Should Immigrants Learn English

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Recommended: The impact of cultural assimilation

Many disadvantages come from not knowing how to speak another language. Because America does not see foreign language classes as core subjects, there is not much emphasis on them. This means that students do not try as much because the classes are not graded as harshly. Only 7% of college students are enrolled in a language course (Friedman 1). In Europe, many countries require their students to study one if not two languages before they are a teen (Delvin 1). This should be the United States so that the country can be more inclusive to the immigrants who live here, however, many people believe that immigrants should learn English. Miscommunications can occur in international business because people do not know the other language well enough. This causes …show more content…

This is why students should begin studying more languages early on. Adults who are monolinguals think that it is impossible for them to learn another language, so they do not try. It is also more challenging to learn new subjects as an adult. (Nelson 1). “Language immersion is a method of teaching language, usually a second language, in which the target language is used as both curriculum content and media of instruction” (Successful Bilingual and Immersion…). There are three types of approaches to teach another language. They are transitional bilingual education, immersion, and English, or a different language, as a second one (Harlan 78). The one that works best is immersion. There are four broad models for immersive bilingual education. Three of them are additive, meaning they try to make the students bilingual. Enrichment education tries to extend the minority language into the community. The minority language is the one that is not spoken as much, like Spanish here in America. The heritage model attempts to bring back an indigenous language. Maintenance uses a student’s first language as a base for the second. There are three main types of immersion:

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