Respnonse to Matt's Prompt 2

The class that I am tutoring in is representative of the statistics in which Matt states in connection to the students in his classroom. The amount of bilingual students is my class is slightly less, but I agree that the fact that these students are already learning two languages gives them a great advantage in acquiring a job in the future. Multiluingists are needed in almost every aspect of business, commerce, travel, education and management and can be the deciding factor over other applicants in the search for a job.


Matt also refers to the fact that people view American as lazy and incompetent. I can verify this statement with direct facts that I acquired when I visited a few countries in Europe. The first day I arrived, my wife and I visited a bar while we were waiting for our hotel room to be ready. We sat down at the bar and the bartender great ed us with a hello. She obviously new we were Americans, but as we watched her she greeted two other customers in Dutch and then in French. She was very fluent in three languages. We started a conversation with her and found out that she also knew some German. In Europe the countries are small and close so the people who speed different language frequently visit each others country, so the ability to pick up more than one language is almost a must.

Matt's response to prompt #2 can also be related to the article "Teaching English Language Learners" by Claude Goldenberg. By teaching the students in Matt's classroom to use their primary language as scaffolding in order to build their proficiency in standard English is one of the main points in Goldenberg's article. Goldenberg also states the many benefits to those who acquire proficiency in more than one language.