High Schools Should Be Allowed To Replace A Foreign Language Credit

Some lawmakers and many students think that Computer Programming in highschool should count as or wave a foreign language credit. Many others however don’t believe it should be allowed to replace a foreign language credit. But arguably, the skills that are built by taking a foreign language, are also built by learning computer programming. Since most of the things each one covers are shared among the two, students in high school should be given the option to wave or replace a foreign language credit with a Computer Programming credit.

The obvious similarity and comparison people make is translation. Languages in the world aren’t 1:1, sometimes the grammar may be different or more things may be implicit rather than explicit. Coding languages can have these conventions as well, and when learning multiple, it teaches the subject to recognize and remember these things.

However, 2 things that coding and foreign languages do share together, that is helpful, is communicating ideas. This could be through shapes, ideas, concepts, etc, or through software that accomplishes something between the users. And while using the software may not teach you something, the person who writes the software really has to take into account whether or not what they are communicating will make sense to the other party.

Programming is very helpful with cognitive development. Cognitive development focuses on things like processing of information, language learning, and more. Although most could assume that these things are obviously associated with programming and learning a programming language, there are studies out there for the more skeptical. Studies do show that programming does increase these things when done in a controlled environment where group A programmed and group B didn’t, while both groups did the same normal