How many ESL speakers are there in the US?

[Torsten]

How many people in the US do you think speak English as a second language? I mean, there are quite a lot of first generation immigrants, students, specialists and other workers from abroad living in the US and they are all learning English. The US is probably the single biggest ESL market because the people living there have a real interest in learning English. At least, that's how I see it. What is your take on this?

Regards,
Torsten
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[Jamie (K)]

According to the 2000 US census, 25.5 million people in the US speak a language other than English at home, so about 8.3 percent of the US population.

[Torsten]

Hi Jamie,

Where do you think is the ESL market in the US going? I mean, how many of those 25 million Americans have an interest in learning English as a second language? I figure, it's pretty easy to live in the US without a decent command of the English language? For example, if you live in a Spanish neighborhood where everyone around you speaks Spanish why should you learn English? If you don't have to go to school, you can probably can get by with a few basic English phrases? But what if your kids are born in the US and they go to school where they are exposed to English all day? After a few years their English becomes much better than their Spanish you have a hard time communicating with them. At least that's what I see with a many Russian born Germans here in Germany. I know a lot of the 30+ olds and their kids don't speak good Russian while their parents don't speak good German. The situation in the US is probably more complex?
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[Jamie (K)]

Who does and doesn't learn English in the US is the same in every community. My scenario is this: The first wave of people in some ethnic group are energetic risk takers, and they plunge into US life, including English. After those people have become established, they bring over family members who may or may not be motivated to assimilate, and other more timid people arrive, and they may not learn English very well. Learning English means leaving their comfort zone, and they just don't feel like doing it.

If you look at individual families, the dynamic is a bit more complex. I can tell you of one Iraqi family I know: The brothers-in-law were the first to arrive, back in the 1980s. They were very motivated to learn English, for all the usual reasons, like getting a good job, interacting with customers, meeting girls in their free time, etc. Then they bring wives over, and the wives feel similarly motivated to learn English (although not to pick up men ). After that, the parents come over. Dad is almost 80 years old, loves America, and he dives right into English and is almost always cramming English when you go to their apartment. Mom does not want to learn English, because she is illiterate even in her own language, but later she figures out that without English she won't be able to communicate with her grandchildren someday, so she starts going to school.

I suppose someone can get by in certain neighborhoods without English, but the problem is that neighborhoods are not big, and so you can't have much of a life without English. You're pretty much limited to menial jobs with rotten salaries and no chance of advancement. That's not how most people want to live. And even if a person somehow succeeds in building some kind of career in his neighborhood despite poor English, his lack of English eventually stops him as his responsibilities expand.

In my work, if a young person has been here for two or three years and speaks almost no English, that person is from Poland. I had never met a Hispanic who didn't speak English until a week ago, and she's stuck in a rotten neighborhood, in a rotten job, with rotten pay. As long as she resists learning English, she'll stay where she is. I guess that in California and Texas there are lots of Hispanics who never learn English, but in my area it's mostly Poles who don't bother.

There seems to be some correlation between how much people hate the country they came from and how fast they learn English. In my classes, Christians from Iraq generally hated their country, and when they get here they learn English quickly. I'm told that Albania is a miserable place to live also, and younger Albanians seem to speak almost perfect English within a year after they get here. (They may not write well, however.) I have also not met an Albanian adult -- not even a very elderly one -- who has not learned English to the best of his or her ability.

Some Muslims from the Middle East never learn English well because they are bigoted against Christians and don't want to interact with them. Once in a while one of these people will come to my classroom, tell me his English is stalled, and ask me how he can improve it. I'll tell him that the only way to do that is to interact with Americans -- read American newspapers and magazines, watch some American TV or movies, maybe volunteer somewhere outside their neighborhood. They can volunteer at a hospital, or building houses for the poor, or in many other places where they will have to speak to Americans. Some of them take this advice well, and some get angry at the suggestion that they need to become part of the mainstream society. On the other hand, you get Muslims who live in a regular American neighborhood, and they learn as well as anyone else.

There's probably a difference between the US and Germany in this sense: If someone learns English and participates in American society, they will be considered American, even if they speak with a foreign accent. If they take US citizenship, they're 100% American. In Germany, a foreigner can learn German, participate as much as he can in German society, take German citizenship, but on the street, if he has that foreign accent, he's never considered German. If he's black, or East Asian, or Indian, even his children or grandchildren might not be considered German by ordinary Germans walking down the street. I think this results in a motivational difference when it comes to language learning in the two countries.

[Englishuser]

Hi Jamie,

You wrote:

[Jamie (K)]

Englishuser, don't start this again!

[Englishuser]

Hi Jamie,

Start what again? You made it quite clear that it is possible to be an American with a foreign accent. When you say "foreign accent" I suppose you are referring to non-native accents. Where does that put British foreign accents such as RP?

EU

[Torsten]

Hi Englishuser,

I'm quite sure that there a number of British nationals who have double citizenship -- British and US so yes I think it is possible to be an American and speak with a British accent? Why would anyone bother?
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[Englishuser]

Hi Torsten,

I still suppose most Americans would consider such British-born people to be British - not American.

EU

[Torsten]

What difference does it make? I mean, there might be quite a few Americans with a thick German accent. If they live in the US and have US citizenship, they might be considered Americans who just happen to speak with a German accent. Provided they blend into the culture and society. At least that's what I think.
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[Englishuser]

Hi Torsten,

That is exactly the point Jamie was trying to make. My question had to do with native English speakers from outside the US. Do these people count as Americans with their "native yet foreign" accents?

EU

[Jamie (K)]

[Jamie (K)]

[Englishuser]

Hi,

Jamie wrote:

[Jamie (K)]