SHOULD ENGLISH BECOME AMERICIA’S OFFICIAL LANGUAGE?
... corner stone of democratic government” (Hayakawa 563). Having more than one official language is an inefficient and more costly way of running a country. Many people like Maurice Ferre, former mayor of Miami, do not believe that it is necessary to have one official language. He says that ““Language is not necessary to the system. No where in our constitution does it say that English is our nations language”” (Hayakawa 563). He believes that Americans can function just as well with 2 official languages. Other countries such as India or Belgium function with up to ten languages. “While it is true that India functions with 10 official languages…most Indians will concede that the situation is a chaotic mess which has led to countless problems…in managing the nations business” (Hayakawa 564). Because of this English is often used as a common language. Running a bilingual government is very expensive. “The Canadian government has estimated its Bilingual costs to be nearly 400,000,000 per year” (Hayakawa 564). If there were a similar bilingual program in America it would cost billions. Bilingual education is necessary in trying to create an official language in America. We must greatly encourage children of all ages to learn the language of the country they live in. Being able to communicate will give these children endless opportunities. However in some bilingual programs students are taught all subjects in their native language, and English is taught as a separate class. This allows children to get bye without actually learning English. Some parents do not see anything wrong with this, however others who realize that the purpose of this program is to get children functioning in an English world are alarmed. Not having an official language allows these children to get through school with out learning English. “Under the dominant method of bilingual education and used throughout this country, non-English speaking students are taught all academic subjects such as math, science, and history in there native language” (Hayakawa 565). Allowing children to go through school without learning English is giving them a great disadvantage. It is much like taking a baseball team and telling them they have to play in the NBA. Then telling them that they are going to practice eight hours a day. Seven hours of the day they will practice baseball and one hour they will practice basketball. When it comes time to compete against another basketball team they will lose because they have been playing the wrong sport. These children are eventually going to be entering an English-speaking world. The school perhaps maintained there native language but it failed to help them learn English. Some people like Lorudes Rovira fear that if English is the official language and taught in all the schools students will forget their native language and become monolingual. Having one official language will unite us together but will not stop us from learning, or knowing other languages. Bilingual education is not just for immigrant students. As Lorudes Rovira...