Do You Speak English?

60 млн американцев (или около 1/5) дома говорит не по-английски

(гоню подробности)

How Well Do You Speak English? Assessing the Validity of the American Community Survey English-Ability Question

Posted on October 7, 2015

Written by: Erik Vickstrom, Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division

Using data from the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau estimated that 60.4 million, or 20.7 percent of the population, spoke a language other than English at home in 2013.

Of these people, 58.3 percent reported speaking English “very well.” The Census Bureau generates statistics on English ability by asking respondents who report speaking a language other than English at home to indicate how well they speak English: “very well,” “well,” “not well” or “not at all.” Federal programs use data from this English-speaking-ability question for three purposes:

• To decide which localities are required to produce voting materials in minority languages.
• To determine the number of school-age English-language learners in each state.
• To determine which governmental programs should provide assistance to those who have limited ability to communicate in English.

A new working paper investigates whether this question and its self-assessment of English ability actually measure an individual’s real English ability.

Average prose literacy scores by self-reported English ability, National Assessment of Adult Literacy