Is "Bilingual education" Racist?

Actually it is our language. English folk don't call it english, they say we speak American, or at least that's what I was told by my worldly teacher that acted like a hippie. *shrug* go figure.

 

Actually it is our language.

Incorrect.

English folk don't call it english, they say we speak American,

Your "worldly" teacher must have been smoking something. I'm English. We speak English. We know you speak English.

You speak "American English," which is not the same as "English." It is like a regional dialect of English; it has its own set of colloquialisms, accents and syntaxes, but it's the same language - English.

- Scarlet.

 

Okay, so we stole it. But at least we recognize the good things in the world! English, pizza . . . I rest my case.

 

Hey, you forgot chinese take-out.

 

Yes, that's right.

 

I don't see why the immigrants don't have to learn english yet the english speaking people, who's country they're naturally from, have to speak their language. Doesn't that seem.....kinda arse-backwards to you?

 

Yes, it does. Eloquently put.

 

Thank you. Oh I just love how our instruction manuals in this country show just how bad this bilingual system is. It kinda pisses me off. I'm in the middle of reading the instructions and then it'll switch over to spanish. I mean WTH?

 

Being decendants of English colonists, English is certainly not "borrowed". Unless you're saying the English borrowed English. Sure, we have perverted it into its own dialect and various accents, but we weren't speaking French and suddendly decided to speak English

 

I wonder how our ancestors spoke. Probably grunts.

 

Canada has two official languages: English and French.

English is my first language, but I was enrolled in French immersion for the first 9 years of my schooling, and continued to take classes after that.

I think bilingual education is fantastic- knowing French from a young age opened many doors for me, and had very few real drawbacks.

Actually, the only real drawback was when I quit French immersion for high school, I had to do a little catching up in math class, because the names of all the operations were different. That's it.

But having a strong base in a 2nd language provided me the opportunity to learn more. In addition to French, I've now studied German, Spanish, Latin, and Japanese. Of these, I can still read Spanish, and speak and read some Japanese.

I'm incredibly happy that my parents enrolled me in bilingual schools, and if I have children, I will do the same for them.