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Immersion is Working

Ricardo Munro
Tuesday, December 8, 1998

Greetings to all:

Good for Charles King of Denver, another credible Hispanicist like myself who knows a thing or two about how to teach a second language!

By the way in my daughter's kindergarten class there was one child who spoke no English at all in September (1998 not 1988!!!) She is no chattering away quite fluently and quickly catching up with all the other students. Her English accent is almost pure American. Small children do have a greater ability for mimicry and language learning than do adults. Any one who says anything else is obviously speaking nonsense. The way to teach Spanish is to teach Spanish. The way to teach English is by teaching English through immersion in a native-speaking environment as early as possible (preferably before the age of 13 or 14).

It wouldn't be so bad if bilingual programs actually were elite foreign language programs. Perhaps some are. But the sad reality is that few are. We simply should try to do something we aren't capable of. We can barely teach one or two languages- what are we doing trying to teach 100! (That is the reality of Native Language Instruction it's not just about Spanish, French and English!!!)

Richard "Ricardo" Munro
Arvin High School