American ethnocentrism is vastly harming students’ education and our connection to other countries and cultures. This all begins in elementary school.
The typical American education system waits until high school to begin teaching foreign languages, if it even does at all. According to the American Councils for Foreign Language Education, only 20% of K-12 students in the United States are enrolled in a foreign language course. To get a Regents diploma in New York, students are required to take only a single credit of a foreign language.
The reality is that high school is far too late to begin studying a second language. According to MIT, to have a chance at achieving the proficiency of a native speaker, a second language should be introduced to children around the age of ten. Though language ability can still be acquired effectively up to 18 years of age, the ability to absorb language gradually decreases and the chances of speaking fluently fall with it.
Pan over to Europe and most students are starting to learn their second language between the ages of six and nine, according to Pew Research Center. Additionally, in over 20 European countries, students are required to learn a second foreign language later on in their education.
So why is America waiting so long to start? Fortunately for native English speakers, other countries are reaching out to learn our language. Pew Research Center says that 91% of students in Europe study English. Though English is certainly a valuable language to study, it is completely unethical to expect others to come to us. If other countries are putting in so much effort, so much education, to be able to converse and communicate with us, America should be extending the exact same effort.
Beyond just conversation, language education holds an enormously important role in cultural education, and so I firmly believe that the lack of foreign language education is not only indicative of a lack of desire to connect internationally, but also in apathy for cultural education. The language we speak is so deeply rooted in our culture. Idiomatic expressions, sentence structure, etymology and literally words themselves are indicative of cultural values. Just speaking the language is a phenomenal way to innately get a taste of another culture.
Many language teachers also find ways to integrate culture into their classroom. Often, foreign language classrooms are covered in bulletin boards of foods, landmarks and history from a country that speaks it. Perhaps, as a reward, a foreign language teacher might allow their students to watch a movie in that language, allowing media to demonstrate a small slice of art and culture from another country. Cultural education can expand children’s worldview and create a new definition of normal that stretches beyond the tradition that they were raised in.
It is time that the United States put in the same effort to speak foreign languages that other countries are putting in for us. Not only could it expand our connections as a nation, but it could benefit students as well by growing their worldview. The lack of foreign language education, at its core, demonstrates a larger issue of ethnocentrism in America.
Photo by: Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels
