Asian American Heritage Language Education in U.S - Research Paper Example

Asian American Heritage Language Education in U.S A bilingual speaker is an individual who has the capacity to communicate in two (or more) languages, either in ‘monolingual’ or multilingual societies, in harmony with their socio-cultural requirements based on an individual’s communicative and cognitive competence, and who can identify with both (or all) language groups (and cultures), or sections of them.” (Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981). Bilinguals typically acquire and employ their languages for variant purposes, in diverse realms of life, with diverse people. Dissimilar aspects of life regularly necessitate different languages. Before 1970s when science aided in the understanding of the brains capacity to accommodate multiple languages a lot of myths existed. These downplayed the efforts aimed at cultivating bilingualism. Partly, the loss of heritage languages can be blamed on this misinformation amongst other factors. Primarily, this study seeks to point out that bilingualism improves an individual’s capacity to assimilate other languages and has social and economic benefits as well. In proving this, the study also points at the importance of cultivating heritage languages and disproving the English-Only pedagogy. The overall aim is to encourage bilingualism and demonstrate heritage languages as a fundamental aspect of developing a bilingual society. Attention will also be given to existent efforts and programs examining how they can be improved and their effects so far. Until recently, negative views about the personality and social development of bilingual children have been frequently expressed. Bilingualism was long associated with, and even said to cause, mental confusion, identity and emotional problems, social attachment deficits, loyalty conflicts and poor self-esteem and self-concept (Sung & Padilla, 1998). However, it is clear that most people in the world have some sort of facility in more than one language and, as widely informed, it is monolingualism that is an aberration, an affliction of the powerful, and a disease to be cured. Until the late 1970’s, a majority of authors presented a negative, prejudiced view about bilingual personalities. Bilingual children were described as having split minds, being ‘neither here nor there,’ marginal people (Blanton, 2006). Subsequent research has demonstrated that in any case bicultural or bilingual individuals suffer detrimental effect on personality; bilingualism is not likely to be the cause. Rather, the social, economic and political conditions surrounding the development of bilingualism generate the problems (Park, 2007). In America, where English is considered the dominant language, it would make sense to teach everyone English only. However, would this be the right course of action given that this would contribute to the extinction of heritage languages and cultures? This question is best addressed by looking at the nation’s history. In the late 20th century, United States had enacted the English-Only pedagogy among conquered peoples and minority groups on the margins of national life (Blanton, 2006). The first region to be affected was Puerto Rico, and was considered the most significant pedagogical laboratory for language learning. English was made the primary language of instruction for all the subjects shortly after the American occupation in 1898. This was in place of Spanish-English bilingual education (Blanton, 2006). While English-Only pedagogy was the dominant instructional approach for teaching non-English speaking children between 1900 and 1930, it demonstrated an abysmal track record. Children in English only classrooms were simply not expected to thrive educationally. Educators made it clear that spoken English was the only objective it took precedence over such other subjects as reading, mathematics, and science (Sung & Padilla, 1998). In assessing the approach, it was concluded that English-Only pedagogy institutionalized and rationalized academic failure (Blanton, 2006). The most publicized of these failures were poor academic performance and segregation of the minority groups. Following these well documented failures of English-Only instruction, the federal government made conscious efforts to encourage teaching of foreign languages in the elementary schools. These efforts would later be complimented by scientific findings in language learning theory and child psychology which acted as a platform for the modern bilingual-education movement (Blanton, 2006). Even with the support of the federal government most studies have argued that U.S. school systems have not successfully supported immigrants’ heritage language maintenance and have not validated their heritage language, culture, and identity (Sung & Padilla, 1998). As a result, many immigrant students are rapidly losing their heritage language and culture. The loss of heritage language and culture negatively affect immigrant student’s positive development of their ethnic identity and self-perception (Park, 2007). Classic assimilation theory holds that if immigrants adapt to the dominant language, cultural values, and customs, they would become “Americans.” It is clear that