WTFH – The English Only Education Debate!

The English only education debate
The English only education debate

The English Only Education Debate!

Today, every American public school is integrated with more and more students that do not speak English.

I believe that schools should teach our children how to speak other languages; but I also believe that students need to enter our schools able to speak and understand English. Why? Because Americans speak English. Students that do not speak English should learn English in Pre-School or Day Care before they enter Primary and Secondary schools.

There should be special classes or schools for English learners in communities where the number of non-English speaking students make up more than 3% of class. I speak of this in concern of the teacher and the classroom that suffers when the teaching time is consumed with helping a non-English student understand what’s going on in the classroom. Students where English is a second language requires too much attention and lots more resources to learn English than student’s whose primary language entering school is English.

Therefore, the English only education debate is sensitive, controversial, and political because of the debate held about classroom size, English Only, and the cost to manage both.

Is this a problem for our teachers? Have we taken on more than we can educate? How does this impact our schools? Our communities? Our workforce? How much does this cost American tax-payers?

Should our schools take in non-English speaking students and teach them to speak English? Or, should we teach English to any child that do not speak English at the time they register to attend our schools; even if the non-English student enrolls at the 10th grade?

Note: nothing on this debate is about whether our schools should teach another language; it is clearly whether our schools should teach a non-English student how to speak English and should that child be integrated in a majority English speaking class before he or she is fully able to speak and understand English; The English only education debate.