Monday, September 7, 2009

Are you a nitwitted monolingual boor with overweight kids?

[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com/]

The question is mine. The quote is from an Op Ed piece by Lisa Degliantoni on Newspaper Tree (http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/4215-degliantoni-your-parents-not-telemundo-will-make-you-multilingual). In a very personal and opinionated way, which makes for entertaining reading, Lisa states her case that everybody in the U.S. should embrace bilingualism. She jumps on monolinguals who think that neither they nor their children should bother to learn another language, and she compares them to parents who never teach their children that apples and exercise are good and junk food and sitting on the couch all day are bad.

Lisa outlines her own linguistic and cultural heritage involving her maternal grandparents who immigrated from France. Although Lisa's grandmother spoke French at work, home and in her social life, and barely spoke English, she taught very little French to Lisa's mother. Lisa's mother, in turn, did not teach French to Lisa. Lisa says, "[B]y the time my generation came around we knew no French and embraced the culture in only three ways; we celebrated Bastille Day, drank red wine and went to annual parties at the Alliance Francais."

Lisa now finds herself in El Paso and surrounded by people who take speaking two languages fluently as a natural occurrence. It is a natural occurrence for them because they grew up speaking two languages as part of the environment in which they lived. Lisa says that she is trying to rectify her monolingual heritage by studying Spanish at a community college in El Paso. I wish her luck.

One of the most important tasks that I am trying to accomplish at Southern Nazarene University is to be a part of the cure for the monolingualism that infects our campus and campus culture. I say part of the cure because a lot of other people are making great strides forward. The intensive English programs for foreign students help those who want to study at SNU and need to develop the English skills required for university-level study. From my perspective, it is just as important that the intensive English programs make possible a multilingual presence on campus, a presence that challenges English-speaking students to open up to a large part of the non-English-speaking world. The International Studies Program (ISP) attracts foreign students who come to SNU to study and who also make a multilingual and multicultural impact on campus. The ISP also attracts U.S students who want to be part of the global community and are willing to make the commitment to develop the business, history, political science and language & culture skills they need to compete and contribute in that community. I'm also very excited about Dr. Don Dunnington's new role in promoting global engagement by all SNU students. Great things are going to happen as part of that initiative.

We haven't found the cure for SNU's monolingualism, but we're making progress, and its fun to be part of the cure.

JUST SAY "NO" TO MONOLINGUALISM. LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE.