Choosing a Foreign Language for our Child

Last month I received a letter home asking me to fill out a form to "choose" my child's language for the 7th grade. The options were French, Spanish, and Latin. The form also said that my child might not get his or her first choice.

I was appalled.

Why is the school even teaching French at this point? Shouldn't schools be leaders in education? Shouldn't they help point the way towards the skills that the child will need when they finally graduate? Unless you have close relatives that are French, plan to emigrate to Quebec, or have the money to bask on the Riviera every year, there is no reason to learn French in the US. With government spending at 54% of GDP and a growth rate of 1.4% (the US rate is 3.5%, beating estimates of 3.3%) France isn't going to be creating lots of jobs in the foreseeable future -- especially for Americans. English is the universal diplomatic and business language now and not French.

For a true long-term earnings bump, Chinese is the language to learn (projected 9.1% growth in GDP). Or how about Russian? Russia (7.1% 2004 GDP growth) has a better chance for long-term development than France, and we happen to have more native Russian speakers in my town (hundreds) than French speakers (one that I know of).

Spanish, of course, has plenty of relevance in the US. And unless you want to be a scientist and take Latin, it is the only legitimate option for kids out of the three languages offered.

The Charter School in my town only offers French, with no signs of changing, so I didn't even consider them for my oldest child. Any school system that still teaches French is doing it for the short-term benefit of the currently employed teachers and the ease of administration. It is not for the long-term benefit of the children.

Most children have one shot at a language -- let's give them one that they can use.

Here is the letter that I wrote in extreme haste (slightly edited) to the school. I'll let you know whether or not my child gets Spanish next year.

To Whom It May Concern:

If my daughter does not get Spanish, please give her a study hall so she can do her homework in school and I can homeschool her in Spanish. I specifically chose this public school for my daughter because of the strong music program and the fact that it offered Spanish and the Charter school only offers French. French is not an option for my daughter for numerous reasons.

I took the French program through this town's schools. I even took a year in college. I could read Moliere in French. It does me absolutely no good in my working environment or my personal environment.

1.        I do work for a CANADIAN company, and it is more important for me to know Spanish because South America and Mexico are developing at a much faster clip than their own province of Quebec. I deal with people from Mexico and it would enhance my position if I knew the language.

2.        I have many young adults in my church whose parents only speak Spanish. I feel like an idiot not knowing the language so I can communicate with them about their children.

3.        France’s economy is on a steep decline. The international business language is English. Large French conglomerates speak English and the smaller companies won’t be hiring Americans anytime soon.

4.        The support for Spanish is overwhelming. I remember having to go into Boston to a special language store and buying outrageously priced books to supplement my French. With Spanish, you can turn the television set to multiple channels to hear native speakers, go to Target to buy Spanish rock CDs, or talk to friends at church. There are few, if any, French resources available in the home that could counter the sheer multitude of resources.

I feel that kids in the US have one shot at learning a language. I want my daughter to learn Spanish and not waste time on French. And the argument that any language is better than no language doesn’t fly with me. I gave the High School graduation speech on the advantages of a liberal arts education. Spending hours and hours on a language that you will never use at the expense of learning a language that you probably will use and will most likely enhance your earning power and social experiences is a travesty. I also have done occupational analysis. Spanish is useful. French is not.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. 

Update: Love the comments on this post! Please read them for some wide-ranging views, including some insults, but I guess that comes with the territory. There are a couple of points that people seem to be missing; outside support for learning Spanish is overwhelming, including compute games, TV shows, music. Furthermore, if you are going to learn a language that doesn't have much outside support such as French, why not learn Russian or Chinese and get two for one; the advantage of learning another language and potential resume building over the long term?

Another Update: According to Mark Steyn, we should be learning Hindi. Read his column on China for more.

Comments

[Clarence Fisher]

Interesting research on the facts of gdp, etc. I teach in the Canadian province of Manitoba and our kids have to take French. Being Canadian, where French is one of the founding languages of our country, it makes more sense taking this language; but you are correct and I tell my gade 8 students all the time that they need to be studying Chinese if they want to get ahead in the global economy.

[Tim]

My mother wanted me to take Spanish when I was in school, but I knuckleheadedly refused. I thought about taking German because some of my friends were taking it, but I wound up studying Japanese.

I am so glad I took Japanese instead of German, French or Latin - my other choices besides Spanish. Idealy, I wish I would have studied Spanish, but Japanese was a good second choice. I may not be anywhere near fluent, but I understand bits and pieces. More importantly though, through learning the language we learned a great deal about the culture, and having some sense of how an Eastern culture (Eastern cultures being, in so many respects, very different from Western cultures) functions has been highly beneficial. Using what I know of Japanese culture has made aspects of other Asian cultures less puzzling.

[z]

Recent referenda aside, the EU is going to be a big power in the future. Europe is the center of the world and always will be. (Look at the cold war... sure, the USSR and USA actually fought some battles in SE Asia, but the real focus was always on Europe). Europe is a popular tourist destination for Americans and Canadians. Europe, Europe, Europe.

I can easily see justification for Mandarin.. China will certainly be important too. And from a pure theoretical linguistics perspective, an Asian langauge is so different from English that it would just be interesting to learn.

Russian, too.

But Spanish? The ****hole little countries south of the US are hardly going to be world powers. (And Spain itself had its chance in the 1600s). I suppose if you want to talk to your maid or something. But frankly I'd take an Eastern European langauge over Spanish. (The center of Europe is France and Germany now, but it will be moving east.)

