Why is it so hard for Americans to learn another language when most europeans do?
 

All right - so it's only tangentially related to travel. But there's a very interesting article in today's NY Times on the dismal state of college education in the US. They focus on the number of students admitted to junior colleges - and in some states to 4 year state universities - who require remedial courses before they can do college work - not only in foreign languages, but in math, reading, science, etc.

The sad part is that many of the students graduated from high schools feeling that they were ready for college work - only to find they were years behind where they should be. (One young man really thought being able to balance a check book made you ready for college math - even though he couldn't do algebra or trig.)

Is it just that in europe the school day is longer and there is less vacation time? Or that courses are more demanding all the way through school - ie learning basic english by the age of 12 in many places? Or that many children in the US are simply never going to be capable of the demands of higher education - and should be put on a different (non-academic) track - without any stigma being involved?

If we're going to expect most of our children to go to college we need to teach them much more - and demand much more of them - from first grade on. You can;t do what a couple of states have tried (test at the end of 11th grade and try to have the kids do all the catching up/remedial work in one year.)

Now, I know part of the problem is that in europe the national government supports education and has universal mandates - while we leave it to the states which makes education very uneven across the counry - not only state by state but often district by district.

But I don;t really believe our children are stupider. Why can;t we do a better job of teaching them? Learning a foreign language is not difficult - and the earlier you start the better. Why can't our 12 year-olds speak something besides english? (Never mind the adults.)

it's an interesting topic, but for an in-depth discussion of public education in the US, specifically language education, and the dominance of English across the globe, you won't necessarily find that all the experts in those fields are posting on Fodors.
:)

>Why is it so hard for Americans to learn another language when most europeans do?<

It's not. It's just that in the US, the ability to speak a language other than English is not as important as it is for someone in, say, Denmark to learn a second language.

((I))

I think it has to do with language being taught early on in Europe and being a requirment in schools. Neither of which happens in the U.S. in most places.

Even in the trades, there are tests and certificates. My Swiss friend asked in amazement, "how do you know the plumber will know how to fix your toilet when there are no certifications?" the two Americans in the group just laughed and said "you don't". He couldn't get over it.

In Los Angeles it is hard to find someone who speaks English and if they do it is usually their second language.

I studied Spanish in college, and it was ten years before I ever had an opportunity to speak a word of it. Even today, I have to travel a thousand miles through my own country in order to speak Spanish, unless I go to a Mexican restaurant, because there are few Spanish speakers where I live.

That said, I diligently attend my Spanish classes at the senior center, even knowing that unless I go to Mexico or to Spain, I won't have an opportunity to use it.

I have also learned German--really as a hobby--but I've never become as fluent as I'd like to be because I can only practice it when I'm willing and able to spend $3000 attending a foreign language school in the U.S. or in Germany.

As to whether our schools don't prepare students, I think that's true, but there are societal reasons for that deficiency, which I won't attempt to explore. Also we attempt to keep students in an academic setting until they are approximately 18. In other countries (Germany is the one I know best) students stay in school until they are about 16 and then go to either gymnasium, where they prepare for university, or they go into vocational training.

That makes much more sense to me. However, it seems to me that our system allows for late bloomers and second chances better than the European systems. Once a student does mature enough to realize what he needs to do, there are generally good opportunities to attend college classes.

I think that the most european learn English as a second language, and not another one.
In the opinion of many, the English is an "international" language, and you need it in order to make business, to have access to the last info, etc. So, most of us consider that it is a must to learn English.
The people in USA and England know about this opinion, and as they already know English...why to make an effort if it is not needed?

My daughter lived with a family in Spain last year for 5 months. All had the required English classes throughout their school years. None of them could speak any English. Education varies, even in Europe.

I think for years (at least where I live) teachers were required to build self-esteem in students and students were never alowed to be retained. I'm not so sure that's the case in other countries.

Many colleges are the equivalent of high school. Yet their students graduate with a college degree.

