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Children who count English as their mother tongue are now in the minority at more than 1,600 schools across England.
38 Answers
http://www.dailymail....0-school-Britain.html
How long will it be before the indigenous population of this country become the minority?
How long will it be before the indigenous population of this country become the minority?
Answers
The picture you paint is very rosy, Fred.
20:54 Fri 23rd Mar 2012
-- answer removed --
Well, aog, my daughter was the only child in her class at primary school who had English as the mother tongue. That was off Knightsbridge, behind Harrods. Shocking, eh? Every child, save ours, had foreign -born parents, and some had parents with two different mother tongues. And that's one reason why she was sent there, so she'd mix with children, and their parents, from other cultures and thought. All the other children rapidly learnt English, from scratch, complete with accent; all the girls sounded like mini-Sloanes ! Do you think that the equivalent doesn't happen elsewhere? If so, why? The evidence is all around; black and brown people who speak fluent scouse, or Glaswegian or Black Country or 'county' English ,outside the home, but a different language within it.
Do you think that children at 1,600 schools, or the descendants of the small percentage of non-native born Britons, will have the descendants of 60 plus million people speaking a language other than English? Or is it just a complaint about the scale of immigration, to which the link is of no particular evidential value ?
Terrible.People from abroad speaking foreign languages As Count Arthur Strong said to a Spanish restaurant 'Don't keep to speaking to me in a foreign language. I don't do it to you !'. Unlike him, our foreigners respect and speak the native tongue.
Do you think that children at 1,600 schools, or the descendants of the small percentage of non-native born Britons, will have the descendants of 60 plus million people speaking a language other than English? Or is it just a complaint about the scale of immigration, to which the link is of no particular evidential value ?
Terrible.People from abroad speaking foreign languages As Count Arthur Strong said to a Spanish restaurant 'Don't keep to speaking to me in a foreign language. I don't do it to you !'. Unlike him, our foreigners respect and speak the native tongue.
The picture you paint is very rosy, Fred.
Move a few miles across town to Tower Hamlets (where you will find almost every school has a sizeable majority of its pupils that speak a language other than English as their first tongue) and the picture is somewhat different. In those schools many of the pupils have little or no English and little or no likelihood of having a basic grasp of the language before they leave primary school. Their families speak little or no English at home and their classrooms each have up to five teaching assistants to help the children understand what is going on. “Doesn't matter a jot!” according to ummm. Possibly true in Tower Hamlets. Many schools there have very few English speaking pupils and the only difficulty faced is ensuring the various Bangladeshi dialects are integrated. Of course, if the children want to move on to a secondary school where such indulgence is not facilitated, that’s a different story.
However, move a few miles east to the boroughs of Newham and Barking and the problem is somewhat more serious. Here there are quite a few “indigenous” pupils (i.e. those whose first language is English). In their schools huge amounts of the schools’ scarce resources are devoted to interpretation and translation services for those pupils who do not speak English. In some there is “segregation by mother tongue” so the sort of idyllic integration you speak of which takes place behind Harrods is simply not feasible.
Does this really not matter as ummm suggests? I believe it certainly does. I have witnessed primary school education in some of these areas. The difficulties faced by the teachers (and their assistants) are formidable. The parents of children of foreign tongue in Knightsbridge that you mention, fred, may (like you) encourage their offspring to integrate with their classmates and language is obviously an important aspect of that. In East London the situation is different. Integration is not encouraged by many non-English parents and segregation breeds.
This is not about a few tourists refusing to learn how to order a beer or paella in the host nation’s language. It is about enabling all children to learn and equipping them for life which the majority of them will spend in the UK. Vast sums of money have to be spent combating this problem and that cash is diverted away from the proper education that all pupils deserve.
Move a few miles across town to Tower Hamlets (where you will find almost every school has a sizeable majority of its pupils that speak a language other than English as their first tongue) and the picture is somewhat different. In those schools many of the pupils have little or no English and little or no likelihood of having a basic grasp of the language before they leave primary school. Their families speak little or no English at home and their classrooms each have up to five teaching assistants to help the children understand what is going on. “Doesn't matter a jot!” according to ummm. Possibly true in Tower Hamlets. Many schools there have very few English speaking pupils and the only difficulty faced is ensuring the various Bangladeshi dialects are integrated. Of course, if the children want to move on to a secondary school where such indulgence is not facilitated, that’s a different story.
However, move a few miles east to the boroughs of Newham and Barking and the problem is somewhat more serious. Here there are quite a few “indigenous” pupils (i.e. those whose first language is English). In their schools huge amounts of the schools’ scarce resources are devoted to interpretation and translation services for those pupils who do not speak English. In some there is “segregation by mother tongue” so the sort of idyllic integration you speak of which takes place behind Harrods is simply not feasible.
Does this really not matter as ummm suggests? I believe it certainly does. I have witnessed primary school education in some of these areas. The difficulties faced by the teachers (and their assistants) are formidable. The parents of children of foreign tongue in Knightsbridge that you mention, fred, may (like you) encourage their offspring to integrate with their classmates and language is obviously an important aspect of that. In East London the situation is different. Integration is not encouraged by many non-English parents and segregation breeds.
