With millions of English language learners in schools across the United States, there is a lot of pressure placed upon them to gain competencies in acquiring English speaking abilities. This pressure can often lead to students losing their primary language or feeling as though their cultural identities are repressed or not welcomed within the classroom. Both the government and educators are tasked with finding a solution to enabling students to effectively learn English without sacrificing their identities. 

When Gibel Cushing moved to the United States from the Philippines, she was placed into a classroom that promoted the learning of English by restricting the use of her native language, Tagalog, while in school. This eventually led her to lose the ability to communicate in Tagalog. Since then, she has battled with feeling isolated from her roots as she struggles to speak with her own family. Millions of students in the United States grow up similar to Cushing, speaking a language in their homes that is not English and having to learn a new language in the classroom. These students tend to be classified as English Language Learners (ELL) when they begin attending school. For many students in the United States, schools and educators that do not seek to make their ELL students feel comfortable in their wide variety of identities while learning a new language can cause them to feel as though their native languages and cultures are not appreciated due to an “English only” mentality. Considering the cultural diversity of the United States, it is important to acknowledge and seek to incorporate programs that integrate native languages more into the learning environments of students so students like Cushing do not have to gain a new language at the expense of another. 

Although language immersion is crucial for the learning of a new tongue, some English language learners are led to believe by those in their school environment and through pressures within the home that this immersion is impossible without the suppression of their primary language and occasionally, cultural homogenization. One former ELL student,  Jenny Liao, grew up during the nineties in a Chinese household, and has lost her ability to speak her native language of Cantonese. Upon reflection, she noted how the different social and academic pressures she faced led her to this fate. While not the official language of the United States, English is the most commonly spoken language within the nation. This unique composition of language diversity within the nation gives schools the critical task of guiding students to gain proficiency in communicating in English so that they have the capacities to be prepared for success within the classroom and the outside world, cementing the strong social pressures that students can face at school and at home to learn English. Liao emphasized how she succumbed to these pressures of learning English and entered into a complete immersion of the new language without “fully considering the strain it places on our relationships for the rest of our lives.” When she eventually lost her ability to communicate in her native language, Cantonese, it contributed to a sense of a loss of identity. Liao went so far as to ask herself, “can I call myself Chinese if I barely speak the language?” The idea that the best way to learn a new language is through solely communicating in that language is contrary to research that suggests that utilizing other languages is highly beneficial for students as it promotes their cultural identities and creates a more inclusive and comfortable environment for students to learn additional languages. Had Liao been in an academic environment that supported her language background better, she probably would not find herself feeling sadness over not being able to communicate with her own parents.

A key benefit of supporting the use of students' primary languages in the classroom is that they actually are highly effective in generating a strong English proficiency in the long term. For years, the ideology in the United States has been that the students’ native languages should not enter the classrooms and that a purely English speaking environment is most conducive to learning the language. Research has shown that in comparison to students who are not given quality instruction on their native language, students with this form of education are able to master English more adeptly. For this reason, Gibel Cushing, who is now an educator, makes an effort to make it known to her students that their primary languages are welcome in the classroom so that they can feel comfortable learning a new one and valued by those in their community. While some school programs may be limited to provide multilingual education for ELL students in the classroom, it is important to, at the very least, abandon the idea of an “English only” mentality for the education of English learners. Overall, the inclusion of students’ native languages in the classroom to aid English learning is of critical importance for a student’s sense of belonging in their school and to their ability to learn another language. 

Ultimately, there are many benefits to creating a language inclusive education for English Language Learners, and it is a plausible goal. Many states have already installed legislation to support changes in the current system. This includes some that have already abandoned legislation prohibiting the use of languages besides English in the classroom, while others, such as Hawaii and Montana, have created bilingual programs for their public schools to support their students’ language needs. It is important to note however, that some schools that are in states with bilingual language programs do not provide their ELL students with the resources they are supposed to, and many schools and educators find themselves unable to provide students with an adequate education due to limits in qualified teachers and limited budgets. These obstacles are why it is of key importance to advocate for policy changes that will be able to give schools and educators the resources to support their ELLs’ needs to prepare them for their futures so that students such as Gibel Cushing and Jenny Liao will succeed in their language learning goals and have pride in their primary languages.