I'm from the UK and languages education here is (or at least was when I was at school) horrific. We didn't start learning a second language until secondary school (age 11/12) and the only options available were french and very basic german.
My french teacher couldn't speak french properly - she used to look stuff up in study guides and read it, pretty badly, to us. Much of the focus was on memorising lists of words rather than learning to build sentences etc. I don't think my experience was that unusual.
The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common, but ridiculous. We all travel and migrate more than we used to and this trend will presumably increase over time.
Being the odd one out in a group because you only speak english feels like a disability in many places. It's especially embarrassing when the group speaks english to include you thus highlighting the difference even more.
I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. I would have assumed that most children, especially those in California, would be required to learn spanish. Maybe some french for those living near the border with french speaking parts of Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's well established that learning a foreign language is easiest as a child. Perhaps the best way to make a monolingual nation multilingual is to adopt a policy of favouritism in hiring teachers for young children who are bi-lingual.
>The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common
I'd say that the main argument in Britain is this. That so many lack basic English skills. Thus, any advance in English language abilities that can be gained is going to outweigh any minute slither of ability a pupil might manage to get in some language they never use outside the classroom.
I studied French in High School (from 11) but had already a smattering from family holidays and so realised it was useful and found it fun to some extent. Then age 13 I did a year of Russian (as I was top set for French) which was great as it was a non-European culture and uses cyrillic alphabet. German would however have been more use to me and would have given me exchange trip opportunities.
My problem is that I now live in Wales. The Welsh have this perverse notion that to be properly Welsh you must speak Welsh language; also by self-selection the Welsh language schools cream off a lot of more able pupils making them aspirational for the middle-classes. Welsh medium schools appear to get more funding too. All pupils from 4-16 years have to learn Welsh language in school. Knowing some people who've been through the system confirms for me that this is a complete waste. I have no problem with choosing Welsh for study in high school but forcing those - even with little to no English ability (a lot of Urdu and Bengali first language speakers live in my city) to learn a language that is only _spoken_ by 20% of people in this country...
Gah, I'm ranting. It makes me cross.
tl;dr the Welsh are hobbling their children for reasons of misplaced nationalism with a language only just brought back from the brink of death.
> I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US.
It's mandatory, but you get to choose which language to study. Choice is generally either Spanish, French, or German (and sometimes Japanese). Most kids choose Spanish (at least, that's what it seems like).
You take a few years of it before graduating high school.
And, as someone else posted, it's pretty universal that most people forget almost all of it as soon as they've satisified either their high school or else college requirements. I don't have any idea if colleges require foreign language credits or not.
My french teacher couldn't speak french properly - she used to look stuff up in study guides and read it, pretty badly, to us. Much of the focus was on memorising lists of words rather than learning to build sentences etc. I don't think my experience was that unusual.
The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common, but ridiculous. We all travel and migrate more than we used to and this trend will presumably increase over time.
Being the odd one out in a group because you only speak english feels like a disability in many places. It's especially embarrassing when the group speaks english to include you thus highlighting the difference even more.
I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. I would have assumed that most children, especially those in California, would be required to learn spanish. Maybe some french for those living near the border with french speaking parts of Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's well established that learning a foreign language is easiest as a child. Perhaps the best way to make a monolingual nation multilingual is to adopt a policy of favouritism in hiring teachers for young children who are bi-lingual.