Thread: 'Mom, I'm a nino!': Georgia's first bilingual public school

ARTICLE LINK:
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledg ... 369572.htm

ARTICLE EXERPT:

'Mom, I'm a nino!': Georgia's first bilingual public school opens
GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
Associated Press

FOREST PARK, Ga. - On his first day of school, 5-year-old Al-Khafid Sharrieff Muhammad came home to tell his mom he didn't understand what anyone was saying in class. Just as she was second-guessing sending her child to Georgia's first dual language public school, he grinned and started rattling off all the Spanish words he learned.

"Do you know what a nino is? It's me," Rashida Muhammad recalled Al-Khafid as saying.

While the country is divided over the role of immigrants and the importance of a national language, some English- and Spanish-speaking parents in this Atlanta suburb are bypassing the debate by sending their children to Georgia's first bilingual public school, where the goal is to have all students literate in both languages by fifth grade.

Their motivations are as diverse as the little kids excitedly chatting with one another in Unidos Dual Language Charter School's one-story building in a residential neighborhood near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

There are Hispanic immigrants who are worried their U.S.-born children will not know Spanish, and Americans who want to give their children a competitive edge, all spurring an increase in bilingual education across the country.

"I hope people start looking at a diversity of
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This will not work .
The kids will not speak any language properly .
The school should teach English with Spanish added as a second language .
It can be an intensive study , but this is impossible to have 50/50 bilingual school - still one of the languages will dominate and I am afraid it will be Spanish .
The more we confuse the kids with this bilingual staff , the more we will have to pay for it later on .
Also , the kids should have a choice - which language to study - this is unfair to other immigrants when only Spanish gets such a preferential treatment .

sorry. I am not even for your idea. No school should be forcing any lanugage on kids except for the English lanague.. the rest should be voluntary.

But this is what I am trying to point here .
English should always be the first language and it is up to the family to decide which second language to prefer .
this is impossibe to make a 50/50 bilingual school and Spanish should not be forced on a child as a second language .
There are many important and popular languages besides Spanish

Originally Posted by hope2006

This will not work .
The kids will not speak any language properly .
The school should teach English with Spanish added as a second language .
It can be an intensive study , but this is impossible to have 50/50 bilingual school - still one of the languages will dominate and I am afraid it will be Spanish .
The more we confuse the kids with this bilingual staff , the more we will have to pay for it later on .
Also , the kids should have a choice - which language to study - this is unfair to other immigrants when only Spanish gets such a preferential treatment .

I respectfully disagree. With all the complaining posts about how bilingual workers are preferred over those who only speak English. Many note how bilinguals (who are usually Mexican) even get paid more. How those who only speak English are losing their jobs why the dissent here? Today is not the time to discourage your children from learning Spanish, even, if only as a self-defense measure.

Kids pick up languages like sponges, and whatever language you speak in your home IS and will remain their primary language. They will not be "mixed up". If you look at small countries in Europe, the kids there may be fluent in four or five languages by primary school. Many Europeans speak better English than we do with a perfect accent.

Teaching your children Spanish is, in itself, not a horrible idea. Once another language is picked up, the third and fourth are much easier. Spanish is an excellent step towards Italian, and even French.
Personally, like the rest of you, I absolutely abhor the illegal alien agenda of our government, I am disgusted that Spanish speaking workers are hired over English speaking in way many cases. But I can't see how allowing or even encouraging your children to learn Spanish is harmful. You may need your children to translate something someday, or play sleuth. Their knowing fluent Spanish may even save your life.

If there was a class nearby for conversational Spanish for adults I would sign up. But I would keep my anti-invasion opinions to myself until I know who stands where.