Pros and Cons of Language Learning

Language immersion schools hiring some English-only teachers


I think it's a good sign that the number of language immersion schools for English-speaking Americans have gone from fewer than fifty to nearly three hundred. It's good evidence that we're becoming more worldly and conscious of the benefits of learning foreign languages. The world is becoming more and more connected and no matter how efficient the translators (electronic or human), there is no replacement for fluency in a foreign language if one wants to have a conversation with somebody or read literature or travel in the country.

I've enjoyed the class discussions on the topic; and what I glean from them is that nobody really should be forced to learn any language as a prerequisite to geographical movement, but that the individual should be fully aware of the opportunities he may lose if he chose not to learn a given language. I tend to agree with this generalization, though I'm sure specific circumstances might prove otherwise.

I think it's also important to note the opposite, the situation of the permanent institutions adapting to an immigration of a foreign-language-speaking populace. By the simple process of competition for limited resources, if one fast food chain decides to employ bilingual cashiers while others feel that this new population "should learn the language," the latter businesses will flounder while the former will flourish. So really language learning goes both ways, and people on both sides of the language barrier have things to gain by adapting to the new situation.

Reading my twelfth batch of language-related news articles, I'm beginning to see trends and categories of the topics addressed. Some articles focus on one particular line of text (referring to it as "language") in a bill or from a speech and the reactions that people have had to that text. Others focus on language learning and instruction, often regarding public schools or public policy and how it should or shouldn't react to language. A third group focuses on immigration and the language issues that that entails, which ties back in to earlier paragraphs of this very post.

I hope in class that we might be able to learn specifically about some neural processes regarding language, and I really enjoy the examples of language shaping thoughts (i.e. the absence or abundance of certain words or concepts in a language and the consequences, good or bad, for the speakers of that language).