The Foreign Language Dilemma

While nearly half of the world is bilingual, only 20 percent of Americans can converse in two languages. This poses the question; should every student be required to learn a foreign language? While this question has no definitive answer, looking at the facts around learning foreign languages may help you form a better-informed opinion around the subject.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, there is not a statewide graduation requirement for a second language, however, individual schools can choose to require a second language for students to graduate. Even so, all Pennsylvania schools are required to provide at least two world languages for students to choose from and one of these languages has to be a modern language.

English is the worlds most widely spoken language. Approximately 1.5 billion people speak English while only 400 million of those speakers use English as their first language. Those against requiring students to learn a second language claim that since the rest of the world is learning English, there is no use in requiring foreign languages in schools. Other people are against learning a second language in school being mandatory because leaning a new language in school is not effective. While students would be learning a new language in class, students would rarely use the newly required language skill outside of school, which means students take longer to retain the language and learn less.

Those who are proponents for foreign languages being required in schools point to the many benefits of foreign languages. Not only do foreign languages improve students chances for college admission and career prospects, but being bilingual improves problem solving skills and helps people travel in the future. Proponents also point to the fact that children learn languages better at a young age. By mandating a second language in school, children would be able to learn a second language earlier which would make it easier for them in the long run.

It doesn’t seem like either side of this argument will prevail anytime soon. For now, it is left to the students, their parents and individual schools as to whether students should learn a foreign language.