Submitted 12 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Or open up job prospect and educational value?
lol. if that was a requirement I would have never graduated. I even had some requirements in college. me and a buddy exchanging transcripts as we got close to garduating. My buddy. “You know, you actually get pretty good grades” (ok I don’t know why he acted as if its a surprise. I think he meant it more of complimentary way than it came out) “oh. except in spanish.”
most Americans don’t need any foreign language to pass high school.
Yeah my high school said colleges would like for you to take a foreign language class, but it’s not required to graduate from here. Some students did think it was required to graduate and a couple I talked to at the time were surprised to learn I didn’t take any and still graduated.
At my high school you needed 2 communication credits, foreign languages counted, so did drama, journalism, year book, cheer squad (this always puzzled me as it was not even a class), and others I am sure I am forgetting as it was 30ish years ago.
11 states have foreign language requirements, but really we shouldn’t even count them. A single 20-30 minute class per day is not going to achieve any proficiency in a foreign language. The only way for an American to actually achieve foreign language proficiency is to go to a 1/2 and 1/2 school.
US isn’t even teaching the 1 very well. 7th grade is way too late to begin that kind of learning.
7th grade? I never took a foreign language until 9th grade. I have two nephews, and both of them never took one until 10th.
Mine was 7th and 8th were each half of WhateverLanguage 1 course.
Not sure about other countries, but here in Norway, English lessons start in the 2nd grade. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s similar in the rest of Europe.
English starts in 3rd grade here and a second language like French or Spanish usually in 5th grade. Starting to learn foreign languages in high school is wild.
In Portugal, mandatory English classes start on the 5th grade, but from 1st grade kids have the option to take English classes as an extracurricular
What traveling? You don’t need 4 languages for Disney World/Land.
Clearly you haven’t been to EPCOT.
Learning a language helps develop the brain.
Hahah travel. Funny joke.
In truth, though, a small number of school districts do do immersive bilingual K-12 education. That means the full curriculum is bilingual…around here usually English/Spanish. Not just one class. Usually in tightly integrated (read: mixed-race) communities.
I mean, for one thing, high school lasts a finite amount of time
Why not make it mandatory for 40 or 50 languages? Why not 100? Why not all languages?
In my poor, rural school district (growing up), Spanish was taught starting in kindergarten. In high school, grades 9 - 12, two semesters of foreign language were required to graduate (or you had to demonstrate you qualified for an exception such as that you were already at least bilingual). The school offered French and Spanish. The only reason French was even an option is because of one special teacher, whom we were lucky to have, had a degree in French language arts or something like that. Other schools in the area only had Spanish.
You’ll probably recognize this when you’re older, but nearly everything in life is a balance of constraints and concerns. Teaching languages costs money, often in short supply, and requires qualified educators, often in short supply.
But also, what the hell do you even mean “upper hand when traveling”? I’d be shocked if most non-bilingual Americans who went through the education system in the USA spend more than 1 or 2 weeks in their entire lives some place where being bilingual would give them some kind of upper hand.
One might argue that Spanish alone would probably cover an enormous amount of those who have spent more than 1 or 2 weeks outside of English speaking parts of the world. But it all seems like an enormous waste of time and energy and resources just to make sure the most privileged amongst us have “the upper hand” when they travel. That’s time and energy and resources that could probably be more wisely spent elsewhere to be honest, and for those privileged folks who have the luxury of traveling and need “the upper hand” – they can turn in their privilege bucks and pay for their own education to learn 3 or 4 languages, I would think? Perhaps they could cut back to only 4 trips to Italy this year and use the savings for some lessons on how to speak Italian.
I honestly think it’s because in measures of distance, a US American could be considered well-traveled without ever having left the United States. Living in DC and visiting Florida or California is a big trip logistically. I love to travel and have moved a LOT and I have just barely been to every state in the US (some I only drove through, fuck rural Nebraska). While I disagree personally, I think that most Americans just don’t see the immediate utility in learning other languages.
Not learning Spanish in school as a requirement at this point is just racism, though.
I grew up in the shittiest state and even we took Spanish. Middle school though. I’d say if we ever get through this racist fest, the basics of French, Spanish, and Chinese would be nice in elementary. Maybe with more advanced options for Spanish in later years since that’s our best chance for cultural immersion if they leave our Latina/Latino brothers and sisters alone for 5 seconds.
This topic comes up so often here…
I barely even remember much of anything taught in 2 years of spanish classes in middle school…
Now try 4 languages…
I never even have a situation where I need Spanish… and its the most popular language here behind English… imagine how quick French, German would atrophy… literally never met a french or german speaker irl…
I’m a native Mandarin speaker and since arriving in the US, I’ve only spoken it like to a total of 5 people maybe(?) (Mandarin not spoken at home, it’s Cantonese instead) Like I rarely need it…
How many Americans (except for Chinese Americans visiting relatives maybe) would actually need to visit China?
