What is your opinion on mandating bilingual education programs?No brainer. Spanish especially, since it is a very easy language to learn and highly useful in the Western Hemisphere.
I would go further have introduce a program in language skills where children from pre-K learn the basics of language by imitating the sounds of a variety of languages, especially those that are likely to be useful later in life.
And, yes, I am thinking in particular of Chinese, which is a difficult language to learn because meaning depends on tonal difference of the same syllable. This is relatively simple for young children to pick up and very difficult to master later in life. Obviously, Chinese is going to be increasingly important as this century progresses.
If a person learns a second language very young and also how to pronounce the sounds of different languages, language learning is relatively simple.
Lynch lists five reasons for this but there are many more. In fact, speaking more than one language even reduces one's chances of dementia.
AlterNet
5 Reasons Bilingual Education Should Be Mandatory from Kindergarten On Up
Matthew Lynch, Ed.D. | editor of The Edvocate, www.theedadvocate.org
