While the move to make English the official language in the United States grows throughout the U. S., some academics regret that it is the first one in America. “Multiculturalism and multilingualism are becoming the new default,” Nancy Bou Ayash of the University of Louisville said at the 2013 meeting of the Modern Language Association (MLA) in Boston.
She recommends “A translingual approach” and regrets the “dominance of monolingualism.”
“U. S. monolingualism remains the statutory law but not the cultural norm,” she avers. The pair of students who offered anonymous reviews of her pedagogy on Rate My Professors.com might have been happy to communicate with her in any language:
“Her ways of teaching are truly bizarre,” one wrote. “First of all, we had class in a room with computers? So no one paid attention to anything she said. The essays are your grade, she takes forever to grade them. She needs to revamp her teaching style. Don’t take her.”
“Not too bad,” the other claimed. “Not exactly the best teacher. I also took her English 102 class and it was structured almost exactly the same. 4 or 5 papers are your entire grade, but she grades ridiculously and can’t exactly explain why you got the grade you got. Personally, I’m not a bad writer and I never got better than a B on any paper. B/C is easy to get.”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
