David Rosen and others,

I will challenge some of your assumptions.

I offer language learning online to people all over the world.  I do not
consider it important to encourage our learners to vote, nor to understand
their political rights. I do not  think it would be different in an ESL
class in the US. If a learner is interested in politics, by all means make
political texts available or encourage the learner to find such texts and
learn from them. In my experience, political content is not of great
interest, whereas ordinary authentic conversations between people, with
transcript, are very popular. So are radio programs. Some people like
literature and some like self-help articles. So the answer to your various
rhetorical questions about what I might be opposed to is the following.
Language learners should be encouraged to learn the language from subjects
that interest them.

The classroom is not a very effective place to learn languages. This is true
in our school system, and it is true for immigrants. What immigrants do
outside the classroom is more important to their language learning. In
Canada studies have shown that immigrants who settle outside the major
centres, and therefore do not have access to as much ESL instruction, learn
English faster. The key is the motivation of the immigrant and his or her
willingness, need or opportunity, to engage with the mainstream culture.
That was true of me as a foreigner living  in various countries as well.

Here in Vancouver, there are long waiting lists for the most well
established immigrant ESL programs. Immigrants who go to these schools
mostly only use English in the artificial environment of their class. The
rest of their life is in their native language. That is really not an
effective way to learn languages. Maybe it is time for people to reassess
assumptions about the usefulness of these programs. I know from my own
learning experience, watching people around me, and our online program, that
regardless of the nature of the learning program, only a motivated and
independent learner will actually succeed in transforming him or herself
into a comfortable speaker of another language.

If we are talking about citizens' awareness of where tax-money is spent, it
is not obvious to me that the average tax-payer feels that it is his
obligation to pay for immigrant language learning, especially given the poor
results. I think we should put the emphasis on teaching ESL learners how to
learn on their own, their own responsibility for their own learning, plus a
lot of encouragement, rather than putting them in classrooms in the hope
that they will achieve a breakthrough there.

Steve




-- 
Steve Kaufmann
www.lingq.com
1-604-922-8514
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