There should be an exit test for elementary, 11th grade is too late.

You know I was in London last week and read the same exact complains about English education...

The fact is like it or not English is the closest thing to a universal language in the world today...if you speak English you really have no great universal need for another language...of course if you're going to love in Portugal, then you will have to learn Portuguese...if you live in the United States you can travel 3,000 miles from east to west, 1800 miles from north to south and not need another language...you travel to most of Canada you don't need another language, you travel to the Uk, Australia, New Zealand you don't need another language...Europeans know if they want to get a job in a multi lingjual position, one of the languages they will need is English..I'm sorry, and perhaps this is very parochial, I don't feel the need whatsoever to learn another language.

As far as this myth how far behind the American education is...remember in the United States it is assumed everybody can go to college and most of our secondary education as a matter of fact almost all of our secondary education is to prepare students for university...not so in most of the rest of the world...only the educationally elite study a secondary probgram leading to university...many when they reach the age of 13 or 14 are sent off to learn a trade.

Learning a second or third language is not necessarily synonymous with a superior education

I agree with ira - I don't feel that an issue of education. People learn what they need to learn out of necessity. I was learning a little bit about why all the little kids in Cambodia are able to walk up to foreigners and ask in perfect English (with very cute French accents, by the way) if the visitor would like to buy something. I was told by a couple of people that English language lessons in Cambodia were very expensive and that most children can't afford it. But out of necessity, in order to live, they learn English anywhere they can... usually from each other and from the foriegners they approach. Many of their parents don't speak it because tourism wasn't there a generation ago. But many of the parents speak French, as they were occupied during that period. Other countries (or regions of larger countries) where there is no overwhelming influx of other languages or overland availibility to neighboring languages are not that much different than the US. I haven't noticed that Australians, for instance, have an appreciable difference in the numbers having a second language.

I would venture to say that the majority of people in any given country don't routinely trans-continentally. We who do are not representative of the world's population as a whole. But for the price of a tank of gas or two, a family in Denmark can enjoy a trip to the beaches of Italy, crossing at least two language zones as they go. The same distance in the US will get you to Florida, crossing none. No necessity to try to communicate in anything but English. Well, maybe Spanish if you really wanted to, but you wouldn't have to. Driving into Mexico is still something that isn't done by a large volume of Americans. Even people who go frequently recommend flying, as the crossing with a vehicle is full of red tape.

Coming back to the education thought - I grew up in one of those midwestern families that didn't/couldn't travel by air. I took several Spanish semesters in school. As I prepare for a trip this coming week to central Mexico, I am amazed still by how little Spanish I retained. I just wasn't exposed to it much after school. What you don't use, you lose.

Finally, I do think there has always been a drive in the US for assimilation - and not just around a common language. The melting pot thing. My grandparents all spoke German exclusively, even though they, and even some of their own parents, were born in the US. They lived in an isolated region of farming communities (mostly vineyards) in Missouri. Then the gov't sent in teachers to educate the area and the first thing they taught my parent's generation was English. Even to the point of instructing my Mom that she wasn't pronuncing their last name correctly - W's that sounded like V, sounding out the second vowel, not having the "E" silent at the end, etc. And to this day, that surname is still being pronunced as the teachers declared it should be. My parents taught my grandparents English and by the time I was old enough to be curious about my history, not a single one of them were willing to teach us grandkids German. "Ach, ya... why do you want to learn that? We speak English now". And so the knowledge of German died with that generation. My parents generation have all forgotten it and mine never got to learn it except in school, where it's use is, quite literally, purely academic.

Although, I can still sort of follow a conversation, as they'd still try to switch to German when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying. Of course, out of necessity (the central theme to this morning's ramble), we'd have to be nosy and try to figure it out. I still can't speak it though, because we never got to get in on the conversations.

