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            It was interesting to read about the different people that discussed how English was not popular where they were from. Many of them said that English was just a school subject and no one was really interested in learning how to speak English. I was surprised to read about these people considering how much we have talked about how there are so many English-only policies in schools nowadays. Although these stories are from quite a few years back, it is interesting to see how much has changed over time. They went from having English as a school subject to having English be the only language they can speak in a classroom. There are so many extremes now, especially in the United States that not many schools or teachers know how to have a nice balanced classroom. You do not want your students to lose their first language and that can easily happen when you have English-only classrooms. I have heard of many stories where the students can only speak English and then they lose their first language because they never use it anymore.

            Some of the parents however, like Wendy’s, wanted her to learn English and believed that it was the key for communication. They wanted her to become an interpreter and had her take a language aptitude test. Many of the students soon realized that English was not just a subject in school and it was going to be an important language to learn in order to expand their sociocultural horizons. Some of them realized that they could communicate with people around the world because they had pen-pals that they were trading letters and information with. However, they were unable to do that unless they could speak, read, and write English. Although some did not, many people realized how important it is and was going to be to speak English. However, more importantly, they needed to understand that they should not lose their first language. It is so important to stay bilingual if you are and many people can become bilingual.