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Biographical information
Ofelia García has had a distinguished academic career committed to the practice of teaching and the education of teachers in urban communities, especially of bilingual teachers. Presently she is Professor of bilingual education at Teachers College, Columbia University in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies. She is also co-director of the Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies. Prior to joining Teachers College, she was Dean of the School of Education in the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University where with a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, she founded the Center for Urban Educators in September 2000. García is co-editor of Spanish in Context and editor of Educators for Urban Minorities. From 1981 to 1997, she was professor of education at The City College of New York. Among her books are--The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City,co-edited with distinguished sociolinguist Joshua Fishman,(Mouton, 2nd edition 2001), Policy and Practice in Bilingual Education: Extending the Foundations (Multilingual Matters, 1995); English Across Cultures: Cultures Across English, A Reader in Cross-Cultural Communication (Mouton, 1989); U.S.Spanish: The Language of Latinos (Mouton, 1989). In addition, she has published more than 50 academic articles in the areas of bilingualism, sociology of language, U.S. Spanish, the education of language minorities and bilingual education. She has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de la República, Montevideo (1996) and a Spencer Fellow of the National Academy of Education (1985-88). She is also a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and is on the advisory board of Second Language Instruction/Acquisition Abstracts.
Abstract
The
Americas in the 21st century have been characterized
by their growing multilingualism and above all by the
Spanish/ English bilingualism of the Spanish speakers
who come and go and bring and take. This sociolinguistic
situation of today bears little resemblance to the Americas
of the 20th century about which Sarmiento said "In the
north, English is spoken, and in the south Spanish is
spoken." This paper outlines the sociolinguistic situation
of the Americas from the 20th century to the present
day and emphasizes the different linguistic policies.
We will analyze in some detail the current situation
where the speed and efficacy of the systems of communication
and transportation have generated the possibility of
not only linking the Anglo-Saxon America with the Iberian
America, but also cities with rural areas, the mountains
and coasts, the Southern Cone and the Caribbean, the
Pacific and the Atlantic, the South-West of the United
States with the North-West. In spite of the increased
links and convergence, the different sociolinguistic
positions in the US Anglo-Saxon world and the different
Latin American nations have different effects on the
geostrategies that are used today to face the growing
multilingualism. We will compare then, the Anglo-Saxon
linguistic ecosystem with that of Latin America, pointing
out the different philosophical orientations, reactions,
and raisons d'être. We will conclude by paying particular
attention to the educational context, a crucial medium
for the bilingualism of a people. We will share the
lessons learnt in the years of bilingual education in
the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
But above all, we will concentrate of the need for Latin
American countries to walk down their own path in relation
to bilingual and multilingual education, taking into
account their economic, social and human possibilities.
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