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Immigrants to the USA often speak their own language as well as learning English. Where do the children of immigrants learn their parents’ language? Write down your ideas, then listen to Jennifer.

I’m standing here in front of the Rovang school which is kind of an interesting … uh, interesting school in that a lot of people – at least in this area – would think that there were a lot of public schools, but this is actually a parochial school and was constructed by Norwegian immigrants because they desired that their students, that their children, continued to learn the Norwegian language, but also continue to study their faith, in the Norwegian language.

It was interesting for Norwegian immigrants, for many of them to come here to America … ah, where they were used to previously having re-, religion taught in the schools ah, but that wasn’t the case here in the United States where there was freedom of religion and then difficulty in knowing, well, which religion would you teach in … ah, in school.

So many places constructed schools like this where the students would leave their public school for a-, a week or so and come to this school to learn both religion and the Norwegian language. And so it’s very interesting that students who did not grow up or-, in Norway, and the Norwegian language wasn’t their first language, were learning Norwegian right here.

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Immigrant schools in the USA

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