Foreign Language: In Conclusion

The sacrifice of foreign language study is too high a price to pay to overload on science to make money or to impress colleges. I heartily agree with Charlemagne's assessment, exaggerated and sentimental as it might be. Connecting with others, especially those others who are truly "other," is a gift only language can give us. 

Colleges want students with souls. Those with two souls? Apply to Stanford.

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Foreign Language: Bringing it Home!

From that point of view, learning a foreign language is akin to developing a taste for Mahler: refined but inessential. Being bilingual is not lucrative; it is decorative.

Yikes.

Students often ask me “how will it look to colleges?” if they drop a course. The general answer is this: colleges want to see students continue to challenge themselves at the highest level in every discipline they pursue. Students often opt out of advanced foreign language in favor of loading up on advanced courses in disciplines they perceive as more "rigorous"--most notably science. They feel that is a fair and even trade, maybe a better one in the eyes of colleges and certainly a more pragmatic one for future careers. But, as Charlemagne once said, “To have another language is to possess a second soul." Is adding a zero or two to the end of your annual salary worth the cost of doubling your soul?

Foreign Language: Bringing it Home!

But a larger problem, beyond fear of all things foreign, is capitalism. Students study in school, and parents push them, to fields that will make them money. Foreign language does not factor into that equation. According to Forbes:

“Some schools allow students to substitute classes in statistics, math, and computer programming courses for ‘foreign language’ requirements. It’s a good policy, and it would be wise, I think, for schools around the country to adopt it or simply drop foreign language requirements altogether. Don’t get me wrong: languages are great, and I think our lives would be improved considerably if we all knew at least one additional language and could read classics like Les Miserables, War and Peace, and Don Quixote in their original languages.”

Foreign Language: Bring it Home

The choice to eschew foreign-language study is not top-down; rather, it is cultural. We believe another 9/11 looms large in the not-so-distant future, and this paranoia moves from fear of people to fear of their language. Education Week reports that:

“In August 2015, residents protested at the new Arabic Immersion Magnet School in Houston, denouncing Arabic, Islam, and drawing ties to the Sept. 11 attacks.

One protester's sign read: "Qatar out of our school," in reference to Qatar Foundation International, a charity that plans to spends $2.5 million this year to support Arabic language instruction in 25 K-12 schools in the United States, including the Houston-based magnet school. The foundation's money helps fund Arabic classes that reach about 2,400 students in eight states and the District of Columbia.”

Foreign Language: Bring it Home!

President Barack Obama wished to bridge the divide, charging parents to make ALL children bilingual because he inherently knows the opposite desire holds true. Parents would rather phase other languages out and make this a solely English-speaking country. Obama’s charge makes logical and moral sense to those of us who listened, but has no fertile ground to take root.

Certainly, schools have not listened to that charge. Foreign-language study is on the decline, and educators shrug. Schools don’t trim back on foreign-language study the way it does the arts; it is not a matter of austerity measures and sad necessity. Rather, there is a dearth of both enrollment and of teachers—a more dire problem. Schools cannot staff foreign language classes; then students don’t want to take foreign language classes; schools do not earnestly look for or train foreign-language teachers . . . the spiral is self-evident.

Foreign Language: Bring it Home!

Strangely, though, according to the most recent census, approximately 20 million people in the United States are bilingual because they speak a second language—typically Spanish—at home.

So there are two Americas: the first belongs to the newly American, learning English to assimilate, but speaking their native tongue at home and in the enclave of their community; the second, American for generations, clinging to the singularity of the English they fought so hard to earn.

Ne’er the two may meet, it seems.

Foreign Language: Bring it Home!

Few students in the US study foreign language, let alone acquire fluency. Education Week reports:

“The American Councils for International Education survey—which sought state-by-state data on enrollment in foreign language courses—estimates that 10.6 million K-12 students in the United States are studying a world language or American Sign Language. That's only one out of every five students.”

There was a time, wasn’t there, when foreign language was considered a major discipline, like math, English, and science, and everyone took it? So, then, there was a time—right—when students loved to study foreign language and longed to immerse themselves in another culture? Or am I remembering incorrectly? Have we always been, fundamentally, xenophobic?