Our Views: Language gap is widening

• Advocate Opinion page staff
• Published: Apr 2, 2009 - Page: 6B

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Parlez-vous anything?

In today’s globalized economy, American workers are competing not just with employees of companies in other states, but with workers in other countries throughout the world.

And more and more often, the Americans will require translators.

A new study suggests the future capacity of Americans to interact with the world will diminish as foreign language instruction declines in schools.

Elementary school classrooms teaching foreign languages are declining, according to a forthcoming study by the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington, D.C.

About one in four elementary schools offered foreign languages in 2008.

The good news is that the number of Arabic and Chinese programs increased.

French and German declined. Spanish remains the most popular second-language program in the United States.

Second or third languages are easier to learn while young, Robert Slater of the National Security Education Program told Education Week.

“That’s what the rest of the world does,” Slater noted, implying that the United States will fall even further behind other nations in producing bilingual people if primary schools aren’t engaged in the task.

Louisiana has a rich heritage, particularly in French culture but also in Spanish. It was Bernardo de Galvez who liberated Baton Rouge from the British in 1779, a significant battle of the Revolutionary War fought outside the 13 colonies.

The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana program and other language programs are reasons for encouragement, but there are pressures to cut down on language instruction.

While the Applied Linguistics report is due out this fall, early indications are that both budget cuts and the pressures of the federal No Child Left Behind program have some impact on language classes.