The Universal Second Language Requirement: An Inadequate Substitute for Bilingual Education (A Response to Aaron Wildavsky)

Abstract

In his Insights essay, Professor Wildavsky [1992] offers a solution to the fervent, ongoing debate between advocates for bilingual education and those who believe that English, as the language of the country, should be the sole language of instruction in public schools. His proposal of a universal second language requirement has a worthwhile goal: bilingualism for all students. However, by proposing this particular route toward the goal of universal bilingualism, he demonstrates a significant lack of knowledge about the most effective methods of second language acquisition for both English-speaking and minority-language children. Professor Wildavsky argues that universal second language instruction is a more equitable and less contentious policy than bilingual education. He favors a methodology of language teaching which has been firmly entrenched in the history of American education: language taught as a subject itself, meted out in class periods two or three times a week, characterized by drill and help at home (p. 312). However, there is little evidence that such methodology has been successful. Most high schools have attempted to teach languages in this way for decades, yet the evidence shows that the level of mastery attained is abysmal. Simon describes Americans as linguistically malnourished [1992, p. 5]. He offers considerable evidence that the United States lags far behind most other industrialized countries in the degree to which its citizens master second languages, and gives proof of the toll this has taken on our diplomatic relations, national security, and foreign trade. Most educated Americans can confirm this with personal experience. How many of us have suffered through high school French or German for three or four years, to emerge upon graduation with little more than the ability to carry on the most rudimentary of conversations? There is a further problem with the universal second language requirement. Professor Wildavsky proposes that schools may choose to teach a second language which has local relevance. That is, in a community with a large Spanish-speaking population, instruction in the Spanish language will be given to a class with both Spanishand English-dominant students. The assumption is that the Spanish-dominant students will have an academic advantage in this class, and that this will bolster their ethnic pride and selfesteem. In other classes, English-dominant students will have the advantage, creating a system of equity. However, the assumption of academic advantage on the part of Spanishor other minority-language speakers is unwarranted. As Kellogg [1988] points out, the majority of immigrants in the last two decades have come as a result of grave upheavals in their countries: war, political instability and oppression, economic crises, and severe unemployment. One result of these conditions is that for many immigrants, formal schooling in their homeland was limited or disrupted. Immigrant children