Should College Students Be A Foreign Language?

In the New York Times, Room for Debate article. The first debater is against mandating foreign language classes as a requirement in college because she believes language cannot be taught well in a classroom setting. Instead, it is better obtained through experience to understand the whole language in natural form by practicing it and using it on a day to day bases as a form to communicate and not treated as an assignment. As for the second debater, she believes learning a new foreign language can be essential, but not ideal especially as a college student. She further supports her claim by mentioning in college the student should ultimately decide if he or she would like to take a foreign language class while studying for their decided degree. In contrast, the last debater sees the question in a positive light. She believes that taking a foreign language class in college is beneficial and necessary for the future of the working class individual. She claims that obtaining the knowledge of another language is what will get the student

What is your first language? Do you remember your first words? How about learning to pronounce or spell words of your first language? Would you ever learn a foreign language because it sounds like a lot of work. Today some students are required to learn another language. However all students in the US shouldn't have to be required. Some reasons may include students never using the language, not learning another language would free up time, and students may not learn as much as people think. This is why students in the US shouldn't have to be required to learn another language.

Everyone in America has had to learn a second language in order to obtain a high school diploma, however this ‘learning’ of a language is merely a short class that does little to tie one down to a second language. There are few students who continue to seek more and more knowledge about their intended language. Some lose interest, while others make excuses by saying that it is too hard. However, learning more than one language has so many benefits that it is mind boggling to me that more people like to remain monolingual. Obviously time and resources are a concern, but there are so many ways to learn a language that can be catered to one’s individual needs. Think about all of the people in our nation whose first language is not English.

Although the founding fathers decided to leave the idea of establishing a national language out of the Constitution, there have been several movements to establish English as the national language since then. Even though none of these movements could garnish enough support to make this into a reality, they have been influential in that English is the official language in 31 states. In recent years, five additional states have considered legislation that would mandate English as well (Schwarz 2014). Since many individual states have sided on the issue, it poses the question of if the national government should follow the trend as well. A strong argument can be made that the United States should make English as the official language because it would promote unity and patriotism among Americans, be economically beneficial for the nation while rightfully placing the responsibility to learn English on the non-English speaking immigrants.

Go West, Young People! And East! By: Nicholas Kristof inspired students to learn a second or third language. He makes the argument that all young people need to learn a second or third language, the language Kristof mentions is spanish. “All young americans should learn spanish” (P3). His stand for this is most retiring elderly people are going to move to these other countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru. His argument also is that learning a second language is good for the brain. Kristof mentioned in (P3) that it doesn’t make sense to take a spanish speaking class on campus but to rather move to said country and fall in love with one of the locals and experience learning that second or third language that way. The author also mentions in (P1) that “more than 130 different languages are spoken daily in commerce in

“Language is power. If you cannot understand or be understood you have no power. You are at the mercy of everyone.” – (Rudat, 1994, Stow, Dodd 356) Should Americans be required to learn Spanish as a second language? The construction of our nation stands on documents written in English, however English is not our official language nor has it ever been. America is a “melting pot” in which English is the most prominent language, followed closely by Spanish. Requiring Americans to learn Spanish is a great controversy; I strongly believe that it should be a requirement, because it improves academic achievements, career success, and cultural and social understanding. The controversy has great counter arguments such as the double standard Americans are held to, and further division of the country. Regarding the counterarguments, I still firmly believe that it should be a requirement because the integration of a second language in our schools is more beneficial to our country’s success as a whole.

If foreign language was not a required class, this individual may have never realized becoming a Spanish major was a more suitable fit. Going into the field that fits an individual best is extremely important for their future happiness and success.

I bet everyone of you has complained about having to take Spanish in middle school, right? Trevor, and Blake I’m talking about you. But do any of you know how many people speak spanish in the united States? According to The huffington post 33 million people can or are speaking spanish right now. Can you believe that? 33 million people in the united states speak spanish, wouldn’t you want to learn a second language, at that rate a language that almost the whole world knows how to speak and understands? Many people will argue with me asking ‘why would you want to learn an language that almost all the united states knows? But the real question is why wouldn't you? I mean be smart pick a language that is going to help you in life. First reason

Spanish should not be a mandatory language. Students should not be forced to learn a language that they have no interest in because if they have no interest in it they are highly likely not going to pay attention in that class and fail because they were forced to do something that they didn't want to do in the first place. Students who takes spanish gets stressed out because the

Learning a foreign language is tough, but unbelievably rewarding such as better job opportunities. With the way the united states is developing as a country, a

“One of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time”, Federico Fellini once stated that “A different language is a different vision of life” and I, in my turn tend to say that he was perfectly right. A person who speaks more than one language can experience multiple personalities, visions and reflections consisting which language is he speaking. High School students should comprehend the real benefit of speaking a foreign language. Being a multilingual myself and speaking fluently four languages and studying another two, I consider that I am qualified enough to persuade that my argument is strong, plausible and not ultimately-right. In the following paragraphs I am going to address the following three reasons why should other High School students learn at least one foreign language? Firstly, learning a new language enhances performances in the academic domain and makes you smarter. Secondly, knowing a new language is a high estimated and a very valuable characteristic in your professional CV. Thirdly, international travel is more pleasant through knowing a foreign language.

The population of native Spanish speakers in the US is growing according to the article “10 Facts About the Spanish Language;” which states that “With 329 million native speakers, Spanish ranks as the world's No. 2 language in terms of how many people speak it as their first language. It is slightly ahead of English (328 million) but far behind Chinese (1.2 billion)” (Erichsen). I am going to college to get my degree in Elementary Education. I am taking a course to learn to speak Spanish – hablar español, because I have noticed this myself.

There are emotional and legal concerns surrounding whether immigrants should learn to speak English. Domenico Maceri (2009), an award-winning author and foreign language instructor at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria California, states “I never met an immigrant in the United States who needed laws to be reminded that English is necessary to succeed” (par. 9).

A survey done by the Center for Applied Linguistics in 2008 found that "The findings indicate a serious disconnect between the national call to educate world citizens with high-level language skills and the current state of foreign language instruction in schools across the country"(Cal:Research). This is concerning as all of the competition for the U.S. is gaining a step and we 're doing nothing . If the U.S. expects to continue to be competitive in the global market we need to have bilingual citizens. In order to ensure this, we must require a foreign language be learned in high school.

Language is a key part of any family, community, culture and the human race. Without language the world today would be much different. From cavemen, to the Egyptian use of hieroglyphics, to Old English, to more than 6,500 languages spoken around the world today, the advances that humans have made in language is remarkable and inspiring. The ability to speak, read, write and understand more than one language is also remarkable and expands the liberties in life, especially for young people. High school students should be required to take at least two years of a foreign language class in order to graduate, as many recent studies support the benefits of doing so. Students who have learned a foreign language in high school have proven to have a