So much for the RW meme: "*They* don't want to learn English."

[mcscajun]

February 27, 2007
Demand for English Lessons Outstrips Supply
By FERNANDA SANTOS

-snip-

As immigrants increasingly settle away from large urban centers — New York’s suburbs have had a net gain of 225,000 since 2000, compared with 44,000 in the city — many are waiting months or even years to get into government-financed English classes, which are often overcrowded and lack textbooks.

A survey last year by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials found that in 12 states, 60 percent of the free English programs had waiting lists, ranging from a few months in Colorado and Nevada to as long as two years in New Mexico and Massachusetts, where the statewide list has about 16,000 names.

The United States Department of Education counted 1.2 million adults enrolled in public English programs in 2005 — about 1 in 10 of the 10.3 million foreign-born residents 16 and older who speak English “less than very well,” or not at all, according to census figures from the same year. Federal money for such classes is matched at varying rates from state to state, leaving an uneven patchwork of programs that advocates say nowhere meets the need.

-snip-

Last fall, Arizona voters approved an initiative banning illegal immigrants from benefiting from all state-financed programs, including English instruction; administrators of English-as-a-second-language classes in several other states said they do not check for documentation when registering students and thus do not know how many of them may be in the country illegally.

[louis-t]

1. RW response will be (predictably)

"Why should we PAY to teach them English? Blah, blah, blah, bootstraps, blah, blah..."

[mcscajun]

6. True. Heavy on the "bootstraps".

"Nobody ever gave me a handout." Blah, blah, blah...BS.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. You know, if you emigrate to Israel, the first thing that happens after you

arrive is six weeks of intensive Hebrew classes at government expense. From what I hear, it's not enough to make you perfectly proficient, but it's enough to get by on.

But that would cost money...

[mcscajun]

7. Yes, the population being so much smaller than our, our outlay

would be enormous.

[Phredicles]

3. The Mrs. teaches ESL; whoever "they" are who don't want to learn English,

she sure hasn't met them.

[mcscajun]

8. I wouldn't think so; I'd say she keeps very, very busy, indeed.

:)

[sakabatou]

4. Isn't english one of the hardest languages to learn?

I hear that alot from people who were not born here.

[mcscajun]

5. It is one of the hardest, because so much of our vocabulary is

taken from nearly every other language. Homonyms/homophones are the bane of the ESL student (and of plenty of American schoolchildren!), and a favorite subject of comedians.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. The difficulty of a language depends on how close it is to your native language

Japanese is hard for English speakers, but easy for Korean speakers.

Arabic is hard for English speakers, but easy for Hebrew speakers.

Russian is hard for English speakers, but easy for Polish speakers.

Hindi is hard for English speakers, but easy for Bengali speakers.

The reverse is true as well. People who speak Western European languages, especially Dutch, the Scandinavian languages, and German, find it easier to learn English than Japanese, Arabs, Russians, and South Asians do.