Two years of high school Spanish didn't get me anywhere. Google translator did. Now in college, when I have a Spanish test, I'll repeat the conjugations of "ser" in my head until I receive my exam. Then, I write them down on my paper as fast as I can because I know the minute I stop repeating them, they'll evaporate from my mind.
I feel cheated. I feel like we've all been cheated, especially those who struggle with foreign language acquisition. It didn't have to be this way.
Foreign language needs to be started in elementary school, when children are excited by learning and not burdened by the pressures of responsibility and self-consciousness.
According to a study done by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), countries where children began learning their second language in lower and upper elementary show higher levels of language proficiency.
This makes sense. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
I used to baby-sit my cousins when they were little. I remember popping in Toy Story and watching in awe as my cousin Mitchell recited every word, without missing a beat. His brain was set up to learn and to remember. There wasn't anything else troubling his mind to get in the way of his information absorption. But, instead of being introduced to a language other than English, his brain was being filled with fleeting nonsense.
Throughout our pre-college educations, math, science and English are ingrained into our brains. From kindergarten on we learn and relearn information. I am baffled then why something as complicated and vital to our educational endeavors as a foreign language isn't introduced until we are 14. We've been trying to master our native language for our entire lives, and now we have two years to speak cohesively in Spanish or German?
I spoke to my high school counselor about my struggles. She encouraged me to work hard so I could get through my last required semester with a reasonable grade. "All you need is two years. You can just take it in college."
That wasn't advice. There weren't adequate resources to address my learning needs so, by encouraging me to stop after I had completed the bare minimum, my problem left the hands of my high school and would fall back on me a few years later. So now I sit here as an adult, with more problems, commitments and responsibilities. I am paying for what I could have completed in high school for free if pushed to do so and struggling even more than I had before.
Arguments have been made that introducing a second language to children early on may interfere with the mastering of the English language. While this argument sounds logical when made, the evidence proves otherwise.
In a District Administration article, education research analyst Janice Stewart said students who learn additional languages early have, in addition to a strong understanding of English, "increased cognitive skills, higher achievement in other academic areas and higher standardized test scores."
The article references a 1997 study done by Armstrong and Rogers that found a group of third-grade students who received three 30-minute Spanish lessons a week received the same or higher scores on achievement tests as students who did not take a foreign language class. The same students took the Metropolitan Achievement Test and received significantly higher scores in math and language.
Budget cuts are a major reason foreign language isn't taught at an elementary level. The decision not to offer it is also made on a local level. However, since funding for such things is based on test scores, doesn't it make sense for schools to do what they can to raise those test scores? Offering languages early on would not only benefit the school financially in the long run, but it would set children up for future successes. Funding being cut in large part due to low test scores could be remedied by offering language courses, which could raise these scores. Shouldn't education be the main objective, anyway? Learning another language early on is an investment.
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