Of course, you seem to be under the impression that "education" = "job training", which is an entirely shitty way of looking at schooling, and leads to many problems for students holding this view in college. But still, if you are really for that, then the major European langauges (i.e., not Spanish) or Mandarin or Japanese are probably what you should be pushing your little darling towards. Unless you think your child is going to be a maid or a dishwasher.

(I've seen people call arguments like this "racist", so I'd like to head that off by asking which genetic traits, exactly, lead to speaking Spanish?)

[KimJ]

I took French in high school, and it was useful for me because I'm a graduate student in mathematics and while French is acceptable for the foreign language requirement, Spanish is not. (The foreign language requirement is so you can read math papers, and math papers are really only published in English, French, German, and Russian.) However, I realize that for the vast majority of students, Spanish is the more logical choice.

I remember my high school eliminating German, Chinese, and probably other languages I'm unaware of just before I entered. My only choices were also French, Spanish, and Latin. Two years later the Foreign Language Department changed its name to the "World Languages Department". I wondered who believes the world consists of the Pyranees and nothing else.

[quadrupole]

Is it possible that the languages offered have to do with the available pool of language instructors?

I'd suggest that someone qualified to teach Japanese or Chinese will usually find a better work environment and better pay away from the public school system.

Or to put it differently, it is the total irrelavence of French that leads to it's wide availability in the public schools: what else is someone qualified to teach French going to do that is more renumerative?

[Peter]

"****hole little countries"? "Unless you think your child is going to be a maid or a dishwasher."? Well, Z, you might (*might*) not be a racist, but you are certainly one grade A jerk.

[Katherine Prouty]

OK, I put asterisks over the vulgarities in the post by z and then put asterisks in Peter's response where he referred to z's post. Adults can figure out what it is, but I don't want filters to filter out this blog.

If this were a forum, with lots of people returning, I would throw out my forum rules which state:

Don't attack the person, attack their arguments, etc.

I'm going to let this one slide for now... But I have taken note. (Putting on my best schoolmarm look.)

[Merry Swankster]

Learning a foreign language is much more than simply knowing how to speak to someone in their native tongue. Its more than knowing how to get around if one were to visit France, Spain, or China. Learning a foreign language gives insight into ones own language. Many words in English are derivatives of the romance languages as well as others. Its invaluable in extending a childs vocabulary and helps with reading...in English!! Language study gives insight into another culture and most important of all - it furthers the intellectual might of children. Those not understanding the reason for learning a second language probably never learned it themselves so they have no idea about the positives in it.

[quadrupole]

z

I used a slightly less virulent version of your thinking when I decided to take German instead of Spanish in middle and high school. I looked around and didn't see anything in Spanish that I thought mattered to me (economically, scientifically, etc) and decided it wasn't a very useful choice.

Here's why I was wrong, dead wrong.

First, almost anything economically or scientifically important on the international scale is going to be either done in English or easily available via translation to an English speaker. Learning German to read Zeitschrift fur Physik was a complete waste, because it's now European Journal of Physics C, and it's published in English. Other than the general language benefits pointed out correctly by Merry Swankster, I didn't get much of utility out of German.

Second, Spanish would be VERY useful in my day to day life. You see I *like* being able to interact in a friendly way with the people I deal with day to day, including the janitors and other low level service people I deal with. Increasingly, I can't do this, because they speak Spanish, and not English. It's very hard to put people at ease when they can't understand you.

[Lily]

The purpose of an education is not to train a child for a specific job--or at least, it shouldn't be.

We can breed a generation of children who are all business-people, moderately successful, and own a white picket fence. Or we can educate our children so that they are aware of other cultures and enjoy learning for learning's sake.

I don't know about you, but I would rather be mildly self-satisfied than successful.

[James]

Wow, talk about a wrongheaded response to the language question.

The issue isn't whether a child should learn a second (or third) language at age twelve, but why that child hasn't been doing so all along. Beyond the basic benefits of being able to speak a foreign language, those who learn multiple languages demonstrate enhanced cognitive and memory abilities compared to those who don't.

As for French: it's a language spoken by over 75 million as a primary language, which hardly relegates it to some useless niche. Even if one removed Québec from the map, there would be tens of millions more -- including many in those "emerging markets" of which you speak -- who continue operate as primary Francophones.

[AmyT]

I agree: the question should not be whether the language skill is "saleable," but rather whether the child's mind is opened. As those who are multilingual know, languages are not simple one-to-one translatable codes, but rather modes of communication that invoke an entirely different mentality and thought structure. On that basis, this whole discussion is a bit silly.

btw, I took Spanish in school, because I thought it was more "useful." Ended up living in Germany and marrying a German. Now my kids are growing up bilingual German-American, so you just never can tell what's going to be more practical in the long run...

[Robert]

I believe that foreign languages should be taught to children at a young age, because when they get to college and in some programs where it is a requirement to take a foreign language course they would have more of a chance to grasp what they are learning, because they have been exposed to it earlier in their life.

I understand that some parents would think it would be too soon. However children learn more when they are younger. When they get to college and find out they need to take Spanish, French, German, or maybe even Italian, they probably will have a hard time if they never learned anything from either language as young children. You never know since Canada is so close and a majority of Canadiens speak French, maybe knowledge of a second language will open doors to a great future.