Competency #8 -- Research visual

Posted by Lynda at 4:06 PM

Friday, April 17, 2009

At the Modern Language Association website, I found the pie charts shown below. They show how the non-English speaking population of the US has gone up between 2000 and 2005 (last year figures were available), to now almost 20% of the US population. This demonstrates the need of increased ESL programs in our country. One fifth of Americans over the age of 5 speak a language other than English! Public libraries are in an ideal position to fill this need.


Most spoken languages in the entire US in 2000
English is spoken by 82.10% of people over 5 years old in the entire US. Languages other than English are spoken by 17.89%. Speakers of languages other than English are divided up as follows.


(Census 2000, Summary File 3, STP 258)

Most spoken languages in the entire US in 2005
English is spoken by 80.60% of people over 5 years old in the entire US. Languages other than English are spoken by 19.39%. Speakers of languages other than English are divided up as follows.

(2005 American Community Survey)

Resources:
2005 American Community Survey. "
Data Center Results." n.d. (accessed March 22, 2009).
Census 2000, Summary File 3. "
Data Center Results." n.d. (accessed March 22, 2009).



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