Such instruction is in rapid decline despite the proven benefits of bilingualism.
Success Academy Charter Schools is responsible for about 9,000 students in 32 charter schools around New York City.
Eva Moskowitz, the school’s CEO and founder, recently spoke with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute about how to fit everything she deems important for students—coding, recess, and science—into the school day, five times a week. One of the school’s new “solutions,” she said, was to cut foreign languages.
From the interview:
So something’s got to go. We picked—and you know this may be shocking to this audience—we picked foreign languages. People say “Don’t you believe in foreign languages?” I love multilingualism. I speak French, but something had to go. … We can’t do everything. And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well. I think if I were doing schools in Europe I might feel differently. But my son took three years of French and he could barely say, “How are you?” … I really believe whatever we do we should do it exceptionally well and I wasn’t sure that I could find foreign language instructors that were really really good and could do it at a very very high level.
(Here’s a video of the interview, in full.)
Indeed, foreign language instruction has been on the decline around the U.S., at least in elementary and middle schools—which is Success Academy’s sweet spot. (High schools remained steady, with 91 percent of them offering foreign languages, and Success only has one high school so far.) More.
See: The Atlantic
See also: Younger Kids Lose Out on Foreign Languages in US Schools
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United States
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English to Arabic
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The title of that cited original article appearing in an issue of _The Atlantic_ is misleading and incorrectly over-generalizing, as the writer used the situation in that one school in NYC as an example for extrapolating and then segueing the piece into an implicit characterization of apparently all "U.S. Schools...".
While the situation regarding programs for foreign language instruction in a number of public and private secondary schools here is Califor... See more
The title of that cited original article appearing in an issue of _The Atlantic_ is misleading and incorrectly over-generalizing, as the writer used the situation in that one school in NYC as an example for extrapolating and then segueing the piece into an implicit characterization of apparently all "U.S. Schools...".
While the situation regarding programs for foreign language instruction in a number of public and private secondary schools here is California tend to range from bleak to (ahem) variable, generalizations are unfounded and unhelpful. What the students' parents, local school boards, and ultimately, employers want seems to determine what gets taught, how much and how well.
Surprised that < proz.com > considered that flawed and superficial article as worthy of posting as a serious item.
Regards,
Stephen H. Franke
Senior veteran Arabic linguist, dialectologist,
trainer, and educator
San Pedro (Los Angeles Waterfront Area), California ▲ Collapse
Canada
Local time: 17:46
Member (2008)
French to English
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What about Spanish? Or is that not considered a "foreign" language in the US?
Italy
Local time: 23:46
Italian to English
Sad on so many levels. Sad that Moskovitz bases her judgement of whether a whole nation should learn foreign languages on her son's experience and competence (or lack of).
Coming from the UK, I think the US suffers from the same linguistic imperialism of expecting the rest of the world to understand Eng... See more
Sad on so many levels. Sad that Moskovitz bases her judgement of whether a whole nation should learn foreign languages on her son's experience and competence (or lack of).
Coming from the UK, I think the US suffers from the same linguistic imperialism of expecting the rest of the world to understand English. But to me, the effects of learning a foreign language go deeper than mere linguistic prowess; it means the willingness and openness to learn about and accept other cultures. And I feel that the schools in question - and the US as a whole - should take a long hard look at what they are choosing to teach their children.
After all, it is not about how "good" the future generations will be at foreign languages that matters. Fear of inadequacy should not be a deciding factor. ▲ Collapse
United States
Local time: 14:46
Spanish to English
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Polling elementary and middle schools, where foreign language is hardly ever taught to begin with, basically skips over the largest contingent of learners in the U.S.: public high school students. Any conclusion based on that data is useless. It's like saying that football is on the decline based on a representative sample of women ages 65-70. Or vegetarianism is trending down among American carnivores. It's a no-brainer.
Besides, this woman is not a good ambassador for her organization. "We suck at it, so let's just quit." Soooo motivational. Did she then go on to say, "Foreign languages are stupid anyways. Everyone else speaks English already, so it is a waste of time to expect our children to learn them." No, in fact, it was the author of the article who said it, and even saw fit to end on that note.
[Edited at 2014-12-22 23:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
Austria
Local time: 23:46
German to English
I just want to support the other posts, first that this article in no way reflects the state of education in the U.S. as a whole. Simply interviewing the "CEO" of some private school in Brooklyn is not representative of anything but that specific private school. And when you name your school "Success Academy," you can't expect much. That's right, I eat my dinner at "Healthy Hamburger Restaurant," attend "Success Academy" for school, my dog's name is "Good Doggy," and my parents' names are Strong and Caring. Good Grief.