educational issues for immigrants in the United States are mostly focused on English language education. This has meant that a lot of immigrants have tried to achieve native-like English proficiency. As a result, more than 95% of the second generation Asian Americans speak English extremely well (Park, 2007). The tendency to learn English at the cost of losing heritage languages underlies the strong motivation of second generation Asian Americans to become Americans not only by becoming legal citizens, but also by full adapting to the dominant language and culture. In English-dominant societies, such as the United States, learning English can be an expression of immigrants’ loyalty to their new host country (Park, 2007). Given the history of discrimination and unequal treatment of immigrants, knowing English is much more than a means of communication, it is also a medium of power. Furthermore, in Western societies, mostly in English-speaking nations, cultures that are different from that of the White middle class are often looked at as adverse. Thus, the linguistic capital that immigrants earn by learning English or adapting to cultural norms and manners cannot be fully translated to their advantage as immigrants’ accumulated capital is embodied differently than that of White Americans. In this context, heritage language proficiency, a form of linguistic capital, of non White immigrants cannot be regarded as a desirable cultural capital (Sung & Padilla, 1998). Language also defines the limits of communities and nations. In the U.S. context, language is perceived to bind national identities as language has a symbolic meaning that draws boundaries between cultures, nations, and ethnic groups. Henceforth, learning English or maintaining heritage language is not just an issue of the linguistic acquisition. It implies questions of power control and belonging. Recently, national attention has been drawn to developing students’ heritage languages. Heritage-language learner is one who grows up in a home where a separate language from English is used. They may either have a passive understanding of the language or be partially bilingual, and they may participate in a variety of program types (Guzetti, 2002). Heritage-language literacy is now being promoted in a number of languages. Mandarin and Japanese are frequently taught in Asian American immigrant communities and a number of higher education institutions offer courses in literacy for native speakers of Spanish, Chinese etc. The promoting of heritage-language literacy provides a promising means for increasing the number of biliterate people in the United States. This is not the only advantage developing heritage language has two other major advantages for children and adolescents (Guzetti, 2002). First, for individuals still learning English, utilizing cues from the native language can hasten the understanding of English and facilitate learning of diverse school subjects while still progressing in English. Second, students who have achieved proficiency in English and who still remain versed in their indigenous language can become bilingual and biliterate, being bilingual brings along a host of merits as well as fundamental contributions to society (Tse, 2001). As pointed out in the beginning, studying languages was laden with myths as most individuals believed that individuals have a limited capacity for knowing language. This has lead to misinformed decisions where many parents arrests development of the native language to leave ample room for the new language. Scientific research has clearly shown that this is a myth in any case it has demonstrated that human beings carry infinite capacity for language learning (Guzetti, 2002). One other fundamental finding is that understanding one language can aid in learning the second faster as it means not having to start from scratch (Tse, 2001). This is because it creates capacity to draw upon prior experience and knowledge. A native language (heritage language) provides background information that aids English language learning. Learning different subjects requires lesser effort and is faster while using one’s strongest language, in this case, a student’s native language. Armed with this background information, when students hear that topic discussed in a novel language, they have the ability to comprehend more than if they had not encountered the subject beforehand (Tse, 2001). So far, it is clear that heritage language is vital to both the individual and to the society. To the individual, learning English and maintaining the heritage language is the easiest and most efficient way to achieve bilingualism, and being bilingual comes with a host of advantages. To start with, being bilingual increases chances of better performance in school (Tse, 2001). This was demonstrated in two studies conducted in the 1980s the studies examined academic achievement among monolingual and bilingual students of Hispanic/Latino heritage. One of the study’s findings indicated that bilingual students of Hispanic/Latino heritage were better readers in English and had higher academic aspirations than those who were Hispanic/Latino but monolingual in either English or Spanish (Tse, 2001). The studies overall findings indicated that children who develop