CC BY
15PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
LACK OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN THE USA
Kashkinbayeva M.
Student of Regional Studies major, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Astana
Abstract
Although the United States of America take a leading position in many respects, budget cuts, low enrollments, and teacher shortages mean the country is falling behind the rest of the world. Year by year, as the national fund's priorities are being determined, language education remains peripheral. This prospective study was designed to investigate the problem of the US lacking language skills dwelling on the scientific articles, explore the role of the foreign languages in the US educational system, as well as, take attempts to find possible solutions.
Keywords: lingua franca, foreign language, the US educational system, lacking language skills
The history of the foreign languages deficit in the US
Over the last century, foreign languages didn't have much impact on the US citizens' life. Nowadays, less than 1 percent of grown-ups in America are proficient in a foreign language which was taught at their US schools.
In other words, foreign languages started to lose their position in American educational system. As US colleges and universities had a drop in foreign languages department, the need for comprehensive survey appeared. Therefore, since 1958, the Modern Language Association has been holding an investigation over the number of enrollments in languages other than English at US institutions of higher education. In their 2015 report, the tendency of steady decrease can be outlined, i.e. involvement in such courses declined by 6.7 percent (compared to 2013 and 2009 data) [1, p. 1].
To be more specific, the percentage of elementary and middle schools offering foreign language instruction diminished dramatically from 1997 to 2008 from 31% to 25% in elementary schools, and from 75% to 58% in middle schools. The drop occurred primarily in public schools. The number of high schools, including foreign languages in their curriculum, between 1997 and 2008 stayed steady at about 93% [2, p. 1]. Moreover, the percentage of public and private elementary schools offering foreign language instruction decreased from 31 to 25 percent from 1997 to 2008. Instruction at public elementary schools dropped from 24 percent to 15 percent, with rural districts hit the hardest [3, p.1], which resolves in overall decrease throughout the centuries in studying foreign languages.
The role of foreign languages in the US educational system
Director of language policy initiatives at the University of Maryland stated, 'An absence of support for
language learning at a federal level is creating more concern in the US. There is no education policy, as well as, probably will never be. Language education in the US has been seen mostly as a national security issue not an education issue.' [5, p.3].
In 2013, approximately 198,000 US students were taking French course. At the same time, only 64 students were studying Bengali; whereas around the world, over 193 million people speak Bengali, but just 75 million people speak French. In 2010, European languages made up 95 percent of all courses in American educational system. As US education secretary, Arne Duncan, declared, that it revealed the shortcomings and inequalities in language education today [4, p. 1].
About one-third of elementary and secondary schools with language programs reported that language teaching had been negatively affected by No Child Left Behind program, because focus on reading skills and Math had drawn resources away from foreign languages which were not included in the law's accountability measures.
Regarding the topic of foreign languages teaching in US educational institutions, MLA identified 219 languages in American higher education in 2006. Out of a total enrollment of 17,648,000 students, only 1,522,770 (8.6%) took foreign language courses.
This year, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and the classical languages accounted for 80% of the total language enrollments. Besides, only 10% of students studied Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Korean that are accepted as extremely important [2, p. 2].
To be more specific, the table below illustrates the top 15 language enrollments (other than English) in US educational system.
Table 1.
Enrollments in Top 15 languages other than English
Languages Fall 2002 enrollments Fall 2006 enrollments change
Spanish 746,267 822,985 10.9%
French 201,979 206,426 2.2%
German 91,100 94,264 3.5%
Italian 63,899 78,829 29.7%
Japanese 52,238 66,605 27,5%
Chinese 34,153 51,582 51.0%
Russian 23,921 24,845 3.9%
Arabic 10,584 23,974 126.5%
Modern Hebrew 8,619 9,612 11.5%
Portuguese 8,385 10,267 22.4%
Korean 5,211 7,145 37.1%
American Sign Language 60,781 78,829 29.7%
Latin 29,841 32,191 7.9%
Ancient Greek 20,376 22,849 12.1%
Biblical Hebrew 14,183 14,140 -0.3%
204 other languages 25,716 33,728 31.2%
Total enrollments 1,397,253 1,577,810 12.9%
Overall, total enrollments in foreign languages increased by 12.9% between 2002 and 2006. It's blatantly obvious that Spanish remained the most taught language. The number of students studying this language far exceeded those who studied European languages more than twice. The largest increases at four-year colleges between 2002 and 2006 were in Arabic (126.5%) and Chinese (51%). Nevertheless, even with these considerable growths, the total number of students studying these languages remained very small.
So, the information above can easily prove inexpediency of US educational system. Nowadays, about 7,000 languages are spoken ubiquitously, and it would take several lives for one person to learn all of them. Spanish and French are often default offerings at institutions across the country. However, there is a wide range of variability — focuses tend to change over time. Janet Ikeda, a Japanese-language professor, spoke on this subject, 'Administrators are cutting established programs for what I call the 'language du jour.'
Questionnaire: foreign languages in
The MLA has tracked data over seven decades showing the impact of international and domestic developments on language education. But, these pop-up programs may be misguided: Learning a language in a non-immersive classroom setting takes years. So if schools are offering learning the "language du jour" today, it's bound to be the "language d'hier" tomorrow [4, p.3].
During the investigation, I interviewed some Americans from Minnesota and California, who already graduated from their US schools. Twelve eighteen-year-olds were asked to give responses to the list of questions. There were three questions:
1. Which foreign languages did you study at school?
2. Was there any agitation work in your environment?
3. Did you have a lot of foreign language courses, language schools, institutions etc. in your environment?
The results of the questionnaire are given below.
