Tove Skutnabb-Kangas's article "Linguistic Human Rights-Are You Naive, or What?" (Autumn 1999) focuses on the language rights of minority groups. Skutnabb-Kangas asserts that these groups should be educated in additive bilingual programs. Although I agree that this is a worthy goal for educators, I must object to the author's use of the Janulf (1998) case study and the disparaging language in her article.
First, Skutnabb-Kangas highlights a case study of Finnish students in Sweden and Swedish-speaking students in Finland, which showed that children educated in additive versions of bilingual programs retained both languages. Although such a result is indeed interesting and worthy of study, a number of variables make its relevance to the situation faced by many U.S. school districts questionable at best. According to its 1998-1999 annual report, the San Francisco Unified School District has students from 64 language backgrounds. Many of these languages do not use the Roman alphabet. Some do not even exist in written form. These factors make the implementation of the nuts and bolts of additive bilingual programs (i.e., qualified bilingual teachers, funds for the extra classrooms, teachers, and materials) extremely difficult in most educational settings in the United States, in which far more than two languages are involved.
Second, I found the tone of Skutnabb-Kangas's article offensive. Describing ESL/EFL as "McDonaldized" (p. 10) and ESL/EFL instructors as "people running around the world posing as ESL/EFL experts" (p. 11, Note 5) is obviously an attempt to belittle anyone who teaches ESL/EFL in a manner inconsistent with Skutnabb-Kangas's additive version. Scholarly journals are meant to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions, not for mudslinging.
Even more upsetting was Skutnabb-Kangas's use of the word genocide in the