Polling elementary and middle schools, where foreign language is hardly ever taught to begin with, basically skips over the largest contingent of learners in the U.S.: public high school students. Any conclusion based on that data is useless. It's like saying that football is on the decline based on a representative sample of women ages 65-70. Or vegetarianism is trending down among American carnivores. It's a no-brainer.
Thanks for the rollicking laugh!
United Kingdom
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Member (2008)
Italian to English
By learning a language, you're learning a whole culture. A door opens. You walk through it. From the other side, you look back at your own culture, seeing it objectively for the first time. There's nothing as good as this!
"Your own culture" is now an interaction between two cultures. You're rich!
Anybody who hasn't done this will not have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about.
[Edited at 2014-12-23 13:31 GMT]
United States
Local time: 14:46
Spanish to English
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I just want to support the other posts, first that this article in no way reflects the state of education in the U.S. as a whole. Simply interviewing the "CEO" of some private school in Brooklyn is not representative of anything but that specific private school. And when you name your school "Success Academy," you can't expect much. That's right, I eat my dinner at "Healthy Hamburger Restaurant," attend "Success Academy" for school, my dog's name is "Good Doggy," and my parents' names are Strong and Caring. Good Grief.
Polling elementary and middle schools, where foreign language is hardly ever taught to begin with, basically skips over the largest contingent of learners in the U.S.: public high school students. Any conclusion based on that data is useless. It's like saying that football is on the decline based on a representative sample of women ages 65-70. Or vegetarianism is trending down among American carnivores. It's a no-brainer.
Thanks for the rollicking laugh!
Glad you like it.
Sweden
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Swedish to English
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This is hardly the first time that a drastic headline grabs our attention only then to lead us into reading an article where the details give an entirely different impression.
United States
Local time: 17:46
French to English
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Unfortunately I don't think I've ever met anyone who has come out of the public education system here with the ability to converse in a foreign language, except those who went to an immersion school. (I'm referring to native English speakers obviously.) Typically, high school graduates have ha... See more
Unfortunately I don't think I've ever met anyone who has come out of the public education system here with the ability to converse in a foreign language, except those who went to an immersion school. (I'm referring to native English speakers obviously.) Typically, high school graduates have had six years of foreign-language studies by the time they graduate. It's pitiful.
My HS Spanish teacher didn't speak it, and I thought that would have changed by now, but I learned that our local Spanish MS teacher hardly speaks it as well! It says something about the university system, but that's another discussion. What's really ridiculous is that native Spanish speakers will sit in a classroom for 2 years with a teacher who doesn't speak the language (because no other foreign language is offered). I'm so frustrated writing about it that I almost agree with her decision. I don't see any long-term benefits to "learning" a foreign language under these conditions.
Really we should be starting foreign languages earlier at the very least, and revise the teaching methods to emulate countries with successful instruction. But the US is very bottom-line oriented, and even though the benefits on the brain are well documented, foreign languages, monetarily speaking, are very undervalued. I recently saw a hotel's employment ad asking for multilingual "room attendants" (cleaning staff).
And then you get some right wingers who are upset that so many people speak Spanish here already. I doubt they want to create more or encourage people to converse with each other in a language other than English.
End of rant. ▲ Collapse
China
Local time: 05:46
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>>And then you get some right wingers who are upset that so many people speak Spanish here already
Can we keep this professional, please? There are "right wingers" who are multi-lingual and well-traveled.
China
Local time: 05:46
German to English
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>>And then you get some right wingers who are upset that so many people speak Spanish here already
Can we keep this professional, please? There are "right wingers" who are multi-lingual and well-traveled.
Germany
Local time: 23:46
German to English
>>And then you get some right wingers who are upset that so many people speak Spanish here already
Can we keep this professional, please? There are "right wingers" who are multi-lingual and well-traveled.
I second the motion. DS Trans's remark is uncalled for.
United States
Local time: 17:46
French to English
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It wasn't my purpose to offend. It would be great if we could embrace multilingualism in the US, but we don't and it shows in our educational priorities. Unfortunately it's not uncommon to hear people complain about those speaking other languages, particularly Spanish, and there's a political component to it.
[Edited at 2014-12-31 19:42 GMT]
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:46
Serbian to English
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[quote]Tom in London wrote:
...
Anybody who hasn't done this will not have the faintest idea of what I'm talking about.
quite true - and unfortunately applies to the vast majority in almost every country ...
United States
Local time: 17:46
Portuguese to English
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My daughter (here in the US) has had Spanish classes every year since she was in the 3rd grade (10th grade now).
[Edited at 2015-01-08 13:18 GMT]
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