Job Discussion Forums

[slaqdog]

Here in the UK it is no longer compulsory for pupils to study a language other than English in post 14 education. A recent survey in my local paper found that only 13% thought that learning another language was useful.
Well this shocks me but maybe I'm wrong. What are the advantages for us English speakers?

[rusmeister]

I'd encourage a little more confidence in your common sense. Of course you're not wrong!
People can do fine without another language if they are manual laborer who lives in a small town and never goes anywhere and never has any need to understand...oh wait, some of those take Bible verses and forget that the Bible was translated from other languages and start making up their own religions.
Are foreign languages useful? Of course!
Should they be compulsory for everyone? I don't think so.

I think most of us will readily admit that we have learned a ton from our overseas exposure and would not trade it back for just about anything (well, maybe a few trillion dollars). How many of us who understand a foreign culture and people would agree to bomb them back to the stone age if they didn't give our government what it wants?

Do we want to fence the rest of the world out? To what extent do we need to do that and to what extent do we need to live with them?

It's a 'no duh' to me.

[Glenski]

10 Advantages off the top of my head:

It shows how hard it it for non-native English speakers to learn a foreign language. This is important if you meet an exchange student, or foreign businessperson, or if you go overseas and wonder why shouting (slowly, of course) in clear, precise English doesn't work.

It makes one more well-rounded. Perhaps you will learn something about the culture of the language origin.

It helps if one actually DOES make a trip to a foreign land where that language is used.

It's great for trivia bits that you might catch on TV game shows.

It's cool when you can actually semi-translate snippets from movies, whether from subtitles or documents.

The world is becoming more globalized. Why NOT learn another language? It makes one seem less like a snob.

It can help with foreign penpals.

It may help if your company is visited by some foreigner who speaks it, or if you are asked to go to that country on business.

It's useful if one goes on a foreign exchange.

Not all post-high school institutions have stopped foreign language entrance requirements.

[ls650]

I think part of the reason people aren't interested in learning another language is that many students are not given much choice in which language they study. When I attended high school, I was forced to study French; there was no other language available to study. I was bored in the subject because I had no personal interest, and most of the others studying in my classes felt exactly the same way.

French might be useful way over there in eastern Canada, but out west? According to one statistic I've read, French is about the 12th or 13th most spoken language in British Columbia - in other words, next to no one speaks it there. It makes a lot more sense for someone in the west to know Spanish, Mandarin, or Japanese, as we do far more trade with those than with French.

But of course, the bureaucrats in Ottawa aren't interested in what westerners need.

[sheeba]

I'd say one of the biggest advantages is the way it helps you when teaching English . I don't mean translation but just understanding more about the culture, problems with learning and language transfer .

To know the culture of the target language often means to understand the language somewhat . I'm finding learning about positioning of certain parts of language particularly interesting in that it relates to the values of the culture .

My last advantage I think must be that I realised how screwed up English is . Nice to express oneself but I find with the freer word order that English confuses .
Chinese offers the logical build up in a sentence finishing with the most important information . A matter of indirect expression I know but this I prefer.

[Guy Courchesne]

One could put the question into a broader context...why learn anything new at all, or better, why learn something that isn't directly related to the skill set you're focused on? The question, I think, is pondered at education ministries around the world, and the challenege is to think 30 years ahead of today.

Should children (for example) be taught with a specific end goal in mind? We need engineers now, so should extra emphasis be placed on the physical sciences to produce that result? At what cost comes such a compartmentalized education?

Why take an art class? Or music?

I'd be of the camp to say a second language, or broader-based education will always be valuable, even if one doesn't go on be a teacher, a linguist, an artist, a musician. In every possible human endeavour of expression, communication, enterprise, discovery, and progress, one draws from many skills and experiences...

