“English Only” cramps English learning for kids

Especially kids from non-English cultures. 

Mr Eschleman’s "simple biases" in the Big Horn County News almost always have insightful credibility, based on evidence. And his “join the melting pot” is welcoming in a way to all us immigrants­–or our immigrant grandparents.  But wait, he missed a crucial evidence step: the value of other languages in learning English well. Every child deserves the benefit and right to be learning at least two languages by age 6.  Almost every other nation’s parents now relish the educational foundation built by two languages early in life–something we’re improving on in Big Horn County as well with new immersion programs.

In the two years I lived in China, all kindergartens nationwide there were required to have English along with Chinese. This reversed a Chinese Communist edict where only the one dominant language was allowed in schools. I cannot forget visiting a tiny stone hut in western Sichuan guided by an old Buddhist monk. It was a school, looking like a child’s play temple. He showed me chinks in the mortar where children had hid their Tibetan language lessons from the Communist Red Guards 50 years ago. The current emphasis on two languages immersed in Kindergarten ended that bias for all children in China. He had been their secret teacher, and early advocate for two languages.

For the evidence missing in Mr. Eshchleman’s “Simply Biased,” look up “two language learning” studies and any of these authors: Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, Comeau, Mendelson, Genesee, Bialystok, Martin, Mechelli, McBride-Chang, Luk, Snow, Kang, Whitehurst, Lonigan. Also check out the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.