Foreign languages broaden students global view

It's not enough just to be able to speak English.

Learning a foreign language or two broadens global understanding and might be one of the keys to getting a job.

"Most of the world speaks multiple languages," said Martha Nyikos, associate professor and immediate past chair of the Language Education Department at Indiana University in Bloomington.

"Americans are rather monolingual and monocultural," she said. "Many people grow up speaking more than one language. Many of the students whom I teach at Indiana University come here speaking English as their third or fourth language."

Schools should begin offering languages as soon as possible, Nyikos said, and offer them continuously from elementary through high school.

"Sometimes what happens is when a new language is offered at a school, the option, because of budgetary constraints, is to drop another language where the enrollment is down or the teacher is retiring," she said.

The challenge for schools is maintaining language programs while simultaneously seeking to improve math and science scores, said Steve Ackley, spokesman for the Virginia-based American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Still, research shows learning a foreign language improves the cognitive abilities needed to learn other subjects like math and history, Ackley said.

The most popular languages remain French, Spanish and German, but their dominance is slowly decreasing in the face of growing interest in Arabic, Chinese and Korean, according to a survey conducted by the New York-based Modern Language Association.

"We know that learning another language gives us a privileged access to other cultures," said Rosemary Feal, the association's executive director. "Learning another language makes us better able to function in a world where borders have been erased and the world is shrinking, from an economic and political point of view, and (it) helps us to function more effectively in a changed world."

In Northwest Indiana, Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond and Portage High School had been among the few schools offering Chinese.

However, Portage's teacher retired in June, and the district has been unable to find a replacement, said guidance counselor Jennifer Symer. Today, the district offers French, German, Latin and Spanish.

Bishop Noll Principal Colleen McCoy-Ceja said Chinese is important because it's a global language, and students interested in business do well to take Chinese.

Dawn Greene, assistant superintendent for the School City of East Chicago, said there are a smattering of languages spoken in the district schools and at student homes, but Spanish and English are the predominant languages.

"We try and make sure we send out dual language letters home to our parents," she said.

David Rosenbaum, head of the foreign language department at Crown Point High School, said the school offers five foreign languages including 33 sections of Spanish, 12 sections of German and six sections of Japanese.

"On a very practical note if you're planning to attend college, almost every university will require a foreign language before you can graduate. If you have some proficiency, you can test out, saving time and money," Rosenbaum said.

"Even for those students who aren't going to university, there are many businesses in which a foreign language is a beneficial thing to have. It's another business tool when dealing with customers or suppliers."

He said Crown Point doesn't begin offering a foreign language until ninth grade, and he'd really like to see that changed.

"The earlier you begin a foreign language, the better your retention and the better your accent," he said.

To see the languages spoken in your community, visit the Modern Language Association Web site, at mla.org. At the bottom of the Web page, there is a language map data center where you can plug in your state, county, city or zip code to view the languages spoken in your own community.