Immigrant students must learn English

By Olivia G. Martinez

Over the past four years, the number of immigrant students whose first language is not English have entered our schools in dramatic numbers. We must make sure that all our efforts are focused on the acquisition of English language skills to give these students the opportunity to successfully compete in an English-language based economy.

As they go through school, most immigrant students are placed in bilingual classes or ESL classes where ironically they spend the majority of time conversing in their native language. So anxious have we been to make such students feel welcomed, their culture and their language valued, that we systematically disconnected these English languge learners from the broader school community. We did this by relegating them to "special classes" where they move as a group with students just like themselves, inadvertently decreasing exposure to students whose first languge is English.

We need to make sure that every single day, every immigrant student is exposed to systematic, culmulative English language skills, so that they can access the broad, enriching comprehensive courses alongside English speaking students.

Of course many of these students do need native language support, but this should be temporary, until the student can transition into all English classes. I have never met an immigrant parent who didn't want their children to learn and master English.

I was an early and strong supporter of Bilingual Education. I have seen how it works and I know it is the most efficient teaching method for YOUNG students to be successful in school. However, in our area, there are very few programs that are truly bilingual or set up the way they should be for students to experience success (especially after the passage of proposition 227 in 1999). Therefore, I am a strong advocate of English learning in the high schools, where we only have four years to get the job done.