At Blue Mass, Bob has some fun at the expense of the HubPolitics writer who mangles a bit of the English language himself in his statement, ”We can thank the overwhelmingly liberal legislature for the poor fluency amongst the non-native English speaking students, after all, it was the Democrats on Beacon Hill who gave the axe to the voter approve English immersion program.”
Fair enough, but I’m wondering about the deeper point. Has it occurred to anyone how the sides have completely flipflopped on this? Not too long ago, the national GOP was exercised that our children couldn’t read because liberal educators were too enamored with touchy-feely whole-language approaches, which was ineffective compared to the give-them-rules approach of phonics. Only now, we’re supposed to think that immersion - which is, after all, nothing but a whole language approach to language instruction - is the only way and that rule based instruction in a language students can understand is all wrong. Yes, I know there is another layer of issues when you’re talking about speaking and writing a foreign language than when instructing one in writing the language a person already speaks. But there’s a double standard at play nonetheless, and the political vindictiveness - which is merely expressing a punitive desire to assert social control over non-English speaking immigrants - is getting in the way of a clear conception of what should be a pedagogical issue.
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