Speaking in Tongues

Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider, Co-Directors

● Ideas ● Politics
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Speaking in Tongues begins with an ordinary first day of public school kindergarten in the USA, except in this particular classroom, the teacher speaks only Chinese. Most of her primarily white and Asian American students look confused but curious; a few nod knowingly. They are all in a language immersion class where, from day one, they will receive 90% of their instruction in Cantonese. Remarkably, their school will test first in English and math among their district’s 76 elementary schools.

Kelly is a Chinese-American recapturing the Cantonese her parents sacrificed to become American. Durrell orders his first Chinatown meal in Mandarin. Julian travels to China and bargains for clothes in Mandarin at a Beijing marketplace. But while the kids grow in ease and skill with their second tongue, the grown-ups argue. The film goes on to explore the contentious debates around multilingual education - at a time when employers and the government need employees with multilingual skills, and universities spend millions teaching foreign languages,  the U.S. Congress routinely considers “English-only” legislation, and 31 states have already passed such laws.

Speaking In Tongues will warm your heart and open your mind about the potential of our children to easily learn multiple languages, and what that means for the United States and the world.

Marcia Jamel

Marcia Jarmel founded PatchWorks with Ken Schneider in 1994. She has been producing and directing documentaries for over 15 years. Her best-known work is the ITVS-funded Born in the U.S.A., which aired on the PBS series Independent Lens and was hailed as the “best film on childbirth” by the former director of maternal health at the World Health Organization. The documentary has been used to educate hundreds about childbirth options, and to lobby legislators to reform midwifery laws. Nine years after its national broadcast, Born in the U.S.A. continues to engage families, communities, and health care professionals.

Ken Schneider

Ken Schneider is producer, editor, and sound recordist for PatchWorks Films. He is also an accomplished freelance editor whose credits include award-winning documentaries on a broad range of subjects, from art and literature to war and peace, immigration, disability and social justice. Ken co-edited the feature documentary Regret To Inform, winner of the Peabody Award, Indie Spirit Award and Sundance Film Festival Directing award, as well as the IDA Award for most distinctive use of archival footage. Regret also was nominated for an Academy award and a National Emmy.

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Interview with Marcia by Steffie Kinglake

t21: What inspired you to make Speaking in Tongues?
Marcia: We often say our films are autobiographical, but they are NOT about us! Speaking in Tongues came out of our experience as parents in a program like the ones portrayed in the film. There we met a different families sharing the same experience for different reason, and started thinking how language was a metaphor for the barriers that come between neighbors, be they across the street or around the world. When we told friends and family that our older son was going to a school where he’d learn primarily in Chinese for the first few years (this was 2001), people shook their head in disbelief. Remarkably, four years later when our second child went to the same school, the response was completely different—“What an excellent opportunity!” We hadn’t changed, nor had the school, but something profound in the world was beginning to shift. That set the wheels turning and Speaking in Tongues was born.

t21: What do you want viewers to take away from the film?
Marcia: Our idea in making Speaking in Tongues was to showcase a world where communication barriers are being dismantled. An African-American boy from public housing learns to read, write, and speak Mandarin. A Mexican-American boy, whose parents are not literate in any language, develops professional-level Spanish while mastering English. A Chinese-American girl regains her grandparents' mother tongue—a language her parents lost through assimilation. A Caucasian teen travels to Beijing to stay with a Mandarin speaking host family. Their stories reveal the promise of a multilingual America. Each kid’s world opens up when they start learning two languages on the first day of kindergarten; each is developing both bicultural and bilingual fluency. As their educational adventure unfolds, we witness how learning a second language transforms their sense of self, their families, and their communities. In a time of globalization and changing demographics, bilingualism offers these kids more than an opportunity to join the global job market. They connect with their grandparents, they communicate with their immigrant friends, they travel comfortably abroad. They are becoming global citizens. We wanted to tell these stories so our audience could imagine multilingualism beyond the lines usually drawn in the English-only debate.

t21: How did you first find out about and connect with the families you feature?
Marcia: Choosing our characters was a very fun process. We visited a dozen classrooms, talked with teachers and principals. When you walk into a classroom you can see which kids will light up the screen. We knew the terrain we wanted to cover so when we met kids we loved and then found that their parents could add an additional dimension to the story—well, the match was made.

t21: What can be learned from their experience?
Marcia: Attitudes toward bilingualism can mask complicated fears that are hard to talk about: the impact of new immigrants, and global competition, to name two hot button issues. But in our diverse country, in our increasingly international world, is knowing English enough? Detractors warn we are becoming a modern-day Babel and our national identity is at risk. Witness Nashville’s recent vote aimed at making English the city’s “official language,” something 31 states have already voted to do. New York City, in turn, felt the hostility last year when street demonstrations erupted over the opening of an Arabic immersion public school named after Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese Christian writer who once lived in New York. Even liberal Palo Alto, California, had a hard time allowing a Mandarin immersion program to open. Some said there was fear it would attract too many Chinese to the neighborhood. Meanwhile, support comes from an odd crosssection of America. Business leaders point to a "flattening" world, seeking workers with multilingual skills like those displayed by many from rising nations; the Department of Defense pours hundreds of millions of dollars into teaching languages deemed "strategic” to national security (today Mandarin, Arabic, Russian. tomorrow, Hindi? Portuguese? Malay?). And many educators tout the improved test scores of bilingual children—whether they speak English as a first language or not. Why then, is bilingualism not de rigeur in the U.S. as it is in most nations? Our hope is that the stories told in Speaking in Tongues can open up new conversations about the value of being multilingual, whatever language is spoken at home.

t21: What do you feel are the benefits of multilingual education in the United States?
Marcia: There are many. Raising educational achievement, integrating our schools, helping to create global citizens prepared to live and work in a multicultural, increasingly global society, chief among them. We have tons of information on research around these issues, as well as several short videos on our website: www.speakingintonguesfilm.info.

t21: How has the film had an impact on current legislation?
Marcia: Besides its PBS broadcast and being featured at festivals from New Orleans to Mumbai, the film has shown in more than 1500 communities to date, and continues to have screenings on a regular basis. In each setting there is a different type of impact, whether it’s a college student finally understanding why her parents shipped her to India each summer to keep up her language, to a healthcare administrator in tears sharing how her staff’s lack of language skills interferes with the quality of service she can provide. You can see the lights go on for parents, students, administrators, and policymakers, borne on the emotional ride of these four kids and their families. The film has helped to save programs from the budget chopping block, spurred communities to create new programs, promoted the state of Utah’s groundbreaking initiative to promote language immersion, and educated members of Congress, not to mention encouraging students and parents to consider the value of keeping and developing second language skills. We’ve created many resources for using the film in classrooms, boardrooms, communities, and at home—all available free on our website: www.speakingintonguesfilm.info. We have some short videos you can download to use in presentations, lesson plans, case studies, and fact sheets on different issues there too. We’re also posting news about the issue regularly on the film’s Facebook page: (http://www.facebook.com/Speaking.in.Tongues.film?ref=ts). Anyone interested in bringing these ideas to their community, can download our free community event hosting guide there too. [hot link: http://speakingintonguesfilm.info/get-involved/get-involvedhost-a-screeening/]

t21: Your favorite place in the United States?
Marcia: There are many places I love in the U.S. New York City. Colorado, where I lived for many years. Cape Cod, where I vacationed as a kid. But I have to say I’m lucky to live in a beautiful city with a great community, so I guess I’d say, home: San Francisco.

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