Foreign Language in Schools

Do you think it is neccessary to have a required 2 years of foreign language in high school to be accepted in to most 4 year colleges. Personally I think it's rediculous and we should choose if we want to learn a new language, and not have to learn a language if we dont want to. Sure it will make you more well rounded, and good for the people who want to be. But what about the people, like me, who are satisfied with being unilingual?

By that logic, a lot of what we're taught as required curriculum is rather unnecessary. Someone might be content with basic knowledge of algebra and would rather not move on to Geometry, Trigonometry and so forth. Why should they learn it, right? Same could apply to any subject. By no means do I have any desire to be a chemist, yet Chemistry is a required course.

Being content with what you know is not the point of getting an education. It's to make you a more knowledgeable and intelligent person, to broaden your horizons and open you up to fields you might be interested in. I didn't know what I was going to be a first, and found out that I quite enjoy foreign language after having had the chance to learn one that interests me. Now, I'm planning on majoring in linguistics.

If anything, American schools should teach foreign languages at a far younger age than 13, when the child's mind is still in it's prime. To be fluent in a foreign language or two upon graduation from highscool would be beneficial for both the student and society as a whole. Communications between Americans and foreigners would likely be much more smooth and the student would have extremely useful skills to use throughout his or her life that would look great on college and job applications.

Other countries that have adopted such systems (teaching foreign languages in a child's earliest years) make me writhe with jealousy. They're most fortunate, those students.

Only two years, you don't know how good you have it! My district makes you take one year in middle school and three in high school! It's insane!

I think that now is the perfect time to learn languages, since the world is forming together, what with the strengthened European Nations, and of course, it is handy to know languages to attain a certain job - for me, I want to teach Modern Foreign languages,

So far, at my old school (with Angelic) I learned how to speak French and German, and being a Greek Cyprioy, Gebraega (Cypriot dialect of Greek - 'Ellinika') had to be learned.
At my new school, I am not only continuing these at a higher level, I am learning Chinese (Mandirin) and shall learn Russian when the new system is brought in.

For me, I do agree that if you do not want to pusue a career in languages, being forced to learn a language is a waste of time, although, I was convinced I wanted to be a Marine Biologist until recently, so perhaps, in the long run, it would be advantageous to learn a language

Originally Posted by Oracleofages

Do you think it is neccessary to have a required 2 years of foreign language in high school to be accepted in to most 4 year colleges. Personally I think it's rediculous and we should choose if we want to learn a new language, and not have to learn a language if we dont want to. Sure it will make you more well rounded, and good for the people who want to be. But what about the people, like me, who are satisfied with being unilingual?

Well, I actually think learning a new language SHOULD be a necessity, because it really does play an important role in every day life. Not to be rascist or anything, but there is a large quantity of Hispanics where I live, (they are the majority in Texas) and I have friendly relationships with many of them. By taking Spanish, (my foreign language class) I can easily relate with them on both fields, English and Spanish.

And on the long run, taking a different language allows you to assume more carriers, especially if the language is taken at an IB school. I would rather learn a different langauge for yet another reason: SAT scores. I may only be in the 7th grade, and be taking Spanish 1A, but my school is a 1st-12th, IB, college-prep school, so each grade we move up, we learn more about college and are prepared for it.

My Latin teacher told us that those who take Spanish score a good bit higher than those who take nothing, French scores a little higher than Spanish, Latin scores much higher than both, and Russian scores higher than Latin. There are many more languages you can take, of course.

An overview of that:

SAT scores:

Other, extremely difficult languages.
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Russian
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Latin
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French
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Spanish
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Nothing.

^That's pretty much how she drew it out on the board for us, and it really got me thinking about college and how taking more languages is really going to help me succeed.

2? My school requires 3 years of one language, or 4 years of two seperate ones (meaning two years of two languages). I wish I had an eariler opprotunity to learn a language, though. Being bilingual would have been cool. But I think I've been speaking English and am used to it so much I'm having difficulty getting the hang of another language.

I also wish I was offered more than just Spanish (I'm taking that), French, Latin, and German. An Asian language like Chinese would have been hard because it's not related to English, but Chinese would still be useful. And learning a language like Arabic would be nice, too. There's a high demand for it, and also, my grandparents were Arabic and spoke the it as a first language, but never taught my mother. Now they are no longer with us, and never taught a word to my mother (they used it as a way to talk around my mom and her siblings without the kids understanding them). My mom should be able to speak it and pass it on to me. I feel jipped now. I should be bilingual!

...

Thus ending my rant.

I think languages should still be taught. Like was mentioned before, you never know what you'll be interested. I'm in 12th grade and I've been taking Italian since 7th grade. Now I'm taking an AP class, which, depending on how well I do on the AP test, may make me exempt from taking a second language in college.

I think it is good that they force you to take language classes but, I wish our school had more languages to chose from, other than French, Spanish, and Portugesse. If they had Latin I would drop French for that in a heartbeat.

I agree with Foreign Language classes being required, although I believe they should teach it at an earlier age. To teach foreign language in high school when you can teach it in elementary seems pointless to me, unless the students never had the opportunity. If they taught foreign languages in elementary school, we would practically all be bilingual.

I completely agree with it being required.