Table 2.
Participants First question Second question Third question
Candidate 1 MN Spanish no no
Candidate 2CA Spanish no no
Candidate 3 MN Spanish no no
Candidate 4 MN French no no
Candidate 5 MN Spanish yes no
Candidate 6 MN Spanish yes no
Candidate 7 CA Spanish no no
Candidate 8 CA Spanish no no
Candidate 9 CA Spanish yes no
Candidate 10 MN French no no
Candidate 11 MN Spanish yes no
Candidate 12 MN Spanish no no
In total 10 Spanish, 2 French 8 "no", 4 "yes" 12 "no"
According to this interview, I found that the most narrow specialization in American high schools (at taught foreign language was Spanish; only two individ- least in Minnesota and California). There was ex-uals studied French at school. This is an indicator of tremely low level of propaganda among Minnesota
high schools (only one person acknowledged the presence of agitation work). As all interviewees answered the third question, immensely small number of students studying foreign languages directly connected with inadequate number of these languages courses and specialized places.
To sum up, as soon as foreign languages are incorporated as a compulsory subject at school and university programs, and as soon as the learning of foreign languages becomes a priority in the curriculum, it is hardly that the American educational system will produce graduates who can communicate effectively in a foreign language.
Possible reasons of foreign languages low skills in the US
The role of foreign languages within US educational system is precisely minimal. Nevertheless, there is a question: why is that Americans are lacking in multilingual skills?
Washington Post article speculates that business, technology and new course offerings may be pulling students' focus away from languages. Clayton Lewis, Head of School at Washington International School, put forward two other hypotheses. Firstly, Americans may firmly believe in so-called English-language-ex-ceptionalism. It's well known that English is lingua franca of all areas. US students, therefore, may find it unnecessary to learn any other language. Perhaps if their only competitors in the global job market were other monolingual Americans, there would be no reason for concern. However, there will be fierce competition among well-educated graduates from Europe, China, Mexico and many other countries who have already mastered English on top of their mother tongue. The reality of the twenty-first century is that monolingual Americans will definitely lose multilingual ones.
According to C. Lewis, another explanation is phenomenon of American laziness. Usually, US students are taking the easy way out. The situation with learning foreign languages is extremely difficult, because there is no quick way to learn them. Real fluency comes easily for very few and must be constantly cultivated if it is to be maintained. Honestly speaking, if you surf the web for about half an hour you will find that US people struggle to even write and read English correctly. This points out that they are either refusing to learn English and act like cavemen or they are simply lazy and don't want to be bothered.
Apart from it, US educational system tends to debate the real importance of learning foreign languages. American educators disagree about whether or not it's a worthwhile investment - whether it produces a greater return than, for example, social studies. Additionally, the educators face the problem of which language they should take precedence.
As a result, the problem of teacher shortages appeared. The language-policy analyst Rachel Hanson describes this as a big chicken-or-the-egg challenge in language education: "You can't expand language education if you don't have the pool of teachers to teach it," she said. "And, if the students aren't learning the language and becoming proficient, they won't become teachers." [4, p.3]
Approximate solutions
Personally, I think United States have multiple solutions to the problem with foreign languages. Suggested ones included giving more recognition to heritage languages, improving lobbying for languages in the way that has recently proved successful for science subjects, using technology better to support language teaching, identifying role models, and getting employers on board. In other words, a fundamental change in attitudes is extremely needed.
Furthermore, another solution can be dual-language instruction. This program includes a variety of subjects which are taught in two languages, thereby eliminating the need to hire a separate language instructor. A great number of benefits can be outlined in this course. As an instance, elementary school children are most likely to get immediate impact on their overall learning. Bill Rivers, one of the country's most prominent language lobbyists, points to significant evidence that students in dual-language programs outperform their peers in reading and math by fourth grade — regardless of their race or socioeconomic status [4, p. 2].
All of those solutions are achievable. And I hope they will be accomplished as soon as possible.
In short, US education system is now failing to provide with critical skills the majority of this country's youth. Due to American conservatism, there is more to offer for studying European languages. However, the world is currently in a state of globalization. While Asian countries are getting more and more influence, there is no non-Western language offerings in US.
As a result, many young Americans face the problem of being worse than not only Asians, but also Europeans. The Modern Language Association reports, 'There may be fewer students taking courses in languages other than English, but the ones who are enrolled are often going further than ever before and presumably are being put in a position to gain greater proficiency than ever before.'
Therefore, to involve America in world trend of globalization, there should be comprehensive approach to foreign language acquisition that will prepare the next generation of Americans for success in a highly competitive, tightly interconnected world.
In conclusion, I would like to add president of the American Council of Learned Societies, Pauline Yu's quotation, 'Language isn't just a bridge between cultures. It's a gateway into a culture.'
REFERENCES:
1. C. Lewis Monolingual Myopia // The Huffington Post website article. 2015. P. 1-2
2. Thompson Languages in the U.S. Educational System // About world languages website article. 2013. P. 1-62
3. D. Skorton, G. Altschuler America's Foreign Language Deficit // Forbes magazine's article. 2012. P. 1-2
4. A. Friedman America's Lacking Language Skills // The Atlantic magazine article. 2015. P. 1-3
5. H. Swain Lack of languages stifles Brits and Americans // The Guardian journal article. 2014. P.1-4
