No Child Left Monolingual: Kim Potowski at TEDxUofIChicago

Kim Potowski is Associate Professor of Spanish linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she directs the Spanish heritage language program. She earned her Ph.D. in Spanish linguistics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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Hi everybody. thanks for coming um so Danny when I
have a Lithuanian connection

I remember being about 14 years old and
sitting in my grandmother's

kitchen-table she and my grandfather
were both fluent

in Lithuanian and English because their
parents had immigrated from Vilnius

to New York and I remember asking her
why they didn't speak in Lithuanian

to my father and his brothers and she
said you just didn't do that

in the 1950s in Brooklyn you're supposed
to speak only English

and assimilate and I remember thinking

thats that's a shame it would be pretty
cool if I spoke Lithuanian

right now and had learned in my family
now the fact is that 65 percent of the

world today

is bilingual or multi-lingual that's
over half of the planet

who speaks more than one language now we
have improved since the fifties in the

United States as far as our

appreciation for linguistic diversity
but we still have a long way to go

the fact is that we're a nation that
neither

encourages immigrants to maintain their heritage language

nor do we learn non-enlglish languages

very well.

Let's take a look at the census

It asks people whether they speak a non-english language

in the home.

and if you're from a large city like Chicago or LA or NY

You might predict, it's gotta be 40 percent, 50 percent

60 percent of people must speak a non-english language

in the home. Now in those large cities

that is the case but overall in the nation only 20percent of people

speak a language other than English in the home

Now this isn't an entirely accurate measure

of our nation's multilingualism because you may very well

speak a non-English language but not speak

it in the home. But on the whole,

we are a nation that both exibits and promotes

monolingualism in English. and I think a lot of this

due to at least two myths.

The myth that multiligualism is damaging to society and

the myth that multilingualism is damaging to individuals

Let's debunk the first one. A study done in the early 90s

examined a number of different factors in 170 countries

and they found that linguistic diversity is not a predictor

of civil strife, nor of gross national product. Civil

strife tends to come from power imbalances

and there can certainly be power imbalances between people

who speak different languages but language is not the

root cause of that problem. Now some people are surprised

learn that the US doesn't have an official language

but I think it's quite obvious that you need

English to be successful in many different level of society.

here in this country

No one knows that better than immigrants who don't speak English

and yet some people have this idea that today's immigrants

aren't learning English and this another myth. If we take

another look at speaking another language other than English in the home

It also asks people how well they speak English.

Overall 75 percent of people who speak another language in the home

report that they speak English well or very well and if you break it down

by language group, here are our top 10 non-English languages spoken

in the United States.

when you break it down by language, you see that it ranges from about

70 percent all the way up to 95 percent who say that

they speak English well. Now this is remarkable when you think

about how difficult it is to learn a language when you're an adult.

In particular when you work 8 to 10 to 12 to 16 hours a day.

when you have child care issues, when you have transportation issues

or if you simply can't afford English as a second language classes.

Now another way to examine the English language learning of immigrant

families is to examine the heritage language shift of immigrant families

and the pattern typically goes like this: You have the adults who

happened

immigrate, monolingual in their home language. Some

Some of them learn English, some of them not as well as they might liked

Their children, like my grandmother, who is raised in the US

typically are bilingual but their English tends to be stronger because

they're schooled here and they live here. Now their children

there's a gamut of what can happen with their children. Some

of them do develop a proficiency in the heritage language. Some are

receptive bilinguals. They can understand it but they can't speak it.

Some of them have zero proficiency in the heritage language. So you have

a fairly sad case in which grandparents can't communicate
with their grandchildren.

This has been happening since the 19th century. It
happened to the Italians, happened to the

Germans, happened to the Polls, happened to
Lithuanians and it's happening today as well

In fact, we see it happening even more quickly in some cases today.

We see a one generation language shift, in which the immigrants
come monolingual in their language

They're struggling to learn English and their children
who are under tremendous pressure

to abandon their heritage language dont acquire it at all.

and as a parent myself I can't imagine how devastating it would be to not be
able to communicate to your own children

So immigrant families absolutely are learning English and
shifting more quickly than in the past.

As as one of my colleagues once wrote "shift happens"

Another point we can examine this the degree to which immigrants
are culturating to the United States.

to the culture and the language is
we look at this example

We've all heard about immigration from Mexico

We know that between 2005 and 2012 there was about
1.4 million Mexican nationals who came

to the US but there was also 1.4 million who went back to Mexico

I've been working a project interviewing these young people
as they're trying to integrate into Mexican schools

They're having a very difficult time of it. Their Spanish isn't strong
enough for them to be academically successful.

Their classmates make fun of them for not having the requisite
cultural knowledge that everybody knows.

Their own family members call them gringos
Now, this is new for Mexico.

They've been traditionally an immigrant sending nation
Now they're becoming an immigrant receiving nation.

