Catherine McCrary: Teaching a Second Language to the Young

Voicing the opposite of my opinion this week is Catherine McCrary, one of my fellow journalism and mass communication majors.

I first discovered Catherine's opinion on this week's topic (English only vs. Bilingualism) when she and I were preparing for a radio interview for a class project. I had actually wanted to try this topic several weeks ago (before I knew Catherine's stance on the issue), so naturally, I was really excited when she brought the topic up. This nice little coincidence meant that I didn't have to go around asking people if they had the opinion "op-me" about adding a "second" language here in the U.S.

I put second in quotations, because as I talked about in my last post, the U.S. doesn't even have an official "first" language, even though most people speak English.

Anyway, so during my interview with Catherine, she really emphasized that it's important for children to learn other languages from a young age. Why? "Because children have an amazing aptitude for learning language at a young age," she said. And right now in America, the logical choice of a second language for children to learn would be Spanish (in case you haven't noticed). When I asked her whether children in America should be required to study Spanish all through school, she quickly and adamantly replied, "Absolutely!"

She stated that children in other parts of the world are required to learn English in school, not just because English is a global commerce language, but also because immersing a child in another language at an early age has been proven to increase IQ or standardized test scores. Catherine gave an example from Canada, where children were immersed in French for the first 3 years of school. When they entered the 4th grade, the Canadian children were finally taught in English, and by that time they were fluent in both languages, had an appreciation for French-Canadian culture, and had higher IQs.

This fascinating article expounds on the example that Catherine gave.

So how does language make a person "smarter" per se?

Week 4: America—English only vs. Bilingualism

In a nation that is the "melting-pot" of every other nation, the standard has always been to stick with one language. And since the United States' primary roots are from England, that language has always been English. However, in recent years, the mass influx of Hispanic-speaking people to the U.S. has caused some to rethink the whole "monolingual" policy and wonder if making Spanish our "second-language" would perhaps be very beneficial to American society as a whole.

My stance is that we didn't make any exceptions in the past, so why now? Come to America. Learn our language.

Now I am definitely not a culture-hater. I love the Spanish language, and I'm studying it now! But this week's topic isn't about my opinion, obviously. If you want to know more about where I stand, the article, "English Spoken Here," by Kathleen Parker sums it up well.

This week I will focus on the benefits of making the United States a bilingual nation—specifically by adding Spanish as our second language.