With the ongoing clash between cultures in today's society, I find that communication plays a big role. Many times, when someone gets frustrated with a non-English speaker you may hear certain phrases such as, "This is America, speak English!" or "Go back to your country!" If I were to hear a phrase like one of those a few years ago I would not have paid much attention to it. However, if I were to hear it now I would laugh. It is a fact that there is NO official language in the United States. Therefore, if I were a non-English speaker and someone tried to hit me where it hurt with a phrase like "Speak English!" I would tell them, "This is America, speak Arabic!"
When looking closely at countries throughout the world, it is clear that close to all of them have an official language. In France it is French, in Spain it is Spanish, in China it is Mandarin and in Egypt it is Arabic. Why then is the United States different? Although English is surely the most commonly spoken language in the country, its historical roots play a role in the reason why it is not declared THE official language. Research explains that many anti-American activists consider English to be the language of oppression rather than of democracy. The activists began this claim after the War in Vietnam and made sure that any attempt at passing a bill declaring English the official language was brought down.
Alongside English are other commonly spoken languages such as Spanish, Chinese, French and Arabic. Most people I know can not speak more than two languages. Many times, what they know of their second language is what they learned in school. This saddens me because in a country where everyone shares different cultures and backgrounds our sense of unity could be greatly strengthened if we took the time to learn more languages. This way we could communicate and interact with more groups of people. Either that or any type of diversity this country contains will slowly vanish and we really will be just like one another; With nothing to give and nothing to gain. For that reason, learning foreign languages does more good than one may think. Learning the language of other cultures may in turn save cultures from fading away and dying out.In order for my students to understand just how many languages are spoken in the United States I would use YouTube. I would let them listen to the plethora of different languages spoken in the country so they understand that while they live in a predominantly English speaking country, the very same people who surround them may have a different native tongue. I have used YouTube for similar research in the past and it always helped me.
Do you guys think YouTube is appropriate?
This is a great point and can be an important topic to discuss with students in the classroom! This would create a great discussion topic where students can exercise democratic and critical thinking skills. Based on this blog post alone many questions can already be formulated for a class discussion. Such as:
ReplyDeleteDo you think there is an official language of the U.S,?
Should there be an official language?
Is it fair though to say that english is the language of oppression? Why is it considered the language of oppression?
How can a language be oppressive or democratic? What does this mean?
What does it mean to be an American?
What defines who is an American?
Bringing this topic to students attention will help to incorporate the topic of diversity into the classroom and biases that exist.