Foreign Language Education in America
Wednesday, 11th February 2009
Cactus' Viktoria Atanasova explores the current situation with regard to foreign language-learning in the US, and how the election of the new president may change things for the better.
Finally, America has a President who recognizes and speaks about the importance of foreign languages and praises bilingual and multilingual education.
He urges parents in an age of globalization and multiculturalism to encourage their children to master a foreign language to gain a competitive edge in our global economy.
Only 9 percent of U.S. citizens can speak another foreign language proficiently. In contrast to that, in India, where there are 25 languages recognized, most citizens, even at the lowest ranks of society speak fluently in at least two or three languages. Interestingly, English has never been adopted as the official language of the United States. There have been several proposals to make English the national language in amendments to immigration reform bills but none of these bills have become law.
The good news is, Americans are making encouraging progress in speaking more than one language. According to a U.S. Census Bureau study, 47 million people or 18 percent of the total population speaks more than one language at home - an increase of 14 percent from 1990. The Census Bureau additionally reports that other than Spanish, the sharpest increase in foreign language speakers in the U.S. is Chinese, which jumped from 1.2 million speakers to 2 million from 10 years ago. Spanish speakers grew approximately 60 percent from 1990, while the largest proportional foreign language increase was in Russian, which tripled, from 242,000 to 706,000. But some U.S. citizens are still annoyed by the suggestion they’re being forced to learn another language, particularly Spanish.
Obama firmly believes that knowing a foreign language is a very powerful tool when it comes to getting a job. He says, in relation to speaking a foreign language, ‘You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they’re 5, or 6, or 7 than when they’re 46, like me”.
He agrees that immigrants should learn English. But he insists that instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — because they will learn English — we need to make sure our children can speak Spanish and other languages. We should be thinking about, how can our children become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.
The discussion over bilingual education should not be a political debate. The only productive way to address this vital issue is by putting the focus back on the kids.
In an appearance before hundreds of journalists at the National Association for Hispanic Journalists convention, Arnold Schwarzenegger told Latin-American immigrants that in order to better assimilate in this country “you have to turn off the Spanish-speaking television set”. Even if he meant that in a good way, he obviously didn’t care that his message was contradicting the message of the convention. But we know that politics and tact don’t always go hand in hand.
Another Republican leader said: “To ensure that all students will have access to the mainstream of American life, we support the ‘English First’ approach and oppose divisive programs that limit students’ future potential.” The downside of an English-first approach is that students’ brains are most capable of learning multiple languages at younger ages. If we forbid the reading and writing of students’ native languages in U.S. schools, it will be hurting those students more than it is helping them. Many high school students of Latin-American background obviously know how to speak colloquial, every-day Spanish, but they need to learn how to speak it correctly and how to write, even how to spell their native language.
Some people wrongfully fear that to encourage bilingualism will equal the doom of the English language, and that America would lose its national identity. The truth is that it is far more difficult to preserve a non-English speaking culture in the US than most people realize. A Princeton University survey found that over 90 percent of the grandchildren of Mexican immigrants in the US prefer to speak English rather than Spanish. The study estimates that only 5 percent (!) of the great grandchildren of those immigrants will be able to speak Spanish. We need bilingual education not only to enhance the English skills of nonnative speakers, but also to keep from losing all our Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, etc. etc., speakers.
In their defense, it is not just Americans that are reluctant about embracing the idea of using a language other than their native one. As someone who has lived in Austria – Arnie’s home country – for more than a decade, and spent a significant amount of time in most other Central and Eastern European countries, I have experienced on countless occasions how some Europeans will maliciously hide the fact that they speak English when approached by an English-speaking tourist, leaving the poor tourist with no other choice but to nervously look up word after word using his pocket-size dictionary, desperately trying to form a somewhat understandable question or phrase.
I am fortunate enough to speak several languages, and that ability certainly has opened a lot of doors for me professionally, and more importantly, it has opened me up to cultural enrichment – I can speak to people from many parts of the world, I can read great works of literature in the original languages they were written in, and I feel at home when I travel around the world. My advice is: do not limit yourself (culturally, as well as professionally) to just a single language. People who can confidently speak, read, and write in at least two languages will always be a step ahead in the job market, and will lead a more versatile, exciting and fulfilled social life.
Tags: tailor-made, america, language-learning, policy, debate, president
Posted by Laura Harrison under Attitudes to Language Learning, In the news,
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