With all the linguistic diversity that that entails and their
teachers are needing to find ways to work with these young people

Another example is Italy, Italy also historically was a strong
immigrant sending nation and now they're finding themselves

receiving immigrants. This is a picture of me in a classroom in
northern Italy. This classroom is filled with children from

any practical assistance to anybody
who's trying to learn

Albania, Northern Africa and Latin America.

In this particular classroom every week they have to learn a phrase
from some other kids' languages.

This is just an effort to promote linguistic appreciation
I also visited another school in a heavily

Ecuadorian neighborhood and they had an afterschool program
that taught Spanish so that these kids could retain

their home language. It was a fantastic program.

So I think there's plenty of evidence that immigrants
are learning English but we can certainly

do more to help. A study in 2006 looked at 12 different states that
offered free ELS classes

and what they found was 60 percent of them had waiting lists.
Of either several months to several years.

now couldn't we perhaps allocate some federal funding. We
all know how important learning English is.

Couldn't we do better at providing free ELS classes
to immigrants.

Some people have proposed that maybe legislation is
the answer. Let's legislate and make English

the official language. Make this an English
only country but the truth is legislation

does nothing to provide any practical
assistance to anybody who's trying

to learn a language and besides do we really want
to become an English only nation

or an official English nation. Wouldn't it be better
an English plus nation. Wouldn't it be better

to promote the heritage language maintenance
of immigrants throughout the generations

wouldn't that do well for us internationally
as far as communication, global commerce

We enjoy higher levels of diplomacy which would
then lead to greater national security.

So moving on to this myth #2 that multilingualism
is somehow damaging to individuals it's

actually the opposite. Educators and Scientists are
consistently coming up with new ways that

bilingualism is advantageous. Now I'm going to share
with you an educational example.

When a kid shows up to a school here in United States
and doesn't know English, we have several

programs options for them. One program option is all English.
You go in the mainstream classroom

with all the other kids and if you're lucky
you receive some type of English as a 2nd

language support classroom. Another type of program
we have is called "bilingual-education" and I

use my airquotes because the true goal of most
bilingual education programs is not bilingualism

The true goal is mainstreaming those kids into
the all English classroom as quickly as

possible.

and I'm using Spanish as my example here
these classrooms typically use about 25 percent

Spanish but only as a crutch again the kids can
do well in the other classroom and they do it

for on average about 3 years.

A 3rd program type is called two-way immersion and
these are fascinating. They are programs

in which 80-90percent of the school day is in Spanish
and when the kids get a little older it moves to

50/50. Another thing that's fascinating about these programs
half the kids are children who need to learn

English, but the other half already know English.
Their parents chose to put them in this program

so that they could learn Spanish.
Now when you take a look at these 3 programs

types you might predict that the one that's
going to result in the highest levels of

English language learning. It's going to be this one
right? Because that's where the most

English is used but actually the results show us
something different

This study was done in California but it's been
replicated all over the nation.

They looked at a group of 11th graders who had been
in all 3 different program-types

and they looked at their English reading and
here's what they found.

The kids who had received the most instruction in
Spanish far out performed their peers

both in the bilingual education 75 percent
Spanish and the English only

with 100 percent English

This is completely counter intuitive
What we're saying is that the more

quality instruction you receive in your heritage
language the better you're going to do

in English.

By the way, they also do better in Math and in their
other subject areas.

Now part of the reason for this, is because
when a child is immersed in a language

they don't understand, every single year
they fall further and further behind

their peers in their content area.
If they understand what's going on

Then they can keep up in the content
while they're learning the

language.

Now you might be wondering what about
those English-speaking kids?

Does their English suffer
when they spend anywhere from 50-90 percent

of the day in Spanish. You can probably guess
the answer is no.

Their English doesn't suffer they do just
as well as their peers in English

only programs and they also
in some cases found to score higher

in math and other subject areas
but okay it's true their English

doesn't suffer but what's awesome
about these programs is

what these kids get that their peers
don't is fluency in Spanish

at no cost to their English.

Let me show you an example,
this young man, his name

is Julian. His family is monolingual
English and his parents

decided they'd like for him to learn
Spanish. So they put him in

5 years old kindergarten
taught entirely in Spanish

He's in 2nd grade now and he can
read grade level text in Spanish

He can talk to you about what he does
in Spanish

and he also reads Harry Potter
in English.

Another kid in Julian's classroom
is Joaquin.

Joaquin in the grandchilden of
immigrants from Mexico

His family is almost entirely
all English-speaking

When the gradparents
come by more Spanish is used

but if Joaquin were to be attending
a regular all English program

He would not have the high levels
of Spanish fluency

and literacy that he does now
because he's in a dual-immersion

program.

By the way these programs are
free, there's ten of them here

in the city of Chicago.

There's about 400 hundred across
the nation, these are free

public schools. We need far more of them.

