Blog #6: 30 Million Less Words

Reading "What if we talked about monolingual white children the way we talk about low-income children of color?" prompted me to do some google searching on the evolution of language in the United States over the years.  Okay, to be honest, it was not just this reading that prompted that, it was also my newly found beginning knowledge about White Privilege, Black Lives Matter, and the Stonewall Riot together with some of what I have learned in my Assessments class which is where I learned that Standardized testing in our Nation's public schools is created specifically for Middle Class Monolingual White Students from the North East.

Before I share my newly acquired "googled" knowledge on the topic I will bullet what stood out for me in this weeks blog reading:

• "by the age of 5 years old monolingual white children will have heard 30 million fewer words in languages other than English" in comparison to "bilingual children of color."
• monolingual white kids "lack of exposure to richness of non standardized varieties of English that characterizes the homes of many children of color"
• Caused by:  "failure of monolingual white communities to successfully assimilate into multilingual and multidialectal mainstream since the 1960's."
• "linguistic isolation has detrimental effects on cognitive development of monolingual white children."

As we know the article goes on to highlight that the same best practices we are learning should be occurring in modern day classrooms; ie "translanguaging", should be occurring at home as well in those monolingual white houses and communities.  Okay, I agree.  

But, the "baffle" for me is how did we get here?  How are we monolingual whites so clueless as we raise our children?  

This is where my newly found "google" knowledge comes in.  The answer is in Society.  It is changing.  Language is driven by immigration; it always has been.  Immigration was at a lull from 1910 to 1970 due to the results of the World Wars and the fact that instead of people immigrating from Europe; Europe had become a place of Emigration.  This means, for the most part, immigration was at a standstill and part of the American dream was to speak English for success to be accomplished in the future.  That was then.  Now we are in the 21st Century and USA is behind the times in language acquisition.  Standardized Assessments are still created for the monolingual middle class white kids from the north east, USA, but that does not compliment the multiethnic population of the United States.  Why do the testmakers want us to know only about U.S. history and culture?  That's for another blog.

                                   

Now, regardless of where our children will live or work when they grow, we are in a Global Community in which they need the benefit of exposure to many different languages in order to be successful in the world as an adult.

If it was not clear in what I already wrote, I do believe in a Translanguaging classroom.  But, like all that we seem to become aware of in modern times, those of us who learn about it become aware of it, believe in it, and can practice it; that may not be the case of the others who teach alongside us.  

Feel free to check out these links:
The Rise of Language Diversity in the United States

This article was published in 2011 and was written by Alison at Accredited language.  Here are a couple of highlights I thought were worth noting.

• At that time she wrote that the "preservation of immigrant languages has helped increase linguistic diversity in the United States" 
• At that time 55.4 million people were speaking a language other than English at home in the United States.  
• She also explains that back "then" which is before the 1970's the one major linguistic goal of immigrants was for all children to become fluent in English.  "Flawless English was thought to be the ultimate MUST as far as securing a future in the country."

Immigration and Language Diversity in the United States

This article is by Rubin G Rumbaut & Douglas S Massey.  It was published on July 10, 2013.  It holds a lot of useful and interesting information on the changes and patterns in language use over time and directly correlates it to immigration to the United States.  There are many "Tables" which highlight a lot of interesting facts.  If you click on the link above you can scroll down and easily click on the Table links.  Meanwhile here were some interesting facts that sparked my thoughts:

• "percentage of foreign born fell steadily in the United States from 14.7% in 1910 to 4.7% in 1970.  This dwindled caused the Census Bureau to STOP asking questions on it's mother tongue."
• "The great American paradox is that while the United States historically has been characterized by great linguistic diversity propelled by immigration, it has also been a zone of language extinction in which immigrant tongues die out to be replaced by monolingual English."
• They conclude by stating:  "the revival of immigration has simply restored language diversity..."
• "In the absence of continued large scale immigration" (this article suggests) "mother tongue of today's immigrants will persist somewhat into the 2nd generation, then fade."

In other words it shows the patterns of how United States has opportunities to take advantage of the many languages which migrate to our country and can assist in the development of multilinguistic patrons IF we use these languages through "Multilingual Talks" as suggested in today's blog reading, and if we utilize translanguaging in the classroom.

A final thought:

A lot of our colleagues who are unaware of the benefit, or the existence of translanguaging in the classroom, probably grew up and attended school during the time when the achievement of English fluency was the key to success.  The societal history in these other articles support their beliefs.  But, the reports also demonstrate the change that has occurred in Societal immigration.  It also demonstrates the fact that the United States is and has been behind the times in developing our students into multilinguistic adults.   We need to recognize this movement, embrace it and start closing the monolingual white children language gap.