Stephen Krashen

Last updated
Stephen Krashen
Born (1941-05-14) May 14, 1941 (age 84)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited States of America
Academic background
Alma mater University of California, Los Angeles

As education policy in Krashen's home state of California became increasingly hostile to bilingualism, he responded with research critical of the new policies, public speaking engagements, and with letters written to newspaper editors. During the campaign to enact an anti-bilingual education law in California in 1998, known as Proposition 227, Krashen campaigned aggressively in public forums, media talk shows, and conducted numerous interviews with journalists writing on the subject. After other anti-bilingual education campaigns and attempts to enact regressive language education policies surfaced around the country, by 2006 it was estimated that Krashen had submitted well over 1,000 letters to editors.

Krashen has been an advocate for a more activist role by researchers in combating what he considers the public's misconceptions about bilingual education. Addressing the question of how to explain public opposition to bilingual education, Krashen queried, "Is it due to a stubborn disinformation campaign on the part of newspapers and other news media to deliberately destroy bilingual education? Or is it due to the failure of the profession to present its side of the story to reporters? There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence in support of the latter." Continuing, Krashen wrote, "Without a serious, dedicated and organized campaign to explain and defend bilingual education at the national level, in a very short time we will have nothing left to defend." [6]

Writing

References

  1. "Stephen Krashen : BIO". USC.
  2. "Profile".
  3. "2005 NABE Executive Board Election, Regional Representatives, West Region —Candidates' Statements & Biographies (PDF)" (PDF). National Association for Bilingual Education. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2005-05-25.
  4. Krashen, S. (2003) Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use. Portsmouth: Heimemann.
  5. "Achievement Profile: Stephen Krashen". Scott, R.
  6. Krashen, Stephen D. "Evidence Suggesting That Public Opinion Is Becoming More Negative: A Discussion of the Reasons, and What We Can Do About It". James Crawford's Language Policy Web Site.