Unless you keep using the language, you will loose it, I am bilingual Swedish/English, and since I practice both constantly, I retain my skills.
I did take Spanish as well for a few few years, but have mostly forgotten it.
Tried using my school Spanish once on holiday. Difference between German school Spanish and Spain Spanish is way too big, it’s like even in Madrid they’re using completely different pronounciation rules.
To be fair, no school is going to adequately prepare you for what the local population speaks. Youre only ever going to learn “proper” conversation, but you need to be run through the actual speakers to learn tone, dialect, and slang.
Huh, I didn’t know americans need to do any foreign language. But 3 or 4 is way too much. I could barely manage 2.
I had three and only gained actual usable proficiency in one (English).
You only need to do it for getting into top schools.
English is the defacto global language and I think you’d be surprised how many Americans never leave the US, and how significantly fewer never leave North America.
Learning languages would be great, but there are lots of other things that the US education system has been failing at which are arguably far more important…
Yeah, sure would be useful. But you only have so many years to teach the kids everything.
What do you prioritize down in favour of another language?
Setting non-travel jokes aside for aoment because somehow Americans don’t travel but they also get spotted as obvious tourists in their jeans and golf shorts.
Between prior English imperialism and recent American global market share, just about any place with a decent internet connection will have English as a viable communication language. It won’t always be great and you may have to talk to a few different people to find one that speaks enough English. The places I’ve been often have ads in English. Often enough, they’re not even dual language ads.
Now combine that with American exceptionalism and you’ll see Americans don’t see a need to learn anything else. No, they don’t see the irony in demanding the language of England as their one and only language heard in the 'States.
But, in a less cynical take, that country is huge and geographically diverse. There are many Americans that travel. Americans that travel domestically (or even only Can/US/Mex) should not be shamed. Language aside, different regions can have as much diversity as denser countries. Think about your stereotype for a resident of California, then New York, and lastly Texas. That is, after all, because the US is actually 50 states in a trench coat.
By the time I graduated high school, I spoke Latin in German fluently. In the last 30 years, I have traveled neither to Germany, nor ancient Rome.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Na denn, what’s stopping you?
Money. Or, more specifically, the lack there of.
I hope you don’t mind a non-US-American comment on this one. I see this kind of statement/question quite often and I have a few things to say about it:
It’s not rare to find people who speak more than 3 languages around the world. However in most countries schools just cover the languages you are expected to know in your country/region and the most common lingua franca(e). You guys simply need less languages in your daily business. If anything, there should be a bigger emphasis on Spanish in your education, at least in some states.
The truly foreign languages we learn at school do not stick with most of us. On the one hand, we had to pick a language that we may have not been interested in. On the other hand, you need to spend much more time beyond and after school to get beyond the basics for real life communication - even if the common reference level says otherwise. Even English or the respective lingua franca for the given region is mostly learned from real day-to-day communication. The school lessons serve more or less as a frame.
Sure, learning a foreign language is naturally useful for traveling, job prospects and educational value. But when you rewire/extend your brain a language beyond some basics for traveling, you have a bigger understanding how different languages can be, how much gets lost in translation and how little you understand of the world.
I’m not sure, if Spanish in the USA can be as important as e.g. English in many European countries (as an outsider I get the impression that it should be even more important :D), but I think treating it that way would be a much bigger benefit for the entire USA. Oh and 4) most bilingual Europeans who are yapping about dumb Americans on the internet have no idea how ignorant they are themselves. Greetings from a child of immigrants from Germany! <3
As someone who grew up bilingual in the US and now knows 3 languages, the US is fucking allergic to secondary languages. It’s the xenophobia
Most Americans don’t travel so it would be wasted if none of those languages come to them.
What about all the native Spanish speakers who are already in the US?
Spanish is the one language other than English that is mandatory in many schools. It was in mine.
You’re free to learn as many languages as you’d like.
Nah bro. I would rather blame the school or my parents or whatever, then actually put in any effort in my life!
bold of you to assume US high schools have money for even one foreign language
US schools already have a hard time teaching proficiency in English.
Why would I learn another language when everyone else should just learn american.
I think it’s because they want to keep us stupid and withdrawn from the world as a whole. The US is kind of a giant prison, but with some shiny things to distract the more well off inmates from caring as much. For those who are poor, they’ll be aware but have hardly a network to figure out how to escape. Language is incredibly important and also allows you to think in different ways depending on what languages you know; gives different perspective. They don’t want us to think.
It’s more likely that most people wouldn’t pass high school anymore
Its not like people can even focus with all the chaos that goes on in classrooms… (disruptive kids)
I believe you have overestimated the amount of americans who travel outside of cruises and all inclusive english speaking resorts
AA5B@lemmy.world 27 minutes ago
I can see the argument of more focus on a second language, but more languages usually means not enough for any of them.
My high school required 3 years of a language: I took 5 Spanish courses but was clearly never fluent.
In my kids high school, it was the first class in an immersion program program from early elementary through high school. Many of them were fluent. That should be a goal.