96 pages
ISBN-10: 0545005191
ISBN-13: 978-0545005197
List price: $16

English for the Children…What a clever name for a draconian organization championed by the republican industrialist Ron Unz in an effort to make English legally the only language that can be used in public schools. The name of the organization connotes compassion and beneficence, but such kindness and concern is hard to swallow when it comes from a self-professed opponent of bilingual education, Affirmative Action, and multicultural education.

But the deception doesn’t stop there. In 1998 in California, in 2000 in Arizona, and in 2002 in Massachusetts, Ron Unz and his organization successfully scapegoated and wiped out bilingual education in those states, replacing it with a one year Sheltered Immersion Program. English for the Children is currently working hard to do the same in other states around the country.

Under Unz's plan, linguistic-minority students only need one year (about one hundred and eighty school days) to become fully fluent, literate, and able to learn academic knowledge in another language. However, there is no defensible theory or body of research to support this claim. On the contrary, students by the millions in these three states continue to fall behind in both their acquisition of English and in the content areas. This is particularly disconcerting in the age of NCLB and high-stakes standardized assessment where students have to pass these exams in English in order to graduate.

James Crawford and Stephen Krashen’s new book takes on and ruptures the myths that are perpetuated about language acquisition and linguistic-minority communities in the United States. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the history of language education in the country, who this student body is, what type of programs and pedagogical approaches have been implemented to teach language, the research that exists in this area, the benefits of long-term multilingualism, and the criticisms of bilingual education. The book also does a fine job of examining language service requirements in public schools, evaluating language acquisition assessment instruments, reviewing public opinion on bilingual education, and exposing the politics of language and language policy in the U.S. In addition, it provides internet resources for those educators and activists interested in expanding their understanding of these important issues.

What Crawford and Krashen make perfectly clear is that contrary to Unz's claim that bilingual education has been "a disastrous experiment" that is backed by no research, there is an abundance of international studies that clearly shows how when properly implemented, including the native tongue as part of the language acquisition process is beneficial. The book is also helpful in understanding the counter-intuitive logic that quality education in the first language facilitates the growth of the target language—the basic principle on which bilingual education is built: if knowledge is comprehensible in the first language (e.g., the language of math), then it will be easier to understand in the second language. Thus, while students are learning English, educators should be encouraged, rather than discouraged, to use what they bring to the classroom in an additive and culturally responsive way to continue their academic development, and with it the growth of English.

The authors of English Learners in American Classrooms also highlight that bilingual education is not a monolithic entity and its success or failure as a theory depends entirely on the people and institutions that bring it to life. They emphasize that what educators, administrators, parents/care-givers, local organizations, businesses, and policy makers need to honestly address is that the majority of linguistic-minority students reside in low-income, urban areas that have schools that are highly segregated and in bad shape. Concerned citizens need to recognize and confront the harsh racist and material conditions—incessant harassment of children and English as a second language/bilingual teachers and staff, segregated school activities, limited classroom materials, teacher attitudes that belittle students, weak teacher professional development, poorly designed and unenforced policies, and indifferent leadership—that dramatically disrupt the academic lives of these students. Instead of discarding the potential of programs like bilingual education, the authors point out that this country needs to discover what ensures that such undertakings don't succeed.

The bottom line is that everyone wants English to be learned by children and adults. The real question is: What's the most effective, efficient, culturally responsive and humanizing way to go about this task. To answer such a complex question the nation should rely on sound experience, theory, and research. James Crawford is the president of the Institute for Language and Education Policy, is a former Washington editor of Education Week, is a well-known language policy historian, and is the author of countless books on this issue. Stephen Krashen has a Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA and taught in the Linguistics and Education Departments at USC for almost three decades. He is widely known for developing a comprehensive theory of second language acquisition, for being the co-founder of the Natural Approach that has been implemented in public and private schools throughout the U.S., and for being the pioneer of sheltered subject matter teaching—in addition to having researched these issues and published a great deal in scholarly journals and with academic presses. As such English Learners in American Classrooms is a far more informed place to start to educate oneself about language acquisition policies and practices in the United States than listening to a savvy politician—a monolingual, multimillionaire with no children, and with no background in education or linguistics—who is strategically vying for misinformed populous clout through theoretical ambiguities, a disregard for research, and representational manipulations of what's best for children.

Suggested Reading and Resources:

Institute for Language and Education Policy: Research-Based Advocacy for Schools and Communities, www.elladvocates.org/index.html

Rethinking School Online, Bilingual Education Resources, www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bilingual/resources.shtml

U.S. English Inc.: Towards a United America, www.us-english.org/