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28 Comment & Debate A victim’s right and a child’s right: who wins? » continued from page 27 management classes (which he had been attending prior to the attack) had been working, the subsequent rape surely proves otherwise. If we fail to believe alcoholics anonymous is working for someone who carries on drinking, surely Naomi Perry, defending, must take the British public to be fools if she thinks she can confidently say that Khan’s anger management classes have helped him. Our Justice System is far too lenient on rapists and, considering that the crime is an act which leaves the victim emotionally scarred for life, ordering a rapist three to eight years in prison is as disgusting as the crime itself. The punishments are disrespectful to the victim, to their family who suffer with them and to women and men everywhere who fear they would have no justice if ever they were in the same position. I recently discovered that the average length of sentence for rape is seven and a half years, and the sentence can vary depending not only on the age of the rapist but also the age of the victim. I hardly get a warm feeling knowing a rapist would have got a higher sentence had I been attacked at 13, than if I were to be attacked now at 22. Why are we using age brackets in the first place? It is fine to have guidelines but not when the guidelines fail to reflect the physical and psychological effects of sexual attacks. It is about time the British Judicial System started to issue punishments which reflect the severity of rape, and then, perhaps the public can believe that, for once, justice does exist. The Founder | Thursday 11 March 2010 Bilingualism: double language, double standard Camille Nedelec-Lucas Chief Sub-Editor The list of the benefits of childhood bilingualism that is posted on the National Literary Trust website includes meta-linguistic awareness, increased cognitive flexibility, and social sensitivity. It also mentions research from Goldsmith’s, which shows that multilingual children can outperform monolingual children in secondary school. Behavioural psychologist Dean Keith Simonton adds: “Research has shown that intensive exposure to two or more different languages helps build the cognitive basis for creativity. ” I can’t really vouch for any of these qualities affecting me (especially the bit about outperforming monolingual children academically!), but speaking another language enables me to communicate with my non-English speaking family (so it’s pretty essential… although when the family nags, complete ignorance of what they are saying might admittedly be useful), and it is also the medium through with I can assert a link with my second culture. Knowing how precious my language is to me (and how my schools always applauded and encouraged my language acquisition), I was horrified when Sonia, a Chinese- American friend, described her first year at primary school; as a fluent Cantonese speaker, she would sometimes mix Cantonese with English, including when speaking to her teachers. In response, her teachers told her parents to stop speaking Cantonese to her, which they did. As a result, her level of fluency dropped and as an adult, when she moved to Hong Kong for postgraduate study, she was faced with the task of recovering a language that she shouldn’t have lost in the first place. The saddest thing in this story is that language mixing in bilingual children is actually very common and very normal; as the National Literary Trust explains, “children will not get confused by learning more than one language in the household; up until about the age of 10 or 12, children learn foreign languages almost as if they were one big language.” When a bilingual child speaks, they will therefore use the first word that springs to mind regardless of which language it is from. They will grow out of this - that is, if an adult doesn’t screw it up for them - with both languages intact and fluent. Remembering her story, I wonder if it wasn’t just ignorance that had made her teachers react in that way; I can’t help but think that if she’d been ‘confusing’ English with a European language, she would have been met with more patience. Perhaps she would even have been applauded for having a rare and valued linguistic talent. Stories of other Asian friends in England and Australia with similar experiences - in which their other language was either repressed or ignored within formal education - have lead me to ask if this is not a wide-spread trend, in which a European language trumps a Non-European one. Muriel Saville-Troike, in her book Introducing Second Language Acquisition, agrees: “Maintenance of indigenous and immigrant languages other than English is not widely encouraged (in the US) and is often actively discouraged. Indeed, pride in ethnicity along with associated language use can be seen as very threatening to the dominant group, and as a symbol of disunity and separatism.” Liberals like to cheerfully remark that, despite our train-wreck economy, and our PM who sold reserves of gold when the market slumped (perhaps the hint should have been in the name: he’s a reverse Midas - everything he touches