Do You Speak My Language?

Teacher Notes:

• This activity presents a challenge for students in that they must estimate the population of the U.S. that is over 5 years of age. The data in the table is for people over 5 years of age, while data given in the census is for children under 5 years of age. Students must use some method for estimating how many children are exactly 5 years of age.
• Another challenge for students is that, for some of the languages, the percent of people is less that 1. Students will need to round percents to the nearest hundredth of a percent in order to use these percents to predict the number of speakers in 2025. This activity should help students see the usefulness of percents less than 1.
• You may want to have students use a spreadsheet for this activity to make the percent computations quicker.
• The answers given for this activity are sample answers. Students may have varying answers depending upon the method they choose for estimating the population of the U.S. that is over 5 years of age.
• If you think that your students will have trouble estimating the number of people who are over 5 years of age, you may want to make estimates as a class activity and then have students use that figure in completing the rest of the activity.
• Encourage students to find a creative way to display the data from this activity.

Procedure for the Activity

Answers:

Step 1  Sample: Children that are under 5 are either 0–1, 1–2, 2–3, 3–4, or 4–5, not including 5. That is five age categories. To estimate the number of children in each category, divide 18,354,443 by 5. That is about 3,670,889 children per category. You could estimate that there were about 3,700,000 5–year–olds in 1990. So, an estimate for the number of people that were older than 5 years of age would be 248,709,873 – 18,354,443 – 3,700,000 = 226,655,430.

Step 2  Sample using the estimate in Step 1.

Language Used at Home	Speakers Over 5 Years Old		Language Used at Home	Speakers Over 5 Years Old
English only	198,601,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈87.62%		Portuguese	430,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.19%
Spanish	17,339,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈7.65%		Japanese	428,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.19%
French	1,702,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.75%		Greek	388,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.17%
German	1,547,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.68%		Arabic	355,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.16%
Italian	1,309,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.58%		Hindi, Urdu, related languages	331,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.15%
Chinese	1,249,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.55%		Russian	242,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.11%
Tagalog	843,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.37%		Yiddish	213,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.09%
Polish	723,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.32%		Thai	206,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.09%
Korean	626,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.28%		Persian	202,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.09%
Vietnamese	507,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.22%		French Creole	188,000χ226,655,430•100 ≈0.08%

Step 3  Sample: Using the same method as in Step 1, children that are under 5 are either 0–1, 1–2, 2–3, 3–4, or 4–5, not including 5. That is five age categories. To estimate the number of children in each category, divide 22,551,000. That is about 4,510,200 children per category. You could estimate that there were about 4,500,000 5–year–olds in 2025. So, an estimate for the number of people that will be older than 5 years of age would be 337,815,000 – 22,551,000 – 4,500,000 = 310,764,000.

Step 4  Sample using the estimate from Step 3.

Language Used at Home	Speakers Over 5 Years Old		Language Used at Home	Speakers Over 5 Years Old
English only	310,764,000 • 87.62% ≈272,291,417		Portuguese	310,764,000 •0.19% ≈590,452
Spanish	310,764,000 •7.65% ≈23,773,446		Japanese	310,764,000 •0.19% ≈590,452
French	310,764,000 •0.75% =2,330,730		Greek	310,764,000 •0.17% ≈528,299
German	310,764,000 •0.68% ≈2,113,195		Arabic	310,764,000 •0.16% ≈497,222
Italian	310,764,000 •0.58% ≈1,802,431		Hindi, Urdu, related languages	310,764,000 •0.15% =466,146
Chinese	310,764,000 •0.55% =1,709,202		Russian	310,764,000 •0.11% ≈341,840
Tagalog	310,764,000 •0.37% ≈1,149,827		Yiddish	310,764,000 •0.09% ≈279,688
Polish	310,764,000 •0.32% ≈994,445		Thai	310,764,000 •0.09% ≈279,688
Korean	310,764,000 •0.28% ≈870,139		Persian	310,764,000 •.09% ≈279,688
Vietnamese	310,764,000 •0.22% ≈683,681		French Creole	310,764,000 •0.08% ≈248,611

Step 5  Sample: The percents were rounded to the nearest hundredth, so that may affect the accuracy of the prediction. Also, changes in policies for immigration could change the percents in the future.

Wrapping Up the Activity

Check students’ work.