Learning It
Nowadays it’s a truism that speaking multiple languages is an asset. Affluent parents in New York City go to great pains to ensure that their toddlers learn a language other than English. In New York City public schools dual language programs are popular but seats in such classes are scarce. Our project tracks what it means to grow up learning a foreign language in New York City.
Language teaching centers for toddlers have taken over the city. But even as America’s melting pot incorporates more immigrants and languages, even as the world becomes smaller, some say the dominance of English as the language of business and commerce has only become more pronounced, making bilingualism less necessary.
Dual language programs don’t teach memorization of nouns, verbs and tenses. Instead, students learn language by studying science, math and other subjects, helping transform monolingual English and Spanish speakers into bilingual, biliterate and bicultural students. The only problem is there aren’t enough of them.
