language, kiddies

At long last, the return of...

I am fully engaged with two French elementary schools as of writing this, and here are my two cents: in the U.S. we need to expose children in our primary schools to a foreign language.  This is not a post saying French elementary schools are better; my experience so far has been sufficiently mixed enough to prefer American schools, though you can't beat the old wooden stairs and historic significance of a school named after a man who died protecting it. 

However, when it comes to language learning, the fact that learning English at this age is a high enough priority to pay me way more per hour than I could hope for in the U.S., where year-long internships are unpaid, shows that France is serious about the benefits of multilingualism in a way the U.S. is not (don't worry, it's France and I'm not allowed to work many hours, so I'm still just as poor or poorer than you). 

French kids are required to study English until they reach middle school, where they can either continue learning English or switch to something new; I had the choice of taking German, Spanish, French or Latin...in high school, where as of today Latin and French are gone, and your options were most likely equally limited or worse, and studying a foreign language probably wasn't mandatory for graduation.

The argument of, "Well, our kids don't need to learn Spanish, or German, or Chinese, or whatever, because those kids 'over there' will learn English, so problem solved," is not an argument but the verbal equivalent of putting your head in sand...that speaks English...and not noticing that each day the world becomes smaller, the need to engage with others in their native language is crucial to cultural understanding, and is an economic asset, among many other benefits that would make this too long two cent semi-rant turn into a pocket of nickels. 

Side note: Spanish has a chance to flourish, and is, in the U.S. in a way that German did not because of two wars and the negative stereotypes associated with the language because of those wars.

One sentence round-up: Studying a foreign language while young gives many benefits beyond cultural understanding that most American students, unfortunately, miss.