Where is the problem?
The problem seems to be rooted in the second language lessons that are offered in university but the other seemingly bigger problem is attitude; Americans see English as the only language that they need and they will rarely bother to learn additional languages because according to them, they don’t need them.
This attitude is a recent one; historically, American culture was a lot more bilingual. It came with the immigrants in the 19th century. They held on to their native languages in every way – they spoke them and even published legislation using them. This however changed in the 1880’s, a huge influx of these same immigrants started to develop nationalist movements; Americanization was their agenda and part of that was holding on to English as the only language. Slowly, their native languages disappeared resulting in the monolingual America that we have today. By the time the 1st World War came around, America identified itself as a country that spoke only English and even legislation that had been written in second languages was translated.
Today, research shows that teaching children to speak and write more than one language has great benefits; it helps not just in linguistic development but in cognitive and educational development as well as cultural benefits. Despite this, second languages continue to be absent in school curriculums throughout America. According to Arabic professor Mahmoud Al-Batal, “We don’t just teach language but also culture. By doing so we emphasize the importance of understanding the ‘other.” He adds, “A person who speaks another language is perceived as more intelligent, smarter and a better student.” This opens up opportunities; because you are perceived as smarter it’s easier to get jobs, and better paying jobs at that.
American students complain that second languages are too hard and time consuming to learn and they are allowed to get away with it. Even when the languages are available in school, students are not encouraged to learn them. Where these programs are actively pushed on the children, they have been highly successful. The only problem is that where they are available they are very expensive and adults have very little access to them.
Can be fixed?
There is no easy fix to the monolingual problem of America we as legislators, teachers, parents and future leaders can do something about it. If we can encourage policies for second languages if we want to interact effectively with other countries.
One reader of the Daily Texan commented: We have a fundamental problem in our country with American Exceptionalism (and therefore English exceptionalism as well). Remember the Republican debates the last election? Mitt Romney and John Huntsman were ridiculed for speaking French and Chinese. They were called 'unamerican' for speaking other languages. We certainly love being exceptional, even if it means we are horribly undereducated.
By gabriele monti
Gabriele loves teaching languages and writing news about language learning for www.thelanguageclass.co.uk
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