If the most important business, political, and social policies in the world were dictated by Ukrania in the Ukranian language, I guarantee you Americans would be speaking Ukranian like they were born there. Simple as that. Communication responds to necessity and survival. If my neighbors spoke different languages and I needed to trade with them to survive, I would speak their languages. No doubt. It is not a matter of nationality, that is coincidential; it is a matter of NECESSITY.

As far as the other skills, i.e. math, history, etc... the parents are to blame. Why are they not DEMANDING more and better from their school systems AND from their kids?

Well -

I would agree with the idea that most Americans don;t learn another language since they don;t have to - they never plan on leaving the country - or assume wherever they go people will know english (which is usually true) - if that were the only deficiency.

But I don;t really think that's the reason. If it were - so many wouldn;t also be unable to learn to read/write English, or do math or science on an age-appropriate level.

Perhaps the idea of a second - vocational - educational track in which students were trained - and certified - in other skills makes sense - rather than pushing everyone to academics - when so many are unable or unwilling to learn even the basics.

After all - isn't a highly qualified plumber or car mechanic of much greater value to society - and won;t they earn a much better living - than "college graduates" who can't really qualify for the jobs requiring such an education.

How about starting with the geography? The United States is vast. Where's the incentive for someone living and working in middle America to learn a foreign language if it already takes him or her a long time to even get to the border of the U.S.

I can drive to two other countries within 5 hours of where I live in Europe. Thus, I speak those other two languages. I have an incentive to do so.

And don't even get me started on the number of different languages I can reach within a 2 hour flight...

The size and unity of the U.S. precludes some of the need.

(Don't get me wrong - I think it's important to learn other languages)

And yes, kybourbon is correct -- it would be an error to generalize that all EU education is superior to the U.S. In fact, I whole heartedly disagree. The entire approach to education is simply different. Many EU educational programs focus on memorization of facts and the "correct" way to do things. The U.S. emphasizes creativity - and I believe that is where the American entrepreneurial spirit comes from -- and that is nothing to be looked down on -- it is the worlds largest economy for a reason.

If the residents of each state in the U.S. spoke their own languages -- okay, NewYorkese does differ somewhat from Native Kentucky, but not much -- most of us would be able to speak the languages of neighboring states, especially if we lived near the borders. Or we would learn a more universal second language which would become the language of commerce and diplomacy.
Once upon a time, the universal second language for Western cultures was French.
In our day, the universal language is English. As native speakers, we have a head start. But this also means that we are perhaps less skilled at acquiring a second language and are certainly less motivated to become fluent.
Our grandchildren are bilingual; their other grandparents speak only minimal English. You want a cookie, you better be able to ask for it nicely. Our daughter also learned to speak the language of her in-laws, as a matter of love, courtesy and self-preservation. She also wanted to know what his sisters were saying about her.

As far as language goes there are many more oppotunities for Europeans to practice a foreign language plus TV programs in English help a lot too. You forget a lot if you don't use it.

As far as education in general, I studied in Ukraine through 6 grades, and then I came here I was 2-3 years ahead. We did NOT have more hours in school. I think the quality of education was definitely better, in US a lot of schooltime in seems to be babysitting or busywork. And things like social promotion don't help.

Did you see the John Stossel 20/20 report last night? It was called Stupid in America (or something like that). I'm not a fan of John Stossel's abrasive attitude, but the report made some good points.
One of which was that money doesn't solve the problem-- creativity and competition do. He cited charter schools as being rather successful in several cities. And discussed the idea of school vouchers also working well where they have been allowed (very volatile subject, I know). And a school district in Kansas City which dumped millions into its school buildings, but still failed with educating the students. Very interesting. Also very sobering.
Our kids went to private schools, which we know is a privilege, but we decided early on to spend money on education over many other things. As a result, our oldest found she was extremely ready for college, having worked so hard in her private high school. Our son is a senior in a private, Jesuit high school now. He said his friends in the large public school in our neighborhood can get out as early as 11:00 a.m. some school days, because they have finished their requirements, so they just leave school. No options for extra classes, I guess. It's pitiful.
Not a topic for a trave forum, but it is an important subject overall.

