Languages are the basic tools for communication and without knowledge of languages aside of one’s own, a person may have a hard time communicating and understanding other people. Better communication with a wider scope of people and cultures is one of the main reasons why language learning is widespread and why more people are engaged with it.

There are many immigrant parents in the United States who are going out of their comfort zones and are learning English – the main language of the United States. One of those parents who came from another country who are learning English is Yolanda Nicasio. She has many reasons for learning English but her best reason and motivation is her children. Yolanda wants to become fluent in English so that she will be able to help her children with homework, for setting doctor’s appointments, and for better communication whenever they go to a store. She has been taking English classes at Jackson Elementary School in Utah for almost a month.

Voices for Utah Children, a non-profit advocacy group supports the immigrant families in Utah by helping them integrate into their new homes and the new culture around them. Offering immigrant families more opportunities to learn English helps them to better support their families.

Terry Haven, the Kids Count Director at Voices for Utah Children said that there’ a lot of misconception about the immigrant community. The reality with most immigrant families in the US is that they are look a lot like the locals and in some ways, have stronger families. However, statistics show that Utah children who live in immigrant families are less likely to have parents who graduated from high school and more than twice a likely to live in poverty as children who are born to non-immigrant parents.

The key that might help immigrants to reverse some of the statistics is the learning of the English language. Children of immigrant parents who speak English are not much more likely to live in poverty than children born into non-immigrant families. The statistical report also recommends that more opportunities to learn English be made available to immigrant parents.

Senior research economist at the University of Utah, Pam Perlich, has agreed that teaching immigrants and their children the English language to better not only their personal welfare but also to the state and the country’s being. Perlich also said that it can be more difficult for many Utah immigrants who come from East Asia and Africa to learn English compared to those who arrived generations before from European countries with languages that are similar to English.

Sarah Little, the coordinator of the English Skills Learning Center parent program attended by Yolanda Nicasio and almost one hundred sixty-five adults said that parents mainly say that they want to learn English to help their children.

One of the volunteer English teachers at the center, Eileen Meiners, said that one of the English learners, a Somali woman even refused a translator when it came time for her parent-teacher conferences at her child’s school. She wanted to communicate by herself in the English language. The Somali woman is so proud of herself and the center is so proud of her.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am and is filed under Language News, Languages and Society, Young Learners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.