Congratulations, CVUSD!
Editor,
Congratulations to the Castro Valley Unified School District for instituting bilingual Spanish/English educational program at kindergarten level. Parents who enroll children who are native speakers one of those languages should receive praise, also. The present system of a fifty minute class once a day starting around eleven years of age does not produce very many fluent speakers. In fact, in my 86 years, I’ve never met one. What we have presently is way too little way too late. I’m always amazed at the number of fluent English speakers in Europe and Asia. They start their kids learning another language, usually English, in their countries’ equivalent of preschool or kindergarten.
This joke comes from Netherlands:
Q. What is person called who speaks three or more languages?
A. Multi-lingual.
Q. What is a person called who speaks two languages?
A. Bi-lingual.
Q. What is a person called who speaks just one language?
A. American.
–Bill Danenhower, Castro Valley
