Lauren Franklin wrote an article for The Daily Texan aimed at current and future university students about the faltering foreign langue curriculum in America. Franklin is a linguistics and Middle Eastern languages and cultures senior from Sugar Land Texas who believes that the United States as a nation is comprising its future by not putting more importance into the foreign languages. She notes that only 15-20% of Americans identify as bilingual, where as with our neighbors across the pond 56% of the population identifies. She continues to stress the importance of foreign languages and argues that our reliance on English makes it difficult for Americans to compete globally on both a linguistic and cultural level.
While I agree with the importance of multi-lingual education that Franklin supports, I think she’s incorrect in her assertion that the majority of American students are disinterested in foreign languages. Maybe her status as a linguistics and foreign culture major have exposed her directly to many of the cultural biases our society has, but the majority of students I know are very interested in foreign languages because they want to travel, or they view them as romantic, or even because they want to do scholarly work on a global level. Unfortunately, most of these peers seem intimidated by the traditionally difficult rigor of the courses, or they have inadequate preliminary training in the language from elementary or middle school. I feel this is an important distinction that Franklin fails to make mention of in her article, since it shows that the solution to the problem lies in how we approach foreign language curriculum through all levels of education instead of merely heightened awareness. I appreciate that Franklin has brought this issue to the table, but I don’t believe she proposes an adequate solution in this article.
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