ProEnglish Chairwoman Dr. Rosalie Porter Defends English Immersion On NPR Panel

ProEnglish Chairwoman Dr. Rosalie Porter recently joined National Public Radio – WGBH/Boston as a panelist on their panel discussion, “How Best to Educate English Language Learners.”

The panel discussion focused on a bill before the Massachusetts legislature that would change Massachusetts’ existing structured English immersion law for public schools.  The new MA education bill, LOOK (Language Opportunities for Our Kids) would essentially bring bilingual education back to Massachusetts schools.

ProEnglish believes it is the responsibility of our public schools to teach non-English-speaking children English as rapidly as possible. English Immersion programs, now called “Structured English Immersion (SEI)” work best.

Listen to Dr. Porter’s testimony in favor of English Immersion.

Dr. Porter is as an accomplished author and scholar and current chairwoman of the board for ProEnglish. She is a consultant for school districts across the country, the executive director of the READ Institute (The Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development), and founder and editor-in-chief of READ Perspectives.

Dr. Porter, who arrived in the U.S. at age six, not knowing a word of English, has also been a fellow at Harvard University, a Spanish Bilingual Teacher, the Director of Bilingual/ESL Programs in the Newton, MA Public Schools, and Chairman of the Massachusetts Commission on Bilingual Education.

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