English SI, Bilingual NO

“Three years after Massachusetts ended statewide bilingual education, most
non-native English speakers are not fluent enough to function in a regular
classroom, state test results show.
Eighty-three percent of children in grades 3 through 12 could not read, write, speak, or understand English well enough for regular classes after their first year in Massachusetts schools, the test showed. Of students who had been in school for at least three years, more than half were not fluent, according to the test, given for the first time last year.” -Boston Globe 5/21/06

Fifty one years ago I came to this country at the age of 8 from Italy. I had never spoken nor heard of one word of English. The letters K and J were like discovering new planets in our solar system, they didn't exist in my alphabet.
Within a month I was conversing well enough in English that I could play with kids on my street. Within four months, I had written an essay in English that won the award for my class. I still have the picture of me and winners from the other classes with the Mayor of Medford. So when I read of how kids from foreign countries who have been in school for three years and are still not fluent in English, I’m left speechless. Is our educational system that bad? Are these kids that dumb (sorry for being so blunt)? What’s the problem?

The only way to learn a foreign language as far as I’m concerned is to immerse yourself in whatever stream or language that you are trying to master. I studied French for two years in the classroom but could never go out and have a conversation with a French speaking person. One has to see, hear and speak the words and phrases and sentences in order to have some sense of proficiency. You cannot leave school and go home and play with say Spanish speaking friends, or go home to an all Spanish speaking family, or go home and turn on Spanish speaking TV such as Telemundo, or fall back on the government to print everything in both Spanish and English, or even fall back on clicking a button that will bring English speaking programs to your living room in Spanish. YOU WILL NEVER LEARN THE LINGO, GRINGO.

I will grant you that the younger you are the easier it is to make the transition to another language, but age should not be a deterrent. After one year of going to the Medford Public School System, my mom and I moved to the North End of Boston. At that time this area was probably 95% Italian. Most of the Italian immigrant kids attended St. Anthony’s School. I was sent to St. Mary’s where there were only a handful of students that spoke very little or broken English. Even though I attended the fourth grade in Medford and did fairly well I could not get promoted because of a technicality; I lacked the minimum number of days in school. I came to this country at the end of October and by the time I started school I had already missed two months.

So when I went to St. Mary’s, the nuns had no idea of what level I was at and decided to place me in kindergarten. Boy was I humiliated. Here was this big dunce sitting among these little kids. Some sociologists and psychologists would say this was cruel punishment. It was an impetus to learn, plus they didn't have all the wasteful politically correct government programs that they have today. Thank God, that only lasted less than a week and I was finally moved up to the fourth grade class. The second day in class I participated in a spelling bee contest and to the amazement of all I came in second. I couldn’t believe that a kid who wasn’t born here could come in second out of approximately 40 other students who had been born here. I couldn’t believe how many students didn’t even get by the first word presented to them.

Was I an exceptional student? I don’t think so. How did I learn the language so fast? Total immersion. I had to swim or I sank. My regrets nowadays are that I wish I had a better proficiency of the Italian language. I can speak it because my mom always spoke it at home. I marvel at people who have mastered two or more languages. You can speak Spanish or Mandarin or whatever your native tongue is but when you go to school you must be taught in the language of the country you’re in and in this case it’s English. Bilingual education has proved to be a bust to the children and a boon for the educators.