Teaching in English

Gloria Matta Tuchman is absolutely right (“Talking Up English First,” Aug. 13). She should be honored not only for her dedication as a teacher but also for her courage and commitment to the right cause.

I am very concerned that by the time conclusive studies are completed on the evidence of the negative effects of bilingual education, a young generation will have been harmed, the politicians, bureaucrats and nonprofit organizations who championed the idea will have gone to other issues, and no one will be held accountable for lack of responsibility and lack of vision. Of course, it will take time to dismantle this unfair system, but we should get started.

NORMA GONZALES

Los Angeles

* How proud Tuchman is of being bilingual. How wonderful that she fully admits that being bilingual is “a true asset.” How sad that she is working so hard to deny all 5 million California schoolchildren the opportunity to feel equally proud. Yes, all children in California have the right to an education that prepares them fully for business and employment opportunities in the 21st century.

Tuchman and Ron K. Unz know very well that the jobs of the future require bilingual skills. Our future will include business and employment opportunities all over our entire multilingual continent--North, Central and South America. And shortly after that, our future will link us to Asia.

The highly technical and service-related jobs of the future will require, more than anything else, employees with highly sophisticated language skills--in one, two, possibly three or four languages. English will be one of those languages. However, a monolingual English job applicant will find him/herself permanently unemployed.

CARMEN SANCHEZ SADEK

Los Angeles