High School Foreign Language Requirement

We may be the leading nation in many areas of technological advances, but the United States is lacking in foreign language skills and keeps falling farther behind other nations. Other nations value language skills more than the US. As a result, the US is falling behind the rest of the world in language abilities. The united states is behind Europe in its number of bilingual citizens. In 2007, 20% of people in the US spoke a foreign language. Although that number has increased by 140% in nearly the last thirty years, it still trails the percentages of countries around the world (Marian and Shook). Countries around the world are far more advanced in the spreading and teaching of languages than we are in the US. It is important that we up our

Spanish is the most commonly offered language making up around 88% of all foreign language classes (Thompson). Giving students an option in which language to study is important to keep students interested in the material and making classes more appealing. The majority of states have either no foreign language requirement, or the requirement is combined with another form of art (“High school Graduation Requirements: Foreign Language”). If students have a general art requirement instead of a requirement specific to foreign language, a less useful class may be chosen by students. Over half of the states have no requirement for foreign language to graduate high school. Many of those states also have no general arts requirement (“High school Graduation Requirements: Foreign Language”). Kids should not be able to graduate highschool without diversity of credits. Taking a variety of different classes allows students to explore their possible interests. How will students know what they want to pursue in the future if new things are never tried? Keeping foreign language learning alive is imperative in growing as a country. The top three most studied languages have seen

Students have the opportunity to earn college credit for foreign language courses taken in high school. College credit may be given as well with a high enough entrance test score (“The Benefits of Second Language Study”). College students can move toward graduation faster if credit is earned in high school. Colleges look for foreign language credits for acceptance. Colleges typically look for two to four years of high school foreign language. The same language is preferred over constant switching. While it is possible to get into some colleges without foreign language experience, in most cases it is necessary for admission (Grove). College acceptance is a priority for most high school students. Having foreign language experience will make an applicant more appealing. The number of colleges looking for foreign language high school credits will continue to increase. The number of recommended years may increase as