Now another way that this myth
manifests itself that bilingualism

is somehow damaging to
individuals is through the

advice of well-meaning
people some of whom

are professionals really should
know better. Who will tell

parents you should not be
speaking your heritage language

to the kids.
Part of the reason is

they're probably concerned that
the kids won't learn English

well enough or fast enough
but the truth is we have absolutely

no evidence that abandoning
the home language

accelerates English-language learning
absolutely no evidence of that

Another reason they might give this
advice to parents is they're afraid that

the kids with become confused
now this contradicts what 65 percent

of the planet has been doing for hundreds
and hundreds of years, children are not

confused when they receive input
in two or more languages

our brains are wired to be bilingual
even children who have learning

difficulties become bilingual everyday
the world over.

I think some people misdiagnose
as confusion a very very common

practice among bilinguals which is
called codeswitching that's a

fancy word for when you switch
back and forth between two languages

sometimes you do right in the middle of
the sentence.

Now, far from being a lazy behavior
or some type of confused behavior

Linguists know that this is absolutely
rule governed behavior

you can't switch willy nilly at any point
in the sentence that you want

we also know that codeswitching requires
very strong levels of syntax

in order to not violate the
structures of either language

as you're going through back
and forth so it requires

high degrees of bilingualism to do
this and we also know

that codeswitching index is
bilingual identity it's a way

of saying I have two languages
I have two cultures

So i always tell my students here
at USC for those of you who

say you speak Spanglish or
arabish or Chinglish

You should be very very proud
of the strong levels of bilingualism

that that indicates.

Now let's shift gears for a moment
to parents who only speak English

and they really want their kids
to learn another language okay

These are parents who want to cure
their families monolingualism

In this country, unfortunately we typically
wait until high school which is about the age

of 14 to start teaching foreign
languages, this is way too late.

What the cognitive research shows is that
significant language learning before

approximately age of 8-10
uses different parts of the brain

Some people have termed this organic memory
So what you're developing is an

organic bilingual when you start younger.

Scientist are also discovering that
bilinguals seem to have cognitive advantages

in certain kinds of problem solving
skills, bilinguals are faster at them

They've also discovered recently that the
onset of dementia is delayed

by an average of about 10 years
in bilingual brains.

So bilingualism on the individual level
reaps all kinds of benefits

so if we were to start in kindergarden
with a rigorous demanding content-based

program and other languages
like what two-way immersion does

we would be a nation of
organic bilinguals

This is would be fantastic, it
would also be fantastic for our

for our heritage speaking children
of immigrants, what do we do

with them. They show up to school
if they're not fortunate enough

to be in a two-way immersion program
it's English English English

until they turn 14 and we say
now you can study another language

What if we took all those years
instead and worked on developing

their oral fluency and their literacy
in their heritage language

Now some heritage families bring
their children to Saturday schools

Anybody here a product of Saturday schools?

I've worked with on Saturday school programs
here in Chicago with Spanish

Polish and Lithuanian.

and when you interview these folks
they'll often confess I hated being

dragged to Saturday school
I really would've rather stayed home

watch cartoons, hangout with my friends

They will sometimes also confess
that they resented that their parents

insisted that they speak the heritage language

but you know what?
As adults , every single one of them

says how grateful they are
They say how grateful they are that

their parents instilled in them
this organic bilingualism

So to conclude, what concrete steps
can we take to move ourselves toward

becoming a nation in which no
child is left monolingual

Well if you knew a non-English language
start speaking it to the kids in your family

or own kids, your nieces your nephews
You may think that your language ability

isn't strong enough but it probably is

at least to contribute some basic syntax
and basic vocabulary

enlist the help of other people who speak the language
you we have Skype now

It's free, you can Skype, have your kids Skype
with people in other countries

and develop their language abilities
It is also critically important to read

to the children in their heritage language
you can start a book club or go to

the library and have a reading group

that way you take turns volunteering
to read to the kids

There's also a lot of media available
You know you buy a movie and on

the back look and see if it has the soundtrack
in another language you can also bribe

your kids that way. You can tell them I'll
give you 10 minutes if you watch in English

I'll give you 20 if you watch in Ukrainian

and by the way they brain doesn't care
what language it is, it doesn't matter how

many speakers around the world speak it
it's all good for this organic bilingualism

which may in fact lead that individual
to better language learning later on in life

they can add a 3rd or fourth language
You can demand a 2-way immersion program

like Jaoquin's parents did.
Now if you're monolingual in English

the best thing you can do is go out
and meet a bilingual and marry them

but if that doesn't work you still have
options, there's lots of books that can

help you through it, get a class
get a tutor, some people can afford

a nanny who can provide input
to the child and a language

There's also media, there's also 2-way
immersion. There's a lot of things you can do

So in conclusion bilingualism is
absolutely an advantage both to

individuals and to societies
and we can become a nation that

is English plus in which the majority
of us are proudly bilingual

Thank you very much.