Why Should Students Learn a Second Language?
The Importance and Benefits of Language Learning
According to data collected by The American Councils for International Education, the average amount of students enrolled in a language other than English for the 2014–2015 school year in the U.S. was approximately 20%. While this number certainly could be lower, it isn’t exactly where we need it to be: a national study of language learning by The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was actually commissioned by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, looking to ensure that the next generation of Americans entering the workforce is prepared to keep the country globally competitive and nationally secure.
Clearly, language learning is immensely relevant for our students — as individuals, but also as contributors to a larger community. In PreK-12 conversations, you’ll often hear the term 21st century education, or 21st century teaching. So far, the 21st century has been defined by global awareness, intercultural connections, and virtual, digitally-driven conversations. Our students will be graduating into a world where a potentially illuminating and important connection with an individual across the globe is just a click away.
How, then, is persistent monolingualism a feature of 21st century American education?
The simple answer to this question is that it’s not a feature, or, at least, it shouldn’t be — language learning would be a central component of a learning environment that accurately reflects modern student needs and workforce prep. But the disconnect between an ideal course load and reality isn’t simple — it can be traced back to a number of factors, including — but not limited to — attitudes about language learning, district budgets, resources, and generally slow-to-adapt systems. Check out this article from The Atlantic for a deeper brief into the factors behind the country’s language learning situation. But what’s important to understand is that it isn’t a problem rooted too deeply to be addressed and fixed. Recently, we’ve connected with some passionate and inspiring world language teachers that believe in the power of their classrooms to transform student learning experiences. They certainly believe that students are perfectly capable of learning — and enjoying — a foreign language. (Be sure to keep tabs on our Art of Teaching project for their featured pieces on teaching in a world language classroom.)
Maybe convincing students — or administrators, or communities, depending on your school’s individual journey with language learning — that world language courses are valuable is as simple as looking at the facts. Why is language learning worth the ever-limited, precious time in a school day? What are the proven benefits of learning a new language?
As it turns out, the benefits of language learning are broad, diverse, and far reaching. According to the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages, research has uncovered three key areas, or categories into which the benefits of language learning fall: cognitive benefits, academic achievement, and student beliefs about languages of other cultures. The ACTFL has a fantastic database of research, sorted by these three categories and individual claim. Check it out here:
Below are a few of the most significant benefits of language learning, at a glance:
The Ability to Hypothesize in Science
On the ACTFL website, you’ll find tons of research indicating that learning another language improves students’ reading and linguistic skills. For many, this won’t be surprising. But did you know that there’s research to support that bilingualism actually improves students’ abilities to hypothesize in science? According to this study (note — it is somewhat dated, so more research should be done in the future), bilingual students were able to write higher-quality scientific hypotheses using more complex language. So, the benefits of language learning aren’t isolated to linguistics-specific abilities: they might even cross over to seemingly unrelated subjects and skills.
Higher Academic Achievement on Standardized Tests
The first claim you’ll find on the ACTFL research page is: “Language Learning Correlates With Higher Academic Achievement On Standardized Test Measures.” Below the claim, you’ll find supporting research spanning over three decades. Studies have shown that foreign language instruction can boost student’s achievement not only in reading and linguistic testing measures, but also in math. (Interestingly, you’ll notice that the studies that date back to the 1960s focus on whether or not foreign language study harms academic achievement in core subjects, not whether it improves it — perhaps reflecting a change in attitudes). While standardized test performance is of course not our primary goal for student learning journeys, it is a reality, and the research shows that world language instruction will send them into the test with an advantage.
Performance and Engagement
See this fantastic article from NPR around the brain benefits of bilingualism for a reference to a team of researchers that have studied eight million students in english-only classrooms and one-way immersion classrooms. They found that the dual-language students show higher attendance, higher parent involvement, and fewer behavioral problems (Kamentez, 2016). The cognitive research page of the ACTFL site contains research that shows language learning also supports student self-esteem, healthy cognitive development, and advanced attentional control.
If you’re a world language teacher and looking for a practical, engaging curriculum, check out our Spanish instructional solution:
References:
Friedman, Amelia. “America’s Lacking Language Skills.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 10 May 2015. Web. 8 June 2017.
Kamentez, Anya. “6 Potential Brain Benefits of Bilingual Education.” NPR. N.p., 29 Nov. 2016. Web. 8 June 2017.
Kessler, C., & Quinn, M. E. (1980). Positive effects of bilingualism on Science problem-solving abilities. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown Universityround table on languages and linguistics (pp. 295–308). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, from National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition.
“The State of Language in the United States.” American Councils for International Education. American Councils for International Education, American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages, Center for Applied Linguistics: The National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey (2017), 2017. Web. 8 June 2017.
“United States Needs to Significantly Increase Access to Language Learning to Remain Competitive.” American Academy of Arts and Sciences. N.p., 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 8 June 2017.
“World Language Study in U.S. K-12 Schools.” EdNet Insight. American Councils for International Education, 1 June 2017. Web. 8 June 2017.
“What the Research Shows.” American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 June 2017.
