I have decided to come out of hiding and say my 2 cents — bilingualism is not a mistake.
We ask why our citizens don’t seem to be able to handle both languages well – lapsing into some form of bastardized English AND Mandarin. Is it a policy failure? Evidently not – see, National Education in the form of Social Studies taught us that countries like Switzerland exist, and in these countries the common people on th street speaks anything from 2-4 languages pretty well. So is it a policy failure? Doesn’t seem that way.
Let’s consider this – if six years of primary school education where the second language is learnt like a foreign language (at best), and if students still fail to pick it up and wield it skilfully, it speaks either of teaching methods or language aptitude.
I’d go with language aptitude. From age 6 to 12, that’s the critcial period. If a child can’t learn a second language despite formal education of at least 4 hours a week, then I’d say perhaps there’s no need to force feed him/her anymore – clearly s/he has no flare for languages. So perhaps policy-wise we should just relinquish the insane control streak and leave them to be. Oh by the way, I maintain the same belief – if a child can’t handle a 2nd language, what makes you think s/he can handle a third?
Without bilingualism we are infinitely less cool, less unique and less at the forefront. In my view, bilingualism itself is not a mistake. The language-ethnicity link is.
