{"id":254,"date":"2014-10-08T08:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/should-spanish-be-americas-standard-first-foreign-language.html"},"modified":"2015-02-26T23:17:57","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T05:17:57","slug":"should-spanish-be-americas-standard-first-foreign-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/10\/should-spanish-be-americas-standard-first-foreign-language.html","title":{"rendered":"Should Spanish be America’s standard first-foreign-language?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In most of the world, students start learning English early. \u00a0In Germany, English class starts in the late elementary years, not as a \u201cspecial\u201d or an enrichment class once a week, but as a standard part of the curriculum, which means that by the time they graduate high school, their English is quite good, if they\u2019re in the gymnasium, or at least passable, for other levels. <\/p>\n

Are Americans deficient because we don\u2019t study a foreign language until high school? \u00a0(In our school district, the graduation requirement is either two years of a foreign language OR a year of a \u201cvocational\u201d class.) <\/p>\n

One could argue that Americans simply don\u2019t need to study a foreign language. \u00a0After all, the language that students are studying the world over is the lingua franca<\/i>, the International Language of Business, and American students have the good fortune to have grown up speaking this language from infancy. \u00a0All<\/i> other languages are secondary, and there\u2019s no single other obvious language which should have pride of place from an international business perspective. \u00a0You could make a case for Chinese (though I would expect that the language is so complex that studying it in school wouldn\u2019t really get you far enough to function independently there), or German (not just for its place in the business world but its role in Eastern European business), or French (opening up all of Francophone Africa), as well as Spanish (though its significance in international business is much smaller than its geographic spread, my experience is that our Mexican office has a weaker grasp on English than my other international colleagues). \u00a0And \u2014 let\u2019s face it \u2014 most American students will not find themselves, in the future, working at a job which involves international business. <\/p>\n

Hence, perhaps American students are better off if that instructional time is used to improve their English composition skills and other core subjects.<\/p>\n

But we are headed to a place in which Spanish dominates American foreign language instruction. \u00a0Statistics published in today\u2019s Tribune <\/a>indicate that, in Illinois, 83% of AP exams with a 4 or a 5 were Spanish; the next largest number, French, were less than 1\/10th as numerous, with Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian, and Latin ranking lower.<\/p>\n

The context is a feature on a new credential on high school diplomas and transcripts, the State Seal of Biliteracy. \u00a0And while the article neutrally states that any language is eligible, the gist of the article indicates that what is happening in practice is that Spanish is dominating foreign language instruction, in part because, while high schools have the resources to offer multiple foreign languages (at our school, it\u2019s Spanish, French, Mandarin and \u2014 for no reason that I can tell \u2014 Italian), schools that start foreign language in elementary school nearly universally choose Spanish, except in the case of special, grant-funded or magnet programs. \u00a0(A local school has a Japanese-immersion classroom, with half-days in each of English and Japanese, to accommodate and benefit from a large population of Japanese expats; another school offered Mandarin due to a Chinese government grant.)<\/p>\n

(Of course, on top of this, I suspect that a significant motivator behind the special \u201cbilingual\u201d recognition is to boost the achievement of Latin American immigrant kids.)<\/p>\n

So, on top of my disappointment last year in learning that my son couldn\u2019t take German in high school, it makes me sad that we\u2019re losing diversity in foreign language instruction. \u00a0And I won\u2019t even start discussing whether the increased emphasis on Americans learning Spanish will be yet another contributor to Spanish-speaking immigrants failing to assimilate and learn English.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In most of the world, students start learning English early. \u00a0In Germany, English class starts in the late elementary years, not as a \u201cspecial\u201d or an enrichment class once a week, but as a standard part of the curriculum, which means that by the time they graduate high school, their English is quite good, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,190],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education","tag-spanish"],"yoast_head":"\nShould Spanish be America's standard first-foreign-language?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In most of the world, students start learning English early.  In Germany, English class starts in the late elementary years, not as a "special" or an\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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