What Our Educational Focus Should Be
Invest in foreign language instruction, the younger the better
The U.S. government is busy spending trillions of dollars and everyone is busy debating education issues related to the pandemic and critical race theory. Meanwhile, there is an education issue that deserves greater attention and could use some of that money being spent. The U.S. needs to invest significantly in foreign language instruction at all levels of education and especially at the elementary school level...here’s my case.
#1-Foreign language instruction in the U.S. has been in decline. The U.S. has long been notorious for its lack of bilingual citizens. Only about 1 in 5 K-12 students were learning a foreign language in the U.S., which is much lower than European countries as the graph below indicates. Furthermore, the number is declining. In the 1960s about 16% of college students were studying foreign languages and in 2016 it was 7.5%. In 2008, 58% of middle schools and 25% of elementary schools offered foreign language instruction, compared to 75% and 31% in 1997. There are a number of reasons historically why the U.S. has been less concerned about language instruction than Europe, most of it is geographic. European countries are small and close together. The U.S. is much more isolated. Geography also explains why the UK is also much lower in its foreign language instruction than continental Europe. Second language instruction is also lower in the U.S. and UK because of the prevalence of English around the world. But the recent decline is troubling. Just as the world is becoming more “globalized” and places are becoming less geographically isolated because of technology, the U.S. is investing fewer resources in foreign language instruction putting its people and the country at a disadvantage.
#2-There are tremendous benefits for individuals in learning another language. There are a number of material and non-material rewards associated with language learning. In thinking about a career, being bilingual provides a greater number and variety of job opportunities and is associated with greater career earnings. Students enrolled in foreign language instruction also have higher test scores and can improve graduation rates. But arguably the real benefits are the non-material ones. Learning a second language is associated with greater focus, better memory, increased ability to multitask, better knowledge of your own language and better cultural awareness. These benefits are especially important for younger kids. The earlier the language learning begins the better.
#3-There are benefits at the national level in having more bilingual speakers. First, it is likely that all of the individual benefits aggregate to provide benefits at the larger levels. This is the basic argument of how the education system benefits the country and the same applies to this area of education as well. Beyond that, there are national security benefits to the U.S. Part of the increase in foreign language instruction after World War II in the U.S. was directly tied to the greater role of the U.S. in the world. U.S. government programs such as the Critical Language Scholarship and the Fulbright Critical Language Enhancement Award state that the investment in foreign language instruction has national security and economic benefits. The desire to have a greater number of foreign language speakers that can work in diplomacy, intelligence, translation and so on is a way that the U.S. can better protect itself and improve relations with other countries. There is bipartisan concern in the U.S. about economic competitiveness with countries such as China. Having more citizens who speak more languages will provide a competitive advantage for the U.S. economically.
#4-The benefits of language learning, combined with the current lack of language learning, provides a golden investment opportunity for the U.S. So much of our political debate in the U.S. is about the decline of the U.S. and education in the U.S. However, we seem to focus on culture war issues (such as critical race theory) or self-defeating economic issues (such as tariffs). If there are individual and national economic, personal and security benefits to language learning, the U.S. government should prioritize it and invest heavily in language education at all levels. We tend to think of language learning at the high school and college levels, and while selfishly I want colleges to invest more money, the real payoff would be in investment at the elementary level. Only 25% of elementary schools in the U.S. have foreign language instruction while in Europe many countries mandate learning a second language for children by the age of 9. If the government took a small part of the trillions of dollars they have been spending to increase the training of foreign language teachers and placing those teachers in elementary schools, the U.S. would benefit tremendously. Politically this is probably unlikely however, as the payoff for this investment would not be immediate and our politics is currently focused on instant gratification.
Based on the evidence it seems obvious the U.S. should focus a great deal more on language learning. The U.S. government, and state governments, should prioritize language instruction at all levels but especially at the elementary level, which is even more ignored than others. It’s a cliche to say the world is becoming more globalized but it’s true. The U.S. is also becoming more diverse. A more diverse U.S. and more connected world is precisely the time to increase foreign language learning, however it is declining in the U.S. The movement away from language learning mirrors the decline in the liberal arts. Unless corrected, both trends will result in a less educated and less competitive United States.