One Key to Success: Learning a Second Language

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday in this space I mentioned a small, rural Missouri school where several years ago the principal briefly tried to make his fiefdom a one-language institution by issuing an edict that only English could be spoken at the school, even among students on the playground, although half of the student body spoke Spanish at home.  Community pressure brought about the end of that policy - almost immediately.  

The school was a K-8, one of five within the school district, all of which fed into one high school.  But this particular K-8 was unique in that it's primary economic engine was a large poultry processing plant which drew in many Hispanic families from out-of-state to work beneath constantly running lines of cold, dripping chickens.   (As a young adult I had worked in that same "chicken plant" for several months and knew firsthand the soul-wrenching drudgery that it involved.)

While living and working on the Japanese island of Okinawa a few years earlier, I had watched in amazement as little Okinawan and American children played together in my neighborhood, and they jabbered freely among themselves in an ever-evolving combination of both of their native languages.  They picked it up so easily.

I had also taken multiple Spanish courses while in college and found the language very difficult for me to master.  It occurred to me, and research bears this out, that learning a second language is easier for young children than it is for adults.  The younger a child is, the easier it is for him or her to absorb and acquire a second language.

So when the problem arose with language issues at the rural school in Missouri, I wondered why there wasn't some effort being made to formally teach Spanish to at least some the English-speaking students.  They would have many children around with whom to practicing their new language skills, and in the process, the Hispanic children would undoubtedly learn more English.

One day, after I had left the field of education, I encountered one of the local school board members in a social setting, and I asked her if the Board would be open to such a radical idea.    She told me that it had been discussed among members and that some of the board was ferociously opposed to the notion teaching Spanish in the schools.  They would rather eradicate the foreign language than do anything to promote it.

And that is a sad reflection of the provincial mindset in rural America, or at least in the Ozarks.  There is a desire to keep the culture, and by extension the language, pure and free of any outside influences

But here is the catch.  Children who grow up in a setting like that, with one major employer, will witness both groups of young adults, English and Spanish, feeding into the workforce at that plant.   Who will get the quick promotions to line-foremen and supervisors, where the better pay is at?  It will be those young people who are bi-lingual and have the ability to converse freely with anyone who happens to be working on their line, and because of deeply-held community prejudices, those supervisory personnel will be Hispanics, the ones who had to learn two languages while growing up.

The school was, in fact, preparing many of their children who grew up in English-speaking households to be second-class citizens in the local economy because they had been denied the opportunity to acquire a second language as elementary school students.

The world of today is international, and leaders recognize the need for diversity in cultural awareness and understanding.   A knowledge of languages expands horizons and opens many doors.