Originally Posted by Tsukasa

If anything, American schools should teach foreign languages at a far younger age than 13, when the child's mind is still in it's prime. To be fluent in a foreign language or two upon graduation from highscool would be beneficial for both the student and society as a whole. Communications between Americans and foreigners would likely be much more smooth and the student would have extremely useful skills to use throughout his or her life that would look great on college and job applications.

I agree. And have more options available. When I attended high school, only French & Spanish were the language options available. They used to teach German until WW2... But there was a teacher willing to teach it after school hours...

If netiher of those langauge options suited you, had no choice but to wait until you went to collage & hoped that they had language courses other than french & spanish. My boyfriend had to wait until he went to collage to take courses to learn Japanese.

I think foreign language courses should be available for children in pre-school, but that's just my personal opinion.

one important thing about taking other languages is that you learn more about your own language. I find my french extremely helpful in terms of figuring out the roots of words (helps with figuring out the meaning and spelling and more) by knowing even a bit of french grammar. english was very french influenced (special thanks to william the conqueror). latin is another important language, especially if you're in the sciences.

Other countries that have adopted such systems (teaching foreign languages in a child's earliest years) make me writhe with jealousy. They're most fortunate, those students.

I couldn't agree more! I'm seriously regretting not ordering those Spanish Muzzy tapes when I was five....

I personally, am all for the foreigen language courses. In Europe, most people are bilingual, many knowing more than two- I don't see why Americans can't learn one extre language.

I'm a Spanish student, My school is extremely limited in language courses- we just have Spniash, French, and I believe an after-school German Club. But that's about it. Still, it's important for me to learn another language... especially Spanish, since that's the other big language in the US.

I think it's important that we are made to learn a second language, but it shouldn't be compulsory to get into a college. Not everyone is good with languages.

Here's what my school requires:

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Five years of French and four years of German
or
Four years of French and five years of German

Six years of English

Three years of Latin and five years of Old-Greek
or
Six years of Latin and two years of Old-Greek

Of course, six years of Dutch

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That is the absolute minimum, here's what I'm (going to) choose:

Six years of French
Four years of German
Six years of English
Six years of Latin
Six years of Dutch
Two years of Old-Greek (I've already finished those)

I'm quite proud of it, as you may have noticed

I think foreign languages are very important, certainly if you live in a small country like The Netherlands. If you want peace, you have to be able to negotiate, and for negotiation, you have to understand eachother. Therefor, you need to learn some foreign languages. Of course, if you live in an English-speaking country like the US, you have an advantage to the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by King_NeoRej

Here's what my school requires:

---

Five years of French and four years of German
or
Four years of French and five years of German

Six years of English

Three years of Latin and five years of Old-Greek
or
Six years of Latin and two years of Old-Greek

Of course, six years of Dutch

---

That is the absolute minimum, here's what I'm (going to) choose:

Six years of French
Four years of German
Six years of English
Six years of Latin
Six years of Dutch
Two years of Old-Greek (I've already finished those)

I'm quite proud of it, as you may have noticed

I think foreign languages are very important, certainly if you live in a small country like The Netherlands. If you want peace, you have to be able to negotiate, and for negotiation, you have to understand eachother. Therefor, you need to learn some foreign languages. Of course, if you live in an English-speaking country like the US, you have an advantage to the rest of the world.

Yes and that advantage also leads to ignorance on the part of those who speak as a first language. I know this to be true in America, and that ignorance is also made fun of by most Europeans. "Since I speak English, why should I have to learn a foreign language?". That is why I think it should be required. Here is a European saying I was told by a friend of mine, her name is Swantje(from Germany). "If you speak two languages you are bi-lingual, if you speak three then you are tri-lingual, but if you speak one then you are American." This is sad but true, if we want to erase this then we have to show some effort in trying to learn other cultures. This is also a reason why Americans find so many things annoying about Europeans, Americans don't understand their culture.

Also from what you said it seems the language classes in the Nederlands are quite harder than some of western Europe. What I've been told by German and French students I've talked to this is what they must learn:

5th Grade: Start English
7th Grade: Start a second language. Most French learn German and vice versa.

In America, you only start a foreign language, if you choose to in 9th grade. Then you mostly likely will only take two years of it. Really not learning much , and by the time you graduate you will remeber nothing.

Well a little long but you get why I think it is necessary, if you want to be more global then you must learn another language.

Originally Posted by Ogmios22188

I think languages should still be taught. Like was mentioned before, you never know what you'll be interested. I'm in 12th grade and I've been taking Italian since 7th grade. Now I'm taking an AP class, which, depending on how well I do on the AP test, may make me exempt from taking a second language in college.

if it's your first, you will be screwed, subsequent AP test seem to get easier as you are more adapted and prepared, atleast that is my experience.


As for making 2 years a necessity for college acceptance, I think EVERYONE should be taking two years as an HS graduation requirement. Just letting you know, only low-performing colleges accept people in with only two years, many recomend four. I unfortunately started Spanish late, in sophomore year, so I am taking extra classes for it at my local community college. I plan to have 4 years worth of languages under my belt before I apply to any colleges, three of spanish and one of German, if I had to, i could probably take one of French as well(since it is similar to german spanish and english it wouldn't be hard.)