As has been mentioned, there is much less an opportunity to use a foreign language plus Latin is being taught so infrequently unlike when I went to school.

Sorry to say, there has been a vast dumbing down in schools compared to when I was in grade school & high school. College is another matter. JMHO

Stupid in America was a rerun from the winter. The report released on charter schools (by the GAO I think) this past week had those students actually scoring lower than public school students.

In my daughter's high school, there were 3 levels of Algebra II (a graduation requirement). The top two levels required a graphing calculator, while the lowest level didn't. The kids in the low class really didn't learn anything the other classes did, but they all had Algebra II on their HS transcript as if they took the same class.

Charter school report link
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006460

It's interesting how everyone always bashes the primary and secondary education system in the US, and yet eight of the top 10 universities in the world are in the US, fed by our secondary schools. Hmm.

Please tell me what language I should learn and how much I will use it.

In the past 40 years...

I took Spanish in High School and College. I have travelled 2 weeks in Spain.

I took Japanese for 3 semesters in graduate School. I travelled 2 weeks in Japan.

I took 1 year of German in Community College. I have travelled 9 weeks in Germany.

I never studied French. I have travelled 4 weeks in France.

My wife has studied Portugese and Italian and gone to neither of these two countries. She has used her Spanish, French and German.

My son took Spanish and French in High School and is taking Italian in Community College. He has never travelled to any of these countries.

However, anyone learning English in Western Europe is going to have plenty of opportunity to use it without leaving their counntry.

Charter, Public, Private...I really don't think it matters. What does matter is to have the schools staffed with people that care, people who are motivated and can motivate others. I had teachers that put me to sleep and others that I would walk through fire to get to their classes. It's hard to explain.

As far as the foreign language goes, I think we need to start in kindergarten. That way it would not so easily be forgotten. We, in this country, really have no opportunity to speak another language..there are of course SOME exceptions. I took five years of French and never spoke a word of French to s singel soul until a Paris trip in 2002. English is the international language of commerce, all the control towers in all countries are supposed to speak english to all pilots from all countries. I have on two occasions in Europe overheard two people from two different countries that could not speak each others language, communicate in English because that was the common language they both understood. It worked for me so I could listen in on their conversation..subtely of course.

It seems the older you are the more difficult it is to learn a language so back to my point..we need to start out in the very first years of school.

>For the price of a tank of gas or two, a family in Denmark can enjoy a trip to the beaches of Italy, crossing at least two language zones as they go.<

Along those lines, the distance from Dublin to Moscow is about the same as from LA to St. Louis.

For the former journey, you will hear at least six different labguages, for the latter only one (mostly). :)

((I))

Okay- I feel the need to pipe up now, as a FL teacher.

Yes, I agree- the STEREOTYPE is that most Europeans have learned some English in school at some point in time. How much every person retains depends greatly on the person, how they were taught, and how often they use the language.

It is also a STEREOTYPE that Americans can't be bothered to learn other languages, which is partially true and partially unfair. I think that if my whole family had grown up farming in Omaha and I had no prospect of travel, I would find fault with FL education as well. This is not the case for me- but I did have to learn subjects that I do not use in my daily life, as well. It is a part of being a well rounded person.

And if that kid in Omaha connects with the Spanish culture, and finds that the language comes easily to him, and takes a real interest in travel- shouldn't he do it? Even though his family never has?

Understanding a second (3rd, 4th) language is really about taking an interest in a culture that is not your own. I think a lot of the world's issues could be resolved if people cared about other cultures, and not just the fact that "we are American, America is the best". That thought is scary to me, and that type of nationalism is what we see as crazy outside of our borders.

