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So in the end, I am suggesting a balance: a balance between the common-language and comparative rhetoric in education, a balance between monolingual education and a multilingual society.
The best solution to the multilingual question is presented in 4Cs’s (Conference on College Composition and Communication) (1988) National Language Policy and by the English Plus. English Plus has been discussed above. The 4Cs’s National Language Policy calls English Only unnecessary, unrealistic, educationally unsound, unfair, dangerous, invasive, counterproductive, and unconstitutional. While in the end I have shown how I question the absoluteness of this evaluation, I still find the 4Cs’s simple recommendations extremely cogent. They are 1) to provide resources to enable native and non-native speakers to achieve oral and literate competence in English, the language of wider communication [a position which specifically mandates neither English Only nor multilingual education], 2) to support programs that assert the legitimacy of native languages and dialects and ensure that proficiency in one's mother tongue will not be lost [a position which again does not mandate multilingual education, but does highly suggest foreign language instruction and support, and which does essentially mandate a multilingual society as outlined above], 3) to foster the teaching of languages other than English so that native speakers of English can rediscover the language of their heritage or learn a second language [and so that native-speakers of languages other than English can maintain and improve their native tongues].
This policy is essentially what Smitherman (1986) recommended when she proposed to 1) reinforce the language of wider communication; 2) promote and extend the legitimacy of mother tongue languages as dialects; and 3) promote the acquisition of one or more foreign languages, preferably those spoken in the Third World.
In other words, we can and should give students, both native-English-speakers and non-native, every opportunity to learn and use the common tongue, Standard American English. This means, in my opinion, teaching in English in all cases, but not without extensive use of comparative rhetoric and not without allowance for translation of individual words and concepts. These two devices give students an absolutely essential basis for understanding English, but do not leave them functioning strictly in their native tongues, as transitional bilingual education does in spite of itself. The translation of individual words and concepts, even to the point of asking students for their own interpretations of their native language and culture, legitimizes the students’ background and thus strengthens students’ self worth and identity. This, admittedly, is a middle ground between bilingual education as we now see it practiced in this country and the extreme monolinguistic approach which is promoted by Rodriguez and others. And the promotion of learning other language, particularly Third World languages, gives further legitimacy to all languages and all cultures other than English, thus reinforcing the legitimizing of students’ backgrounds and identities.
This is a challenging approach. But it also is the most thorough and potentially reaches the most people with the least amount of struggle. It promotes dialogue, discussion, and intercultural understanding. And in an international, democratic society such as our own, this is as it should be.