This is not about a few tourists refusing to learn how to order a beer or paella in the host nation’s language. It is about enabling all children to learn and equipping them for life which the majority of them will spend in the UK. Vast sums of money have to be spent combating this problem and that cash is diverted away from the proper education that all pupils deserve.
NJ take that into every other facility, housing, citizens advice bureau, and other public offices and you will find all literature translated into endless languages, and if you can find one person who speaks English or what passes for it, in any of our local shops, bar the local supermarket you will be lucky.
Good points, NJ. How did the USA cope? Or were their problems less than those of schools in East London?
In the 1910s 2 miilion Italians immigratedthere,in 1861-5, 1 million Germans did ,between 1870 and 1930 25 million Europeans of all kinds did so, none with English as their mother tongue (just a few examples from Wikipedia 'History of immigration to the United States') The whole of the USA, apart from the early settlers, was founded on mass immigration, only the Irish being Anglophone.
Can we learn from the USA or do you think our problem, such as it is, is bigger, intractable and insoluble? If not, how is it to be resolved?
In the 1910s 2 miilion Italians immigratedthere,in 1861-5, 1 million Germans did ,between 1870 and 1930 25 million Europeans of all kinds did so, none with English as their mother tongue (just a few examples from Wikipedia 'History of immigration to the United States') The whole of the USA, apart from the early settlers, was founded on mass immigration, only the Irish being Anglophone.
Can we learn from the USA or do you think our problem, such as it is, is bigger, intractable and insoluble? If not, how is it to be resolved?
The point you make about the US is very valid, Fred. Many other nations have absorbed numbers of immigrants to a greater or lesser degree than the UK over the years. I have no experience of the US but I do have some knowledge of other countries where immigrant populations have been absorbed and there is one major and very significant difference between the way the issue is dealt with here and elsewhere.
In other countries where I have seen the matter addressed incomers are expected to integrate with the already settled population (and this includes the issue of language). No special arrangements are made for them, no accommodation is made for their lack of the native tongue, official documents are available only in the native tongue, government departments (and many commercial concerns) conduct business only in the native tongue. In Spain, for example, if you are arrested and brought before a court you will be expected to arrange for an interpreter and meet the cost yourself. Here interpreters are provided at enormous cost ostensibly to comply “the right to a fair trial” under the ECHR but Spain is bound by that some Convention and they seem to avoid providing such facilities without sanction.
I’ve no need to explain what happens here, but essentially integration is not actively encouraged. On the contrary, the pursuit of multiculturalism has meant that segregation is all but inevitable and a manifestation of this is children arriving at primary school with no grasp of English at all and leaving six years later with little improvement. A majority of them were born here (and in many cases of parents who were born here or who have lived here for many years).
There are tens of thousands of people here with little English and even less encouragement from the State to learn any. I’ve seen at first hand in East London schools the results of this policy and it’s truly shocking.
In other countries where I have seen the matter addressed incomers are expected to integrate with the already settled population (and this includes the issue of language). No special arrangements are made for them, no accommodation is made for their lack of the native tongue, official documents are available only in the native tongue, government departments (and many commercial concerns) conduct business only in the native tongue. In Spain, for example, if you are arrested and brought before a court you will be expected to arrange for an interpreter and meet the cost yourself. Here interpreters are provided at enormous cost ostensibly to comply “the right to a fair trial” under the ECHR but Spain is bound by that some Convention and they seem to avoid providing such facilities without sanction.
I’ve no need to explain what happens here, but essentially integration is not actively encouraged. On the contrary, the pursuit of multiculturalism has meant that segregation is all but inevitable and a manifestation of this is children arriving at primary school with no grasp of English at all and leaving six years later with little improvement. A majority of them were born here (and in many cases of parents who were born here or who have lived here for many years).
There are tens of thousands of people here with little English and even less encouragement from the State to learn any. I’ve seen at first hand in East London schools the results of this policy and it’s truly shocking.
I read an interesting article on immigration to the US. It seems people who want to live there are expected to become American, and to swear the Oath of Allegiance.
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
This is why immigrants there refer to themselves as American Italian, or American Chinese, and so on. Although they do not forget their roots, they acknowledge that because they have chosen to become an American citizen, they are first and foremost American, and that’s where their allegiance must lie. That doesn’t seem to happen here.
Incidentally, education in places like Tower Hamlets is a huge problem. I know several City workers who take part in a scheme to help immigrant children to integrate and to learn English by giving up lunch breaks to go to schools to sit with children on a one-to-one basis to help them with their language and with their reading.
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
This is why immigrants there refer to themselves as American Italian, or American Chinese, and so on. Although they do not forget their roots, they acknowledge that because they have chosen to become an American citizen, they are first and foremost American, and that’s where their allegiance must lie. That doesn’t seem to happen here.
Incidentally, education in places like Tower Hamlets is a huge problem. I know several City workers who take part in a scheme to help immigrant children to integrate and to learn English by giving up lunch breaks to go to schools to sit with children on a one-to-one basis to help them with their language and with their reading.
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