Help Wanted: Proficiency in Foreign Language Highly Desirable
By Diane Demee-Benoit
12/20/06
In preparation for a talk I had to give about twenty-first-century workplace skills, I reviewed current job descriptions posted on a couple of well-known job-search Web sites, looking for trends and other employability indicators. One of the major factors that jumped out was the number of job listings that mentioned required or preferred proficiency in a foreign language.
This makes sense. Most companies are doing business across the globe, and employees who are able to speak more than one language are a growing necessity. From local and national government agencies looking for speakers of Spanish and Arabic to corporations seeking people who speak Japanese or Mandarin, today's job descriptions are another indicator that the global economy is steaming ahead.
What's the takeaway? The United States is one of just a few countries whose citizens are generally monolingual. Just as we must build up the technological, basic, and higher-order thinking skills of our workers, we must also build up their foreign language capacity.
How do we do this? One major change that should be seriously considered is teaching foreign language earlier than in the high school grades. (Current brain research seems to indicate that the young brain learns language faster, thus making the case for learning a foreign language in elementary school.) Other issues include new approaches to foreign language instruction, including a well-articulated curriculum framework, effective uses of technology, proven teaching strategies, and strong policies to elevate the importance of language.
A great example of how a language program has been constructed based on current knowledge of learning theory is the Portland Public Schools's Japanese Magnet Program, in Portland, Oregon, a nationally recognized program that, coincidentally, advocates a language-immersion approach.
This second video excerpt, from the John Stanford International School, in Seattle, Washington, contains several interesting observations about language acquisition. One that grabbed my attention is that many educators naturally gravitate to integrating language instruction into social studies, culture, and art. It surprised me to find, however, that research now shows that integrating foreign language instruction into math and science makes the learning of a foreign language easier! Watch the segment and find out why!
The knowledge that foreign languages are best taught in the elementary years (or even before) has been around for decades. Too bad the framers of NCLB didn't pick up on it.
I always wondered why we wanted children to put their languages away and just learn English. I taught in a very interesting school where there were many languages, in Arlington , Virginia. Sometimes a mother ahd her family would be Americans going to another country taking State Dept Language classes. Sometimes we the class, would be teaching English to a student just in from another country , but I don't think I ever discouraged the children from speaking their first language.
I have traveled and taught in many countries. When I work in Europe at a table people are fluent in several languages changing from one to the other to help all at the table, or just because the joke or the story sounds better in a particular language. The conferences that teachers have for learning have translators and we have our electronic ears to get the meaning. It seems that our country is a major country that does not support second language instruction as a matter of course.
We should encourage those students to keep their language and a second or third language should be a part of a currriculum in which a world is flat. It makes it so much easier for all.
At first my first aquired languages were all the food menus, but I struggle to speak tourist Greek, and a few words in each language that is that of a country in which I am visiting or learning in as a teacher.
It is a part of the modern world to be able to commuicate, not just with the internet, but to learn
other languages as well.
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Dear Carol Almarez and All, It
Dear Carol Almarez and All,
It is a pleasure for me to participate in the International Education and Global Awareness. This time I wish to provide my comments within literacy development.
It is interesting to realize how scholars are missing out standard literacy development. Kenya education system has recommended the use of two major languages in schools. Swahili and English.
The country has 43 different tribes whose interaction patterns are governed by the spoken language. It has been found convenient to apply English in schools as the major language. Most children have forsaken their vanacular language in favour of the school literacy development. Unfortunately, the spoken foreign language, has vanacular dialect that fuse into this new literacy development tred.
Urban family dwellers use Swahili or English even when communicating with their own children. It is interesting to realize how Kenya comminity apply two or three diffent language terminology in the same sentence.
The use of foreign language in the schools has also spread in the rural areas. Churches and faith organizations have also found it easier to apply foreign language in faith meetings.
Vanacular language has lost its value as a result of urban migration and social change.
Proberbly vanacular languages will need inclussion in future literacy development.
The disadvantages of applied foreign language in daily life is lost identity and loss of cultural values. The other disadvantage is loss of standard spoken language.
It is important to ensure application of standard English language, proper use any other language, and promotion of cultural values.
Grace.
ED 1280341-735
kENYA.
Most beneficial language?
What language would make you most invaluable in seeking a job in the FBI, CIA, or armed forces? Also which would make you most invaluable in business? Thanks
Karie
Jobs for people with foreign language skills
Karie,
There are a number of occupations where knowing a language other than English would make you more marketable. Currently, the languages that are in high demand include the Arabic languages (including Farsi/Persian), Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, Japanese, Russian.