English Only --for the Kids’ Sake

We used to call them ESL students to indicate that English was their second language. Then it was LEP for Limited English Proficient. The current term of choice is ELL, English Language Learners. Whatever the label, this growing body of students is challenging educators in innumerable ways. According to new data from the California Department of Education, there are 1.3 million such students in our public schools.

To give you some idea of the growth rate of this population, there has been a 141% increase since 1985. And to bring this statistic even closer to home, almost 42% of the statewide total in kindergarten through sixth grade were in Los Angeles County. Eighty percent of these children’s first language is Spanish.

That the primary goal for these children is to learn English is not in question. How to make it happen often is. Bilingual programs, immersion programs, transition programs, sheltered programs and specially designed instruction all have their advocates. Properly executed, any of these methods can work.

What doesn’t work, and unfortunately what all too many children experience in their first six years of school, is a helter-skelter approach to learning English. One year they have a bilingual teacher; the next year their teacher speaks only English. One year their content subjects are taught in their primary language; the next year no Spanish-speaking teacher can be found and they are learning math in English. One year the language on the playground is Spanish; the next year they have moved to a campus with 60 languages spoken. Student mobility is a separate issue but not unrelated to English language instruction. Given that in many of our urban schools up to 30% of the student body is new in any school year, it seems to me that California needs a coherent, systematic method for teaching children to speak English.

I can hear the sighs already. A mandated curriculum? A one-size-fits-all program for children? What about local control? What about our child-centered curriculum and the belief that teachers teach children, not subjects? In answer, I can only say that the most important thing that we can do for our children, all our children, is to make them literate in English. Without this, they will forever play catch-up, both in school and in the job market.

Since California does not have and cannot quickly train one biliterate teacher for every 20 Spanish-speaking children, the language of instruction will have to be English. Russian-, Farsi- and Japanese-speaking students already go to school this way.

What I want for English language learners is exactly the same thing I want for my own child: a fair chance to compete in the marketplace. The California Education Round Table has sponsored a task force to write content standards in English and mathematics for high school graduates. When asked if nonnative speakers of English will be expected to meet the same standards to receive a high school diploma, the group has stated: “Yes, nonnative speakers of English who graduate from high school in California should be able to read, write, speak and listen at the level called for. . . . Lesser standards would be a disservice.” The challenge is to make sure that these standards do not keep English language learners from receiving high school diplomas. To do that, we must start in kindergarten. The time for posturing is over. We need a K-12 curriculum that ensures that every California child learns English.