Or open up job prospect and educational value?
most Americans don’t need any foreign language to pass high school.
Yeah my high school said colleges would like for you to take a foreign language class, but it’s not required to graduate from here. Some students did think it was required to graduate and a couple I talked to at the time were surprised to learn I didn’t take any and still graduated.
And most don’t leave the country for vacations either
People do go to the Caribbean and Mexico, because they are within close travel distance. Most Americans could not afford a transatlantic vacation. You can take your whole family to Florida for a week just on the cost you’d spend on airfare going to Europe. It’s like $1000 per person per flight, 12 hour+ flight, 8+ hour time difference. A $10,000+ vacation is really not in the average American’s budget.
At my high school you needed 2 communication credits, foreign languages counted, so did drama, journalism, year book, cheer squad (this always puzzled me as it was not even a class), and others I am sure I am forgetting as it was 30ish years ago.
11 states have foreign language requirements, but really we shouldn’t even count them. A single 20-30 minute class per day is not going to achieve any proficiency in a foreign language. The only way for an American child to actually achieve foreign language proficiency is to go to a 1/2 and 1/2 school.
I took 3 1/2 years of French in high school, but barely used it after graduation. I do wish we had more language learning in school.
In elementary school half of our day was taught in Spanish, but an ignorant parent (my mother) complained so loudly that the project was scrapped after only a couple months.
What traveling? You don’t need 4 languages for Disney World/Land.
Learning a language helps develop the brain.
Clearly you haven’t been to EPCOT.
US isn’t even teaching the 1 very well. 7th grade is way too late to begin that kind of learning.
7th grade? I never took a foreign language until 9th grade. I have two nephews, and both of them never took one until 10th.
Mine was 7th and 8th were each half of WhateverLanguage 1 course.
Not sure about other countries, but here in Norway, English lessons start in the 2nd grade (6-7 years old). It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s similar in the rest of Europe.
I think this is one of the reasons why people from English-speaking countries are less motivated to learn other languages; English is almost everywhere, to varying degrees.
It’s sort of a gift and a curse. I enjoy learning languages, but there’s no practical need for me to, so I’m bad at it 🙈
In Portugal, mandatory English classes start on the 5th grade, but from 1st grade kids have the option to take English classes as an extracurricular
In Spain there are places where two languages are taught at once since the first minute. There are two official languages. And a third one is taught soon after that.
Basque, I’m guessing?
Or Catalan or Galician. And near Portugal, Portuguese.
I honestly think it’s because in measures of distance, a US American could be considered well-traveled without ever having left the United States. Living in DC and visiting Florida or California is a big trip logistically. I love to travel and have moved a LOT and I have just barely been to every state in the US (some I only drove through, fuck rural Nebraska). While I disagree personally, I think that most Americans just don’t see the immediate utility in learning other languages.
Not learning Spanish in school as a requirement at this point is just racism, though.
I grew up in the shittiest state and even we took Spanish. Middle school though. I’d say if we ever get through this racist fest, the basics of French, Spanish, and Chinese would be nice in elementary. Maybe with more advanced options for Spanish in later years since that’s our best chance for cultural immersion if they leave our Latina/Latino brothers and sisters alone for 5 seconds.
Fun fact: You can learn without school. There’s sooo much information outside of school walls, and it’s easier to access now than ever in the history of humanity.
But learning in school gives you people to communicate with in the new language. Something that can be tougher to find on your own.
There are language exchange sites and apps for that. Lots of people learn languages just as a fun hobby, and there are many resources out there for it
Huh, I didn’t know americans need to do any foreign language. But 3 or 4 is way too much. I could barely manage 2.
You only need to do it for getting into top schools. Typically elite schools want you to have 3-4 years of a single language, and most of them require you to do a year language study at university a graduation requirement.
mid and lower level schools don’t care about any of this.
3 seems pretty reasonable to me, assuming you start the lessons much earlier in schooling than we currently do now. Perhaps not mandatory, but I think requiring 2 and having the option for more is reasonable enough. There are plenty of countries that begin English lessons in what would be elementary schools, then add a second European language in middle school alongside continued English classes, and have the option to do a 3 language for students who are interested/would need them for their academic plans.
Of course, if it was just two years of four different languages, that would be a waste of money, IMO. If kids started doing Spanish in 4th grade and were expected to keep that up through high school graduation, and could add German or Russian or something in middle school, it seems reasonable enough to me. You won’t be cranking out kids fluent in several languages that way, but I would expect you could get much better results than we currently do in the first foreign language, plus give them a decent foundation in the second, should they need it/decide to continue learning after 6 years of classes.
Unless you keep using the language, you will loose it, I am bilingual Swedish/English, and since I practice both constantly, I retain my skills.
I did take Spanish as well for a few few years, but have mostly forgotten it.
I mean, for one thing, high school lasts a finite amount of time
Limited time and resources means ypu can’t learn everything.
Is there a lot to improve and should certain subjects be switched for others? Sure. But does learning 4 languages to a very basic degree (which you will likely almost never use and therefore forget) important enough to kick off other subjects? I don’t think so.
English is the defacto global language and I think you’d be surprised how many Americans never leave the US, and how significantly fewer never leave North America.
Learning languages would be great, but there are lots of other things that the US education system has been failing at which are arguably far more important…
By the time I graduated high school, I spoke Latin and German fluently. In the last 30 years, I have traveled neither to Germany, nor ancient Rome.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Na dann, what’s stopping you?
Money. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof.
Or a Time Machine
Setting non-travel jokes aside for aoment because somehow Americans don’t travel but they also get spotted as obvious tourists in their jeans and golf shorts.
Between prior English imperialism and recent American global market share, just about any place with a decent internet connection will have English as a viable communication language. It won’t always be great and you may have to talk to a few different people to find one that speaks enough English. The places I’ve been often have ads in English. Often enough, they’re not even dual language ads.
Now combine that with American exceptionalism and you’ll see Americans don’t see a need to learn anything else. No, they don’t see the irony in demanding the language of England as their one and only language heard in the 'States.
But, in a less cynical take, that country is huge and geographically diverse. There are many Americans that travel. Americans that travel domestically (or even only Can/US/Mex) should not be shamed. Language aside, different regions can have as much diversity as denser countries. Think about your stereotype for a resident of California, then New York, and lastly Texas. That is, after all, because the US is actually 50 states in a trench coat.
You really are asking too much here
We need to get math, geography, literature, history, writing, personal finance, and driving training working again first
Want to know what my drivers ed consisted of?
Not cars, no
A signature of consent and having me/my class to view unredacted images and video of a girl who some of the people in that room personally knew from that very highschool who didn’t wear a seatbelt screaming with her face having been peeled off having passed through the windshield, and similar gory aftermath images
Thats the educational bar of competence we’re competing with here at least nearly two decades ago. You think it’s gotten better or worse since then?
When did one foreign language become required?
It’s not.
In America, by far and away the next most commonly spoken language is Spanish. I could see a requirement making it so schools are made to teach Spanish, but I find it hard to see requiring them to teach any other language. Arguably, this might be better managed on the State level, since certain languages may be more common in different states.
Yep. I imagine Spanish is much more useful in Texas than in Alaska
