Samuel Mathis

16 June 2010

Absorption or Expulsion:

Overcoming the Language Barriers of Immigrant Cultures

            As I began this assignment, I initially desired to examine the educational practices used by countries to help immigrants assimilate into their country.  We have read Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson,” and I wanted to know I there were any government funded classes for adults as well as primary and secondary level students.  However, as I continued my research, I found something interesting and decided to follow this line of research instead.  My question changed from “what educational procedures are being done?” to “What is the importance of language and linguistic education for immigrants?”  This alteration brought with it some interesting findings especially regarding the teaching of languages and discouragement of immigrant languages in the Netherlands and Dutch society.  My research led me to seek out the details and ideologies surrounding teaching (or lack of) minority and immigrant languages to children from an immigrant culture and family. 

            Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw and Ana-Elisa Armstrong de Almeida from the University of Victoria, in Canada, claim that “many minority language communities are likely, within a generation, to have no young adult speakers of the heritage languages” and argue for a change in early childhood education facilities to adopt programs to help maintain immigrant and minority languages (311).  Their research shows that parents and educators are “open to exploring new approaches and often long for more direction and further resources to enable them to assis young children to maintain their home languages” (329).  Their desires are echoed in Nancy Hornberger’s assertion that “language policy and language education can serve as vehicles for promoting the vitality, versatility, and stability of these languages” in the every changing world of dominant cultures and need for a primary language of communication (439).  Hornberger bashes the US movement towards establishing a national language and argues for changes in the US government to promote immigrant language acquisition and maintenance (444).  These two authors have focused on the acceptance and possible change that can be made to encourage the use of minority and immigrant languages in their respective countries.

            In contrast to acceptance of all languages, the Netherlands have adopted a different approach to help integrate their immigrant population into the dominant populous more quickly and efficiently.  Dutch lawmakers and educators initially began their language programs intending to help immigrants maintain their primary language, but also to learn a language that would help them function in society.  However, as time has passed, these individuals “have increasingly begun to identify the use of a language other than Dutch at home as a major underlying barrier to educational success” (Extra and Yağmur 53).  With this view as the basis of their actions, the Netherlands have now enacted citizen education classes that teach immigrants and students the Dutch language while downplaying their native languages.  Unfortunately, this “crash course of 600 hours does not provide newcomers with enough linguistic competence to participate in the labour process,” and it leaves the responsibility to learn the language to the immigrants themselves (Glastra and Schedler 49).  While it is not a bad policy to allow immigrants to teach themselves, it does create economical issues when these newcomers are not hired because of their incompetence in the Dutch language.  Glastra and Schedler sum up the issue nicely as they state that “the validity of the new discourse that presents command of the Dutch language as the royal road to integration is questionable” (54).  There needs to be balance in expectations and educational policies regarding language and immigrant language cohabitation.

            Through my research, I found that many “solutions” to the issue of foreign languages in a country are usually extreme.  The Dutch began by first encouraging the teaching of immigrant languages to maintain culture, but then traveled to the opposite end of the spectrum by denying any other language but that of the national language.  Who can say if these policies are right or wrong, but one can judge their effectiveness and see that neither option created the results desired by the political authorities and powers of that nation.  This same issue faces the United States, and we must find a solution that will neither glorify nor ostracize the immigrant culture based on their language.  I found that adapting to the primary language of a society is very important to assimilating into the dominant society, but it does not mean that the native language of immigrants must be lost either.  Language is vital to communication and the propagation of a nation and its people; however, a dominant language should not become so important that it forces immigrants to give up part of what makes them unique. 

Works Cited

Extra, Guus, and Kutlay Yagmur. "Immigrant Minority Languages at Home and at School." European Education 38.2 (2006): 50-63. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 16 June 2010.

Pacini-Ketchabaw, Veronica, and Ana-Elisa Armstrong de Almeida. "Language Discourses and Ideologies at the Heart of Early Childhood Education." International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 9.3 (2006): 310-341. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 16 June 2010.

Hornberger, Nancy H. "Language Policy, Language Education, Language Rights: Indigenous, Immigrant, and International Perspectives." Language in Society 27.4 (1998): 439-458. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 16 June 2010.

Glastra, Folke J., and Petra E. Schedler. "The Language of Newcomers: Developments in Dutch Citizenship Education." Intercultural Education 15.1 (2004): 45-57. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 16 June 2010.