Phillip Said:

EVERYONE: I WANT TO SHORT SONGS TO LEARN KIDS SOME ENGLISH ..?

We Answered:

get the tape The Elephant Show be Sharon, Lois and
Bram. Has short songs and dances in simple English. It's very fun and taught my kids to sing, dance, and laugh.

Mathew Said:

Why do they want immigrants to learn English then make our kids learn a foreign language in school?

We Answered:

It's simply called education and knowledge. And both are very useful.
In my country (Argentina), everyone studies a foreign language since 1st grade at school. That goes on even throughout university.
If you wish to get a Master's degree or a doctorate, you will be required to speak at least two foreign languages; one romance language and one of a different origin. That's in serious universities.
Even if you expect to get a good job you will be required to speak at least one foreign language (not necessarily English).

I read some research years ago that showed Americans as the people with the least general knowledge of the world, the the most monolingual individual.
I wonder, why not learn as much as you can? Linguistics is a science, a well-established one. Language and languages are important and necessary. Even more, they are interesting and will tell you a lot about the people who speak them.

What you said about age, learning a foreign language is lots easier when you're a child. There's a something called in Spanish a "window period" (I am almost certain this is not the exact English equivalent), during which a child will acquire, more than learn, a foreign language effortlessly. This "window" starts to close around the age of 8 or 9. So, the younger children start learning a language, the better.

"Reading, writing and doing sums" is far from enough these days. You speak of social studies, and languages are part of them. People need to become aware that having been born in a developed country alone won't give them any advantages over other people who, perhaps coming from the third world, have more knowledge than the others ever will. I personally find it sad to get answers such as "it's a country in Peru", or "Buenos Aires is the capital city of Brazil" from many foreigners (amazingly, not from Europeans, though), when I ask them if they know where my country is.

Let your children learn as much as they can. Let them know there is a world beyond their own house, and that it's a world full of wonders ready to be discovered and re-discovered, again and again, every time a pair of eyes looks at them for the first time. I don't believe in "useless information". Knowledge is a wonderful and useful tool, if you know what to do with the information stored in your brain.
And there is always something interesting and valuable to do with it.

C.

Adam Said:

Do you agree with Obama that immigrants shouldn't learn English, but that American kids should learn Spanish ?

We Answered:

Hell no. This is an English speaking country. Is he saying that all those immigrants who came here years ago wasted their time by learning the language and fitting in to the culture?

edit: If I move to Germany or Italy or Greece, I can't expect them to all learn my language to make life easier for me. It would be my responsibility to learn the language and fit in the best I could in daily life there.