Learning foreign languages has increasingly become important in our multiracial, interconnected world. As recently as fifty years ago, the average American may have been able to get by only knowing English, because most Americans were monolingual and few traveled overseas to non-English speaking countries. However, with both the increase in intercontinental tourism both in the U.S. and without as well as the growing immigrant population of the U.S., it is paramount that students these days receive proper foreign language instruction. However, it’s clear that our local school system is not providing the tools necessary for students to be fully fluent in at least one foreign language by the time they graduate. It is important that we correct this by replacing the existing foreign language curriculum with an immersion program that begins in elementary school and continues all the way through high school graduation. This type of program is used in many other countries across the world to great success, meaning it would work here as well, and it would give our students the leg up necessary to succeed in an increasingly multilingual country.
Learning foreign languages is a necessity in large part because of the increasing diversity of the U.S.’ population. Ever since the liberalization of immigration laws in the 1960’s, nonwhites have been growing as a percentage of the population, with persons of Hispanic or Latino descent now the largest minority group in the U.S., eclipsing African-Americans. California and Texas, the two largest states in the U.S., are both minority-majority, with whites only comprising a plurality of the population, and demographic trends show that whites will be a minority across the entire country before the end of the century. Because of increasing racial diversity, linguistic diversity has also gone up, with Spanish now a second language in many parts of the U.S. and other languages such as Arabic gaining prominence in certain areas. This means that anyone in those areas who only speaks English will be left at a distinct disadvantage not just in communicating with their neighbors, but also in finding employment. In cities such as Los Angeles and Miami with large Spanish-speaking populations, being fluent in Spanish is a prerequisite for many jobs, including minimum-wage retail jobs.
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This benefits bilingual individuals, who are more likely to get jobs due to the fact that they can communicate with a larger percentage of the business’ customer base. Similarly, due to the presence of many immigrants in IT and other high-paying career fields, foreign language knowledge is becoming increasingly necessary to obtain these jobs as well. Ultimately, the U.S. is no longer a country where English will suffice as a language of day-to-day life. In order for our students to have the best chance of succeeding in their careers, they need to be equipped with foreign language knowledge that lasts beyond the time they are studying in their classes.
Foreign language instruction in the U.S. lags behind much of the world due to the fact that our educational system does not factor in the increasing linguistic and racial diversity of our country. For example, Canada is one country that leads the way in regards to bilingualism: due to the country’s large French-speaking minority and the fact that civil servants need to be fluent in both languages, Canadians are taught to speak French (or English) from a very young age. Similarly, in the Philippines, where there are many regional languages but English is one of the government’s official languages, students are required to learn English when they enter school. Similar programs in countries such as Germany, Sweden, and Hungary allow students there to become fully fluent in English by the time they graduate high school, allowing them to communicate with a wide variety of people as well as compete for job opportunities closed to the monolingual. I am proposing that we emulate the systems of those countries by requiring students to study foreign languages when they are in elementary school.
Because the brain is more plastic at a younger age than at older ages, children are uniquely positioned to become fully bilingual in a way that older people cannot obtain without considerably more effort. To this effect, mandatory foreign language classes should be instituted for elementary students. I am not sure at which exact grade at which students should begin studying foreign languages, but it should ideally be before the fifth grade. Classes should be offered in Spanish, which is the second-most spoken language in the U.S. at the moment, as well as French, which is also one of the most widely-spoken languages. Depending on the resources available, other languages should also be made available, with students and/or their parents allowed to choose which ones to study. This will ensure that students are fully fluent in their language of choice when they become adults, improving their job prospects and ability to navigate our changing country.
The United States is a rapidly shifting country, with demographics increasingly tilted against the whites who comprised the majority of our country when it was founded. However, our system of teaching foreign languages to students has not changed at all in decades. We need to rectify this and help our students by giving them the ability to navigate a linguistically splintered nation. Overhauling our local foreign language education is the most effective way to do this, and it will pay dividends for our students down the road.
- Felder, Richard M., and Eunice R. Henriques. “Learning and teaching styles in foreign and second language education.” Foreign language annals 28.1 (1995): 21-31.