For me, learning Russian was such a part of my development- I cannot imagine if I had not been given this option in school. And through knowing the language, I was able to make friends and understand both types of the Russian culture- what we refer to as the culture with a "C" and culture with a "c".

I am amazed that so many people find it okay to expect English everywhere- but then again, that is a piece of that "we're the best" nationalism that I find so terrifying.

As far as the difficulty of learning language, it is all a part of the age at which you begin. Most US schools are significantly behind other places in the world, partly due to the fact that we are somewhat isolated from other countries, so the need from a young age to speak multiple languages is not as apparent.

This is a HUGE flaw in our educational system, as the brain changes throughout puberty and makes full acquisition of a second language harder, if not impossible for some.

From my professional experience, students with early exposure to 2 or more languages find it much easier to acquire new languages.

Start them younger!
"To have another language is to possess a second soul" -Charlemagne

"Those who know nothing of foreign languages, know nothing of their own" -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world" -Ludwig Wittgenstein
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Hi Katya,

Your quotes are all from furriners what din't speak no English. :) :)

I agree with you. However, the question was why folks in the US are less likely to speak a second language than folks in Europe, and the reason is that they don't **need** to.

>I am amazed that so many people find it okay to expect English everywhere- ...<

It's not whether it's a good idea or not, it's just that there is a high probability of the casual tourist finding someone who speaks English almost everywhere.

((I))

Everyone everywhere has the same aptitude for learning languages, and all languages are roughly equally difficult to learn. The main differences are in motivation and quality of education.

In countries where learning another language is a necessary prerequisite to economic survival, such as the Netherlands, the quality of education tends to be high, and people are strongly motivated to learn key languages. As a result, most people speak one or more foreign languages well.

In countries with no economic incentive to learn foreign languages, education tends to be poor or sparse, and few people are motivated to learn languages, since the only real motivation is academic curiosity. The United States is in this category, and so Americans tend not to speak foreign languages, and certainly not fluently.

Societies that have long been affluent tend to become lazy and complacent, too, and one of the first casualties of these attitudes is the public education system. The U.S. is also in this category, and so the quality of education is poor, because people have forgotten how important a good education is to keeping the society affluent over the long term.

Anthony...

I challenge your statement that the quality of education especially public education in the United States is poor...that is a blatant misconception. There is a big big difference between American education and that of other countries in how our educations resources are used...our top is as good if not better than the rest of the world...however in America, as I said before, education preparatory to university study is universal...nobody is barred from a university prep course at age 13 as is so in many many many other countries in the world nor are there examinations to enter a university prep course...in America, rightly or wrongly, it is assumed that anybody can go to university and so resources are spread over a wider universe.

Why do many many people come to America to study at Harvard, MIT, and other topp notch American universities if American education is so poor? Why do medical students all over the world want to do residencies in American hospitals?

I am afraid that people who put down American education on the whole simply don't have a clue as to what they're talking about and this is just as true of public education as it is of charter schools, private schools, religeous schools or whatever the difference being the public schools are required to take everybody, can't be as slective as private or charter schools and are prohibited by law from throwing out troublemakers...but still that doesn't mean students in public schools always get an inferior education to the rest of the world

As I said I was in London last week and all the papers were screaming about were the large number of students who had not achieved success on the national exams being given and the dumbing down of the standards.

WE are "dumbing down" our education to meet certain criteria and to be sure that we make people feel "good" about themselves, whether it's true or not. My neice studied in Denmark last year. She was getting straight A's at Sonoma State and struggled really hard to make B's in Copenhagen. The Danish kids are allowed a lot of freedom in the very early years and then by third grade they have to buckle down. They start learning English then and take it all through school and also at some point have to pick an additional language. My neice said that was usually German or Russian, with a smattering of others thrown in. I could not believe the number of people in Copenhagen and Stockholm that spoke perfect "Amercian" English..a few British. I was just amazed.

