We have all heard our fair share of groaning among students at UNH over the language requirement that looms over every COLA major. “I just need to pass this class and then I can be done with this language forever” or similar statements are familiar to anybody who’s spent a significant amount of time in Murkland Hall. So why, as people interested in foreign language education, do we feel that students benefit from knowing a foreign language? Should this requirement be extended to include EVERY U.S. College student?
To answer this question, I think it is important to examine the greater question of what the overall benefit of learning a foreign language is, i.e., what is the payoff of knowing a foreign language for a typical American university student? While pondering this, I was reminded of a podcast that I heard somewhat recently from Freakonomics Radio. In the episode, a study on the overall return on investment (how much more a bilingual student could expect to earn than a non-bilingual student) for learning a foreign language was discussed and the results were not exactly a boon to our cause: the average wage premium for knowing a foreign language was “about 2 percent” according to MIT economist Albert Saiz.
This is especially true when the native language of the student is English. Saiz points out later in the episode that students in Western Europe and elsewhere that learn English as a foreign language benefit from their bilinguality to a much greater extent than their American-born counterparts. Of course, these are all average figures and a students personal mileage may vary, depending on what language she or he learns.
This is precisely what makes this question of language requirement so tricky to answer. For each person who begroans their mandatory Spanish, French, or German class, there are also examples of students whose lives were changed dramatically by their mastery of a foreign language, my own included. I believe I am a better person for the cultural understanding, appreciation of art, and overall cognitive benefits that knowing German has brought into my own life. But, becoming truly bilingual is an enormously challenging undertaking. Mastering a language even to becoming proficient enough to read the newspaper of the target language is a project measured in years, not semesters. Even after 6 years of middle school and high school German, I was not even remotely fluent in the language. My passions about it were big enough that I chose to move there and spend several years immersed in the language and culture, and that is not the goal of every student at UNH.
In closing, I would argue that in today’s society and specifically in an American context, learning a foreign language at university should not be compulsory for all, but should remain essential for some. A student of the humanities or fine arts would likely get more out of foreign language study than a mechanical engineer, so it would not make sense for the mechanical engineer to spend their tuition dollars on foreign language classes that they do not plan to use in their field. Furthermore, the limited cultural exposure that two semesters of instruction would provide just simply would not be worth the time to most people. Beginning language instruction at a much earlier age however, is an entirely different argument altogether (perhaps best saved for another blog post).
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You have made good points here. I often wonder the value of taking one-year foreign language (FL) requirement at UNH or somewhere else. What students actually benefit from exposure to a FL within a short period of time? I've taught the elementary language courses online over the past three summers. 85% of the students were seniors and they had absolutely no interest nor motivation to learn Spanish but they wanted/liked good grades (who doesn't?) so they made an effort to do well and pass the course. I have no solution to this but I don't agree with this policy. I don't think that all students should be required to study a foreign language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you said. I bet it's exactly right about the 2% gain being greatly skewed by those who learned English as a second language.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed learning French in high school. Learning a foreign language has given me a whole different perspective on many things and many people. And now that I can pretty much speak the language, I feel it really adds to my life. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment and somewhat uniqueness. But not everyone has these same feelings toward learning a foreign language like most of us do and so it shouldn't be forced on to them.
And I would say the same exact thing as your last sentence and look forward to discussing that in class as well.
This post definitely made me think about my own support of a foreign language requirement, and while I am generally a supporter of a liberal arts education that includes such things, one of your sentences seemed particularly well-phrased to me: "...I would argue that in today’s society and specifically in an American context, learning a foreign language at university should not be compulsory for all, but should remain essential for some." This made me think perhaps a foreign language requirement would be best if only applied to a student in, for instance, COLA or the humanities. I didn't think of the possibility of a requirement depending on your field of study. You also make a good point when you reiterate that the application of a foreign language requirement should also take into account the worldwide prevalence of English, and whether or not it is as valuable for English-speakers to learn a second language as it is for non-native English speakers.
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