their indigenous language and are proficient in English will do better in school than those who leave their heritage language behind. Besides educational performance, being bilingual also has socio-cultural advantages in that a bilingual is able to communicate with a wide variety of people and has access to multiple sources of information, resources that have been dubbed “social capital” or “funds of knowledge.” Lastly, there is the economic advantage, individuals fluent in two languages tend to earn more and have more career options (Tse, 2001). A case example is Latinos in Florida, those who speak English exceptionally well and also speak Spanish as well have an annual median income about 20% higher than monolingual Latinos. Development of heritage languages also brings certain merits to the society. For a considerable period of time, the U.S. government has recognized the need for bilingualism among its citizenry. The creation of the Defense Language Institute for foreign-language teaching is evidence to this commitment numerous other initiatives such as publications also demonstrate this commitment (Sung & Padilla, 1998). To the society, bilingualism breeds individuals who have linguistic savvy to negotiate at an international level this allow the nation to take advantage of rich markets such as the Latin America and Mexican markets. The second advantage is that the country gains politically by owning a rich diplomatic and national security corps. Lastly, the nation gains educationally by stemming the shortfall of foreign-language instructors, particularly in the marginal languages such as Farsi, Chinese, and Russian (Tse, 2001). Looking at the merits of developing the heritage language and thence the positives of encouraging bilingualism both to the individual and the society reveals that investing in heritage languages is a prudent and logical policy. Policies would help dispel the existent myths on heritage languages and also help in portraying heritage languages as a necessity for the good of the individual as well as for the larger society (Sung & Padilla, 1998). In this case, then it would be necessary to programatize heritage languages. Building programs for schools would increase attention paid to foreign language competence. At the moment, there are about three types of heritage language development programs; developmental bilingual education programs, native speaker foreign language course and heritage language schools. Jointly, these programs have ensured that student’s competence levels have gone up and their international exposure has been increased due to knowledge of other languages (Guzetti, 2002). Further, these programs have ensured that language knowledge is not restricted to heritage languages or the dominant language but to other ‘smaller’ languages, which has strengthened the moral fabric (Chik, 2010). The Saturday Language School programs are not effective this mainly results from the minimal exposure to the new language. These programs have an exposure time of 2.5 hours to a new language. Unless this is supplemented by day-to-day interactions with actual speakers of the language then it is less likely to meet the desired goals (Guzetti, 2002). This means it is not an effective way of aiding children develop bilingualism by ensuring mastery of a second language. Lastly, language is a significant aspect of a culture and thence ethnicity. As was discussed in the first part of this study, language and identity are tightly intertwined. This emanates from the symbolic value a language carries; it is not merely a means of communication but is a means of developing power and belonging (Chinen & Tucker, 2005). In this sense, language is a means of identifying certain people and thence plays a vital role in defining ethnicity. References Blanton, K.C. (2006). “The Rise of English-Only Pedagogy: Immigrant Children, Progressive Education, and Language Policy in the United States, 1900-1930.” New York: Teachers College Press. Chinen, K., & Tucker, G. (2005). Heritage Language Development: Understanding the Roles of Ethnic Identity and Saturday School Participation. Heritage Language Journal, 3(1), 27-59. Chik, C. A. (2010). Looking both ways: Structure, agency, and language ideology at a Chinese Saturday school. Guzetti, B. J. (2002). Literacy in America: An encyclopedia of history, theory, and practice. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. Park, C. C. (2007). Asian American education: Acculturation, literacy development, and learning. Charlotte, N.C: IAP. Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1981). Bilingualism or not: The education of minorities. Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters. Sung, H., & Padilla, A. M. (1998). Student Motivation, Parental Attitudes, and Involvement in the Learning of Asian Languages in Elementary and Secondary Schools. Modern Language Journal, 82(2), 205-216. Tse, L. (2001). "Why Don't They Learn English?" Separating Fact from Fallacy in the U.S. Language Debate. Language and Literacy Series. Wright, W. E. (2004). What English-Only Really Means: A Study of the Implementation of California Language Policy with Cambodian-American Students. International Journal Of Bilingual Education And Bilingualism, 7(1), 1-23 Read More