About a third of Americans are functionally illiterate. That's pretty strong evidence that the quality of education is low. A great deal of other evidence could be cited. It's not surprising that people who cannot even read and write their native language would be unable to use any other language.

Agree with some of the above posters--there's no need for the vast majority of Americans to learn a second language. They'd never use it for anything of importance. Not the same as in Europe with much smaller countries jammed together that must deal with one another on a daily basis.

In fact, I think it would be a waste of valuable time and money to routinely spend a great deal of effort teaching all American students another language. The vast majority would never use it and would soon forget just about everything they "learned" in school. Plus, how do you motivate the majority of students to do a good job at the hard work of learning another language when they know they'll probably never use it, except maybe on a two-week vacation sometime in the future?

Note that a lot of students do learn to speak Spanish along the Mexico/USA border--they perceive a potential need there.

" ... so many people find it okay to expect English everywhere ...."

Expect in the sense of "necessary or proper" or of "likely" to occur? (I looked up "expect" to see if my assumption of two meanings was actually correct.) I expect people to speak English in the sense of likely and have found that to be a pretty accurate assumption in Europe. Particularly where said Europeans deal with tourists. It was less true on my first trip 35 years ago and it is less true of people over about age 50. But just as taking German in college was considered necessary for physical science and engineering majors in the '30s, for example, English seems to be necessary in most disciplines today. In countries where very few people speak the native language, Greece and the Netherlands to name two, English is the primary language with nearly any foreigner.

A couple of years ago we met a honeymooning couple on Santorini. He was Spanish, she was German, they met in Austria, and got married in Switzerland, where they now live. She didn't speak much Spanish, he didn't speak much German. Guess what language they conversed with each other in?

A jeep tour operator in Sydney told me 10 years ago that that Aussies in the tourist business were all trying to learn Japanese. We probably won't have to worry about learning an Oriental language becoming essential in our lifetimes. (And I'm relieved - I certainly didn't have much luck learning a smattering of Arabic 7 yrs. ago from Berlitz tapes. Japanese or Chinese would surely be even harder.) But I suspect the day will come that the language of the world might be Chinese, Indian, or some language other than English.

Once again, this is not something unique to the United States...many of the British papers I read last week were lamenting how terrible foreign language education is in the UK and the UK is only 25 miles across the Channel from France....English, at least today, is by far the most important and universal language in the world today...maybe in 50 years it will be Chinese but right now it is English and if you know English, there is really not a great deal of importance of learning another language routinely...the same goes for Australia, New Zealand and look at the resentment expressed by many Western Canadians in being forced to learn French because it is officially a bi-lingual country.

I think it will be a long time before Chinese is a serious candidate as "the" international language--not a chance until they get a phonetic alphabet.

>About a third of Americans are functionally illiterate. <

The 2000 Census reported that about 18% of US residents speak a language other than English at home.

About 13% of US residents report that they do not speak English well.

There are about 11,000,000 illegal immigrants (about 4%) in the US, a large percentage of whom do not speak English well.

We shouldn't expect these folks to be functionally literate in English.

Assuming that your 1/3 is correct, that leaves us about 15% of the population who ought to be literate but aren't.

What is the definition of "functionally literate"?

((I))

There are other points to consider too.

1. Learning style: some people learn by listening, some people learn visually and some people learn by doing.

2. US schools educate everyone. We spend a lot of money on special education which means that money can't be spent on other things. In many places, special education students must be included in regular classrooms. This is beneficial for the special ed student but probably does nothing to improve academic rigor.

3. If we suddenly decided that learning a foreign language was important, it would take a number of years to create teachers competent to teach.

4. As long as teachers are paid less than doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers, it will be difficult to recruit enough teachers who are able to provide the rigor we would like. God bless the many teachers who could earn far more but chose to teach anyway.

Just a note- there is no "Indian" language, there are a few languages spoken in India- Hindi is the "official" state language, used in gov't. There are 23 languages spoken in India.

Oriental is a term that I find racist, and I would recommend people learn to use the word Asian.

