Commentary

Commentary

fathers brought with them to this land, are too worthwhile to be discarded. But a sense of cultural pride cannot come at the price of proficiency in English, our common language.”

The word bilingual has come to mean contradictory things. In Canada, the bilingual laws resulted in a French-only policy in the province of Quebec. The divisiveness that resulted became so oppressive that businesses fled in droves to Ontario. Finally, the economic downturn was so severe that the French-speaking voters of Quebec decided that they were tired of starving in French, and wanted to get back to work in English. They threw the Anglophobe government out.

The kind of rhetoric that we hear about bilingualism, from some of the Hispanic groups especially, sounds much too much like the rhetoric that was heard in Canada that resulted in the divisiveness that so damaged that nation.

To top it off, the bilingual education programs advocated by the nonEnglish speaking extremists are quite different from what they sound like. The “transitional” approach to teaching English to non-English speaking kids turns out to be a way of not learning English. The instruction is not unlike the way I was taught Spanish in high schooL an hour at most a day, and then I spoke English the rest of the day, not only at home but at school as well. It was not until I happened upon another method of studying Spanish that I was able to master the language.

From all of the teachers who have contacted English First, it is clear that an intensive period of instruction, perhaps as much as a semester, should be provided so that a student can study English full time during that period. Then the student is ready to study the other courses in the curriculum, in English.

The goal of bilingual education should be to make the student bilingual. Bilingual should not become a code word for refusal to speak English.

To continue with the current failed policies characterizing much of bilingual education will produce a growing number of high school graduates who cannot speak English. They will not be bilingual, and they will not be employable.

For the sake of our nation’s unity and economic prosperity, let’s make English First. The voters of California have a great opportunity to take the lead in this effort because this November they get to vote on making English the official language ol their state. The eyes of the country will be upon them.

The author, Larry Pratt, is president of English First, a grass roofs organization of 100,000. Pratt has been a Virginia state legislator and currently serves as secretary of the Council for Inter-American Security.