I read a blog post the other day which was in essence complaining about the state of bilingual education that currently exists in the United States. The article suggested that bilingual education is going from bad to worse. For example, many school districts are dropping their foreign language programs altogether. The argument was that a loss of these programs is leading to a monolingual society.
Well, this is probably the case, but I don’t think the problem is as grave as this author wanted his readers to believe.
I do agree that our foreign language education still has a long way to go, but when compared to other countries, I would say that we’re about in the same situation.
In the travels I have made to other countries around the world, I have noticed that foreign language education is not much than it is here. One of the biggest faults of this instruction in other countries is that it is mostly limited to English instruction. At least here in the United States there is usually a choice of foreign languages to choose from. In my high school, for example, we could choose Spanish, German, French, or even Chinese. I have never seen that kind of choice in schools in other countries. Students are forced (or at least strongly encouraged) to study English.
One of the positive aspects of foreign language education in other countries is that they usually include more than one or two years of study. However, even after that, most students’ language skills in English are probably on par with foreign language skills of students here after a couple of years studying.
The one exception to this are many of the countries in Europe. But I believe that the main reason that foreign language education in Europe is fairly good is because non- native languages aren’t necessarily foreign. Each surrounding country speaks a different language, and that close proximity helps develop the foreign language skills of the people.
So the next time someone you know starts complaining about the state of affairs in foreign language education in the United States, remember that while it can always be better, it’s not as bad as it could be.
By: Clint Tustison
Posts Tagged ‘Foreign Languages’
Is Bilingual Education in the United States As Bad As They Say it Is?
March 29th, 2010Educational Bingo
March 8th, 2010
The majority of people probably know how to play bingo – it’s a game that most of us have encountered, and perhaps even played, at some point in our lives. One thing that you may not however be aware of, is that bingo is growing in popularity as an educational and teaching tool.
More and more teachers are adapting the game for their classrooms. The game is well-suited to educational because, while it’s very easy for students to learn, it’s also highly adaptable. Moreover, since no specialist or expensive resources or materials are needed to play bingo, it fits in with financial constraints that students work under.
The game is particularly popular for teaching English (both K-12 and English as a Second Language), math, and foreign languages such as French, German, Italian or Spanish.
Most variants of the game, do require special bingo cards printed with items other than the numbers that you usually find on bingo cards. For example, in a math lesson, the cards may be printed with math questions, and in a Spanish or French lesson, the cards would be printed with words in that language. Of course, teachers won’t want to spend money on buying preprinted cards, especially considering they’ll need different cards for different lessons – so the best option is for the computer to prepare the cards themselves. Creating bingo cards manually is possible, but extremely time consuming – better to get some bingo card maker software and print off the cards for your computer. Simply enter a list of the items you want on the cards, click a button, and you’re done!
By: Sunil Tanna