Gringos. :)

And yes, teachers are underpaid. As the child of an attorney (who forbade me from going into the profession as he sees it becoming a disgustingly overpopulated, dirty profession) I can tell you that there is no difference in educational preparation or professional expectations- that is, in a good school district.

I suggest that since this is supposedly a board devoted to travel and learning about other cultures, take some time and learn a language. If you know a language, teach it to your kids.

In my school district, we teach 5 languages- French, German, Latin, Russian and Spanish. We all know what #1 is, but the rest are all fairly close in numbers.

Students choose the language they want to study, so basically my job lies in the fact that students choose to study Russian.

Math teachers do not face this kind of pressure.

My boss likes to say that there are good math teachers, who are good teachers because they want to be. But Russian teachers are good because they <i> have to be </i>.

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I'm not qualified to comment on the standard of languages in the US but here in Britain I don't think that it's terribly high, despite having continental Europe on our doorstep and increasing ease (financially and logistically) to travel abroad.

There is a clear malaise in this regard, with an underlying attitude that '..well, they all speak English, don't they'. (And I'm not ruling myself out of this)

I learnt French from the age of 9-16, and achieved grade As throughout. However, can I speak French? Not terribly well - though I'm not bad at understanding it. Maybe it's because my parent preferred to travel further than France when we went on holiday, tending to go to Spain/Greece/Northern Africa etc - and as an adult I'm not a great lover of France - so I never had a huge chance to practice.

I don't think that Americans should 'chastise' themselves for a lack of proficiency - after all what percentage of you travel outside the US? (And I appreciate that this is due to factors such as time - not a great deal of annual leave - and the fact that you live in a VAST nation where there is much to see and do)

I think that showing a willingness to speak another language when abroad is more important that a proficiency; take a guidebook and don't expect the host nation to speak English!

Another issue with the US public education system is the huge gaps between the schools in more well off areas and the schools in poor areas. I grew up in a reasonably affluent area with high property taxes. Our public schools were very good and the kids on the college prep track were largely prepared for university. The schools had enough money to operate in a reasonable way, the environment facilitated teaching and learning. We also had a relatively high level of parental involvement and expecation. The next district over was a different story. The quality of education there was much lower.

Well - I think there are 2 primary problems - with students not learning foreign languages - or a lot of other things:

Schools are expected to solve a lot of other social problems as well as educate children. If all teachers had to do was to teach well-behaved and motivated kids (like when I was in school) they could get throgh a lot more material then when they spend 50% of time dealing with other issues. (And the few kids that were not well-behaved or motivated were dealt with by prinicipals, counselors and parents - swiftly.) (I know I sound like a curmudgeon - but with kids more than anything else, garbage in, garbage out - and I'm tired of dealing with other people's garbage.)

Second, many parents do not demand quality education, nor are they willing to pay for it or expend any time to see their children get it. And I'm not talking about private schools. But I have worked with more than one woman who spent god knows what on a giant SUV every 2 or 3 years - but complained when school taxes went up a couple of hundred dollars. And she knew everything about those cars - but not the names of her kids teachers. (And any parents that accept &quot;social promotion&quot; deserve the children they get.)

So - while teachers are by no means all perfect - when given an often impossible job - most of them do try - until broken by the system. (This is why thousands of NYC teachers try to leave for the suburbs every year.)

As for foreign languages my (public) schools offered Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. (I believe most high schools no longer even offer Latin.) And you were required to start one in 7th grade.

IMHO the lack of ability to speak any foreign language (and most of the population of the US lives within a couple hours of a country speaking a foreign language - by air, if not by car) in simply a function of the massive failure of the US education system.

I'm not certain what the &quot;official&quot; definition of &quot;functionally literate&quot; is, but I would consider someone who cannot understand and fill out an application for employment to be &quot;functionally illiterate&quot;. Sadly, that person is NOT an immigrant.