The U.S. has always been a linguistically diverse nation, but the overall climate usually discourages and sometimes outright discriminates against the use of non-English languages. In addition, we generally don’t do a great job of teaching languages to monolingual English-speakers even though we know that speaking more than one language has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum. Bilingual children as young as seven months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline. explores several myths about languages in the U.S. and presents arguments and strategies to promote multilingualism among our population
This Friday at 4pm Dr. Kim Potowski, Professor of Spanish linguistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago will give a talk entitled “No Child Left Monolingual.” She’ll explores several myths about languages in the U.S. and present strategies to promote multilingualism among our population. The lecture will take place at Rhodes College and is co-sponsored by the departments of world and modern languages at the University of Memphis and Rhodes College as well as the Marcus Orr Center for the Humanities at the U of M.
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