turns to Brown), multiculturalism is definitely one thing that Britain does well. So perhaps, Saville- Troike’s comment doesn‘t apply to us…. Sorry kids. No such luck. When I asked an Indian friend of mine whether his Punjabi skills were ever valued in school, his response was: “Why should they be?” It’s a response that says it all. On further questioning, he admitted that perhaps this was because Punjabi is considered “more primitive” (despite being the product of one of the most ancient civilisations in the world), in contrast to (for example) French, which brings to mind high fashion, depressed poetry, and cups of artistic and/or existentialist coffee. A Modern Foreign Languages secondary school teacher I spoke to agreed, although she was also keen to point out that GCSEs in native languages are available at special request (that is, GCSE as a foreign language, resulting in the ludicrous situation of, say, a fluent speaker of Guajarati taking an exam in beginner’s Guajarati). One argument for their difference in status may be that French is widespread around the world (and therefore more useful), but so are many Asian languages (Sonia’s ‘useless’ Cantonese is spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China, and Chinese is the most spoken language in the world). Besides, you can’t look into a crystal ball and say: “During the course of this child’s entire life, we know for absolute certain that he/she is never going here, here, and there, so he/she doesn’t need to learn that language.” You never know when a language will be useful, or where someone will end up in the future. Furthermore, in terms of brain development, it doesn’t matter which language the child speaks in order to derive a benefit, yet the opportunities (or should I say lack of opportunities) available to speakers of non-European languages in British education doesn’t seem to reflect that. English Linguist Kit Fields, in her book Issues in Modern Foreign Languages, laments: “Why is it that a child bringing into school a particular skill in music or drama or sport will have that skill nurtured or encouraged, but that a child whose skill lies in being able to speak Turkish or Chinese or Bengali, as well as English, is likely within our education system to have that skill ignored? Why is such a skill not seen as important for the cognitive and emotional development of that child and as a resource which can promote the language and cultural awareness of all pupils? Why do we not value an outstanding performance in a Gujarati examination as highly as a mediocre one in French?” I hate to be the one to say it Kit, but that sounds like a type of intellectual racism to me.
The Founder | Thursday 11 March 2010 Volunteering You only get what you give Royal Holloway’s Community Action proves volunteering can do a selfish good deed As I approach my last few weeks as a university student I have a number of regrets regarding my time here. Firstly, I really, fervently wish I had decided to adopt a more proactive work ethic from day one. I also wish I had taken anybody’s advice about budgeting and money management, so that I could leave university with something more substantial than an empty overdraft in my student account. Finally, I wish I had done more with my free time. Although Call of Duty: Modern Warfare seemed a worthwhile pursuit, in retrospect, I should have spent more hours working towards my life after university. This is where Community Action can help. Community Action is focussed on helping those within Holloway’s local area. Volunteering opportunities cover different age groups, from children to the very old; they range in activities from conservation work to teaching, and include a staggering amount of choice and, importantly, experience. Whilst helping others may induce feelings of euphoria or happiness, there are also possibly more tangible effects. Volunteering provides a unique opportunity to gain practical skills and understanding in fields where you may be unable to rely upon your natural aptitude to get ahead. I personally am currently volunteering on an award-winning programme to teach IT skills to refugees, as I am hoping to become a language teacher when I leave university (in only FIVE MONTHS), this allows me to gain essential knowledge about communication barriers and patience. It is possible that Community Action can prove just as beneficial to you. The Community Action projects feature literally hundreds of different volunteering opportunities, and importantly, offer flexibility, allowing you to dedicate as much of your time as you can afford. This means it is very easy to plan volunteering around your timetable, or extra-curricular commitments. If you fancy gaining vital experience in a particular field, or just trying something new, volunteering presents a unique opportunity to improve your CV and moral conscience, whilst helping others. So if you want to try it out, check out the links above. If you have specific questions you can email the Community Action team, or if you want to flick through the volunteering opportunities, check out our website (www.rhul. ac.uk/CommunityAction). 29
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