Issue Position: The Importance of Learning English

Issue Position

Issue Position: The Importance of Learning English

I believe English should be the national language of the United States in order to unite us as people and ensure the children of immigrants do not grow up as a permanent underclass. English is the common language of our founding fathers and the language that unites a people who sprang from many different parts of the world. The English language defines our national character and makes us Americans.

I firmly believe that all primary education in the United States should be in English and that native language educational programs hurt the very children they seek to help. All educational programs in which primary instruction is given in any language other than English should be de-funded. These programs only ensure that children and students become functional only in their native languages without learning to function in English in the business and educational worlds. Failure to immerse in the language of the host country only ensures that children grow up as a permanent underclass. It is a philological fact that anyone can learn a new language at any point in their lives if they are immersed in that language. However, if they are not immersed before the age of 12 or 13, they will always speak the new language with an accent. This hurts the individual in gaining higher paying jobs and positions. All children in the United States should receive all primary instruction in English from day one. - Instead of wasting money on educating children in their native language, why not spend that money to teach their parents the necessary vocabulary and concepts they need to assist their children with their studies?

I am living proof of what I am advocating. I have a functional fluency in German. -- I speak it well enough to have met and courted my wife in German. However, all of my education is in English. Although I have a university degree and am very well read in English, I only read at the 2nd grade level in German and I speak it with a very heavy accent. If I were applying for a supervisory position in Germany, I would not be able to compete with much younger, inexperienced, high school educated native speakers for that position because of my poor reading and writing skills in German. - My lack of education and heavy accent in German imposes an automatic glass ceiling on me in the German Market place. The same thing happens to immigrants and the children of immigrants to the United States who do not learn to speak English as native speakers. I do not want to see this happen to multiple generations of immigrant decedents.

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