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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Reply to "Translating in Class?"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] Definitely agree, my great great grandparents came here from Europe not knowing any English. You know what they did? They made an effort and went to english speaking classes at the local church. They went to the library. What they didn’t do was demand that every document and company put out bilingual translations. This is beyond ridiculous and will turn this county into an extension of Mexico and South America. [/quote] I don't know about your great-great-grandparents personally, of course. But in general, it's a myth that everybody used to come here and learn English. See, for example, this abstract: [i]One myth about language and immigration in North America is that nineteenth-century immigrants typically became bilingual almost immediately after arriving, yet little systematic data has been presented for this view. We present quantitative and qualitative evidence about Germans in Wisconsin, where, into the twentieth century, many immigrants and their descendants remained monolingual, decades after immigration had ceased. Even those who claimed to speak English often had limited command. Quantitative data from the 1910 Census, augmented by qualitative evidence from newspapers, court records, literary texts, and other sources, suggest that Germans of various socioeconomic backgrounds often lacked English language skills. German continued to be the primary language in numerous Wisconsin communities, and some second- and third-generation descendants of immigrants were still monolingual as adults. Understanding this history can help inform contemporary debates about language and immigration and help dismantle the myth that successful immigrant groups of yesterday owed their prosperity to an immediate, voluntary shift to English.[/i] You can read the full paper by going here : https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article/83/3/259/5820/GOOD-Old-Immigrants-of-Yesteryear-Who-Didn-t-Learn and then clicking on the pdf icon. It's also a myth that people now come here and don't learn English. See here, for example, for Spanish-speakers: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/03/24/a-majority-of-english-speaking-hispanics-in-the-u-s-are-bilingual/ and here for a summary for immigrants from Asian countries: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/ [/quote]
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