LOS ANGELES TIMES

Monday, August 31, 1998

COMMENTARY

TV Can Help or Hinder in Learning English

Language: Children miss a chance to learn when all that's on the tube are Spanish-language programs.

By RITA COLORITO

Anyone who channel surfs through the hundreds of stations on television and cable today is bound to come across a dozen Spanish-language stations, at least. Spanish-language channels serve the growing number of Latino American citizens in the United States by providing them with news and entertainment they can understand.

However, by watching predominantly Spanish-language TV, the Latino community is isolating itself, and particularly its children, from the English-speaking community.

Consequently, first generation American children brought up in Spanish-speaking-only households are at a disadvantage when they enter grade school. They speak Spanish fluently but have what educators call "limited English proficiency," which makes it difficult for them to excel or even get by in the American educational system.

In fact, some 58% of children who are limited English proficient are born in the United States, according to Jorge Amselle of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative research organization that is opposed to bilingual education. And the number continues to rise. In California, one out of five children is designated as limited English proficient. About 80% of these children are Latino.

In this country, there are detrimental results to not learning English. Studies show that Latinos are the most undereducated major segment of the U.S. population. And the drop out rate for Latino children has increased from 34% to 40%. Although lack of English skills cannot entirely account for these statistics, it is certainly one of the factors.

Although no studies have attempted to address the issue yet, it makes intuitive sense that the proliferation of Spanish-language television viewing by these children has had a negative impact on their ability to learn English. Many researchers agree that much of what children learn, at an early age, is through television.

I grew up in a primarily Italian-speaking household in the city of Somerville just outside of Boston, where many other children were reared in bilingual households. However, I wasn't at a linguistic disadvantage. Neither were my grade-school classmates, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Kenny Emmanuelle, who grew up in households where only Portuguese and Creole, respectively, were spoken. We weren't at a disadvantage because we didn't have television and radio programs in our parents' native tongue. We learned our ABCs and 123s in English from watching educational programs like "Sesame Street" and "Romper Room." We were able to function in dual cultures because we learned the English basics, as well as our ancestral language.

These days, children who grow up in Latino households are exposed to only about 45 minutes of English per day, according to Amselle. With more than 100 Spanish-language television and radio stations around the country, Latino children may be exposed to even less English in the future. Telemundo Television Network, the second largest Spanish television network in the United States, recently announced that it was stepping up efforts to capture the young adult and children's audience.

Nowadays, you can even buy television sets that convert English-language channels into Spanish.

Although bilingual education programs offer an alternative to children who lack basic English skills, the programs--to the extent that they exist at all--are far from perfect. In any case, English is still the primary language through which academics are taught in the U.S. Children who don't know English will only suffer the consequences.

Latinos, like many other non-English-speaking minority groups, tend to live in communities where their native language is almost exclusively spoken. By living in these self-contained communities, they are able to maintain their cultural heritage and their linguistic background.

Although this is important, Latino parents also have indicated in surveys--for example, in one done by the Center for Equal Opportunity of 600 parents--that they want their children to learn English as soon as possible.

In the Latino household, parents who monitor the language in which their child watches television could have a significant impact on how much English they learn and ultimately how well they do in school.

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Rita Colorito Is a Research Associate for a Washington-based Communications Firm