I'm getting into the clouds a bit here I know, but following Sheeba, studying languages extending from and speaking of culture and ways of thinking/perceiving the world is a very direct way to augment creativity, and adding to oneself other modes of expression. The simplest way to see a benefit is gaining the ability to interact with a larger audience in the world.

[jonniboy]

[jonniboy]

[slaqdog]

Yes some great answers to my question and I particularly liked Guy's. Mostly though it strikes me that learning from age 11 or 14 is too little way too late.
One point I waS thinking about for Brits and Irish is the EU government: you need 3 community languages to work for the EU (and be under 35 a different subject but its great that governments can exclude themselves from legislation they expect everyone else to follow )So we're gonna end up with the UK and Ireland with NO civil servants in Brussels--I think we should call it quits and leave now before everyone starts laughing openly and all chanting 'can't learn a language'

[SueH]

From various sources I've heard that much of the business in Brussels is conducted in..... yes, English!

It's difficult getting much motivation when you're 11-14, unless you really enjoy the language learning per se or you have a very clear idea of what you want to use it for.

For a few years until the age of 11 I grew up in Italy: English school but learnt 'street Italian'. That gave me a head start in French when I returned to the UK and although I only did it to O level (14/15) my retention levels were better than others who seemed to forget it all within a couple of years.

For 25 years I worked in industry where I never spoke one word of either language, so I've always maintained a healthy cynicism over statements of how much they help with employment. I'm much more of the view that you learn according to need like my friend who learnt Dutch to sell shoes there.

Blessed redundancy was followed by the pleasant surprise that I enjoyed EFL teaching, and then I stumbled into teaching beginners' Italian! Now back in Italy after 40 years to teach English I find I'm also teaching Italian to an English businessman.. Knowing the two languages, and knowing the areas of difficulty I've had certainly helps when it comes to teaching both.

[dmb]

[squirrel12]

I think learning at least one foreign language should be compulsory in the UK. Apart from anything else, it gives you an understanding of the structure of languages and an insight into how English has developed. The problem is they start kids on it too late here (if at all). I was lucky - we had compulsory French from 11 - 16, a second compulsory language (German or Spanish) from 12 - 16, and a third optional one (again German or Spanish) from 14-16. These three langauges have been useful to me throughout my life. There are plenty of places I have been where English might not have not spoken and where I've managed to get by on something else, and that's a nice thing to be able to do. Also, when I went to work in Russia I knew only a few words of Russian, and having the knowledge of the other languages made it a lot easier for me to pick up conversational skills quite quickly.

[darkside1]

Plenty adults seem to want to learn foreign languages where I am (eg at FE and Uni evening classes). Maybe you need a reason to see the benefits of learning another language (work, travel, holiday home) that isn't there for most teenagers.

[Jyulee]

I imagine that very few adults and/or children successfully learn languages "for the sheer hell of it" - there has to be a reason.

In the UK/Ireland, there is normally very little reason. It is less about the British/Irish being lazy, and more about there simply not being a necessity.

[natsume]

In California, I had a choice of Spanish or French in high school. I chose French, took it for four years, but really was uninterested, despite having a pretty good teacher. I can understand some spoken French today, but I was neither intrinsically nor extrinsically motivated to learn French at any point.

I took two quarters of Spanish in college, and subsequently travelled quite a bit in Latin America and worked with many Latin Americans, so I have a decent functional "survival" level of spoken Spanish. I spent three weeks in Mexico last summer solo, had no problem communicating at a basic level, and actually had some quite extensive conversations in Spanish.

I'm learning Japanese now, and have a high level of motivation. The challenge is monumental, language does not come easy to me, but this particular mountain is intriguing enough to keep my attention.

Language learning is ridiculously time consuming. I think for most English speaking Americans, in the end, it has to do with where your passions lie. I love it, because it is a window onto another culture. I heard an American Japanese literature professor state once that he loved thinking in Japanese every day, because it was like getting a free e-coupon. (E-coupons, in the old days, were for the best rides at Disneyland.)