En los EE.UU. el estudio de idiomas extrañjeros no está valorado – The Study of Foreign Languages Is Not Valued in the US
…….much, according to a study done by cbsnews.com http://tinyurl.com/yb5gbtl . When US parents of school age children were asked if they valued their children learning a foreign language, 47% said “yes” and “51% said “no”.
To this I ask; ”Really?”
The national demographic of our country continues to shift to the degree that it no longer requires us to go to “that part of town” in order to experience the predominance of another lanugage being spoken, ”Made in America” has become a marketing angle because this phenomenon is so rare, the immediacy and reach of current media allows us intimate access to the joys and struggles of people so far away that a generation ago we may not have ever known of their existence much less find ourselves morally provoked to participate in global efforts to champion their basic human rights …… and yet, more than half of the parents today don’t value the study of foreign languages for their children? Really? Me quedo sin palabras. Aquí estamos, Joan
Well, on the bright side (maybe) the percentage of nonparents who think it should be required to graduate, is higher. What do you make of that? Personally I think people convince themselves that a language is harder than it really is. We set it up to be a struggle, and it becomes one, but a European cab driver can speak perhaps three or four languages and doesn’t seem to think of it as an “egghead” pursuit. Maybe things are hard because we make them hard, and then we decide that they’re too hard to be required for graduation.
Here here! I totally agree with you. I think the way we approach the study of language ‘these days’, because as we know, it’s wasn’t always an ‘academic’ endeavor, really intimidates people. I know it did me. After I gave up trying to memorize the conjugation tables etc, and just tried to use it to express myself things got a lot easier. Thanks for your comment Christy! – Joan