TEACH ENGLISH WITH A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
YOUR HOLIDAY HEADQUARTERS
BY KATHRYN BIRKHEAD
R
esearch indicates that children are much better language learners than adults, yet in Arkansas we’re squandering a wonderful opportunity to help our children learn a second (or third or fourth) language during that critical childhood period. Many immigrant families provide that opportunity to us in the form of their children who are fluent native speakers of languages other than English. Current state law keeps schools from being able to take advantage of the skills that those children bring. Arkansas prohibits the use of any language other than English in school classrooms. There’s another approach, though, called English Plus, which uses English plus another language in the same classroom for instruction. It’s important not to confuse English Plus, which is a duallanguage approach, with a bilingual education program that pulls students with limited English skills out of their regular classrooms. In this program, everyone stays together, so they can learn from each other. There are scores of young people all across the state who are bilingual, but we are missing an opportunity to let them share their language skills with their peers and to help them build reading and writing skills in their native languages. A major focus of English Plus is the broadening experience we could provide to children from monolingual Englishspeaking homes by building their skills a second language. By allowing instruction in a foreign language and in English in elementary school, we could help our children develop skills and cultural perspectives that many adults can only dream of.
Kathryn Birkhead is director for diversity and inclusion for Northwest Arkansas Community College.
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DECEMBER 19, 2013
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