish-speaking teachers. Administrators are finding teachers from as far away as South America and the Midwest and attempting to entice them to Orange County.

Then, a different article on the concluding page (“Schoolchildren Are Immersed in English”) described how Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian children are being taught in English--and succeeding! The second article even went so far as to state that “many of the Latino children tend to speak to each other in Spanish while the Asian children speak English among themselves as often as their native language.” I wonder whether maybe the Asian students speak more English because they have been instructed in English.

Why is the state forcing school districts to spend thousands of dollars and hours to dig up Spanish-speaking teachers when Asian students have demonstrated that non-English speaking students can learn English and then learn in English? Why not put Latino children in English immersion classrooms and offer them this equal shot at success instead of trying to draft anyone who can walk and speak Spanish to teach them? Why not search instead for teachers who understand second-language acquisition who can effectively teach children to understand and speak English well?

The placement of Latino students in bilingual classrooms while Asian students are assigned to immersion programs amounts to racial segregation. What social problems are developing from this dual track system?

On the other hand, bilingual education has its merits: What better way to prevent Latino achievement than by denying the means to educational success?

FRANCISCA BARNES

Santa Ana