by Jerry Curtis

Created on: August 25, 2009

School districts should require their high school students to learn a foreign language for the same reasons that students are now required to learn history, civics and government. The latter subjects help the students learn something of their place in the world, their country, and their community; learning a foreign language would have likewise cultural benefits as well as others not so apparent. For example:

* Exposure to the language of another culture makes students better at English. Romance languages like French and Spanish, for example, have comparable rules about verb conjugation, pronoun case and subject and verb agreement. Learning a foreign language takes students beyond what they already learned, while building on their knowledge of English. Some students will also need some remedial basic English grammar study to make any progress in a foreign language.

* Exposure to the language of another culture provides insights into foreign cultures, their idiomatic oddities and contrasting thought process. The simple notion of syntax (the order of words) is highly instructive. For example, in Spanish the personal pronoun sometimes precedes the verb and sometimes follows it. The differences between English and the foreign language challenge the students to applying the consistent and analytical approach to grammar.

* Exposure to the language of another culture can have an "awakening" effect in many students, who often discover an aptitude they were not aware of. Language learning can employ several learning styles that can be both similar and different from each other. Requiring each student to take a language course would gather students across the spectrum of learning styles (the math and science whizzes and the English and Social Studies types) into one class. That gathering, in turn, would promote a sort of "cross pollination" that does not usually happen until college.

* Exposure to the language of another culture links a student's education to the real world of the United States. Some realities:

- According to the an MSN Encarta article the U.S. Bureau of the Census reports that about 18 percent (47 million) of the U.S. Population (about 300 million) speak a language other than English.

- Roughly 59 percent (28 million) of that 18 percent speak Spanish. Interestingly, as a second language, Spanish appears to be more resilient to generational atrophy. (Grandchildren of immigrants learn and speak Spanish as a family tradition.) So Spanish will not go away as our major second language.

- Business today is global. Professionals who know another language are more competitive in the job market.

- All of our neighbors to the south speak either Spanish or Portuguese. Even a pedestrian knowledge of Spanish is most helpful to U.S. tourists and travelers.

Finally, it is important to require high school students to learn a foreign language because youngsters do not always realize what is in their best interests. Sometimes enlightened decree trumps selfish personal preference.

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