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The Effects of Learning Foreign Languages

Reagan Howell
English 1010
Mrs. Trelease
January 8, 2016

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Statement of topic:
The effects of learning a foreign language at an early age (elementary school) and how it
affects the childs development overall. The effects of how learning a language can affect the
childs ability to learn and understand. Showing the effects that
Purpose:
The Purpose of this research paper is to assess the long and short terms effects of learning
a foreign language at a young age (e.g. primary school). Some different styles of teaching
children languages in primary school will be looked at. The overall benefits that come from
learning a language early that can stem into personal, economical, and psychological benefits
will all be covered in order to show that the current way of American public schools, can be
reformed to help our future generations succeed in a different world. The world is becoming
more entwined with itself and how knowing at least 2 languages can help.
Scope:
The range of this piece will cover the United States Elementary School programs, and the
programs that are found in other countries around the world. It will also include how the brain
changes in order to learn the second language. The economic situation on a micro and macro
scale will be discussed lightly. The education of learning a second language in a separate
environment outside of school (e.g. multi-lingual home) will not be discussed in this paper.
Research Section:
In American High Schools, in order to graduate students must have certain core classes
like: English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. However, where there was once a
requirement of 2 years of foreign language, this requirement for high school graduation has been

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removed in most places of the United States. In 2009 Robert Slater of the National Security
Education Program (NSEP) disclosed a startling statistic. Not only is the rate of learning a
foreign language slipping in high schools, it is slipping in elementary schools as well. When
countries around the world continually teach their young students second and third languages, it
becomes apparent that if America wants to stay a competitor in the Global Market, a change
needs to be made sooner rather than later. Contributing to that, Nancy C. Rhodes, the director of
Foreign-Language Education Center, said that it isnt just the recession that is causing the lack in
education. It is also legislation, such as the No Child Left Behind Act. As schools and districts
are forced to put more resources into Math, English and Science, there is dearth of funding for all
foreign language programs (Zehr 1). Leaving these programs to fall apart and be left behind.
In 2009, 3 Task Forces were commissioned by the American Council of Teaching Foreign
Language (ACTFL) to estimate where the United States stood with purpose to assess the
Standards of Professional Literature, Institutional efforts, and professional development. The
First task force looked into the Professional Literature that was taught by the teachers of each
specific language. 591 groups were categorized as principle focus, substantial mention and
passing mention. Of the 591 groups only 167 (28.25%) earned a principle focus, where 281
(47.55%) earned a passing mention (Phillips 4). Almost half of all the groups that were
referenced barely made a look at professional literature of that language. The poor ratings can be
correlated directly with the lack of funding that is created when the school and district over
spend on STEM, just trying to keep up with No Child Left Behind (Phillips 7).
The idea that a child can learn a language better than an adult has been around for
decades, but psychologists such as Jean Piaget, who developed his theory Children Cognitive
Development Theory looked into the how a child will think. Piaget developed his theory that

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children have a plastic mind and therefore it can mold in different ways to accept new
information (Mcleod). More researchers looked into young children learning a new language to
see if there were any hindrances that would come as a result of learning two languages at such a
young age simultaneously. The results have been conclusive and found it doesnt create any
hindrances. In fact, it helps the child concentrate on specific tasks instead of being caught up in
extraneous stimuli. One of the researchers, Yang, said "We find that children learning a second
language in an immersion setting show an overall success rate of grammatical knowledge similar
to English monolinguals" (Lang 1).

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This statistic shows the success of immersion programs in use. The United States started
their first dual immersion program in 1966. Dual immersion is a program that starts in
kindergarten and ends in 5th grade, where for half the day the child will go through each class in
English and the rest in a second language. The program stagnated in the 60s, 70s, and 80s,
however, in the 90s when the Decade of Foreign Language started Dual Immersion became
one of the most popular ways to teach a second language. Parents were at first hesitant to start
their children in
such programs,
fearing that the
child would spend
all of his/her
energy trying to
understand the
words in the
second language
and would miss what the words actually meant when they were all
combined together. The pie chart above shows a specific dual immersion

(Alpin
e)

program

of how an entire day is broken down into its specific parts to help the children learn the second
language. The chart shows that 50% of the time is spent on English and the other 50% of the
time is spent on the target language. The target language covers a wider variety of topics to help
increase the vocabulary of the children in a way that will help them learn the basics of the
language and the core principles of History, Science, Math, Art, Health, Music and Physical
Education.

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Viorica Marian and Anthony Shook have done extensive research into the long term
effects of learning a language at a young age. They have clearly documented their findings that,
The cognitive and neurological benefits of
bilingualism extend from early childhood
to old age as the brain and is also shown
to help the brain encode information more
efficiently and staving off cognitive
decline that comes with all humans as they
age. The graphic to the right shows how
the cognitive function of a bilingual child

(Marian
)

can outstrip the cognitive function of a similarly aged monolingual child, with respect to periods
of sustained attention. This shows one of the qualities gained by learning multiple languages.
The Time-Space Compression of the world has exponentially decreased the full size of
the earth, what used to take months of sailing to a new continent, can be accomplished in mere
hours. Because of how much time and space have been compressed the need for knowing foreign
languages has dramatically increased to reach and serve companies to make contracts despite
language barriers. Asian countries such as Japan and China, have made significant changes to
their education system. They used to have their students start a foreign language of their choice
in the 7th grade or their equivalent, but now they have changed and started in primary school.
Western European schools have made similar changes. In Germany, students will start learning a
foreign language in the 3rd-5th grades, and by the times the start 9th grade they will have started a
third language. 80% of students start learning english as one of the two foreign languages.
Europe has been seen in the past decades to be one of the leaders pushing for multilingualism.

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There are many reasons for such actions to be so greatly emphasized. A survey done in the
European Union found, monlinguals to be the minority, with at least 35% of people surveyed to
be able to speak in three or more languages (Piller).
The global economy is becoming more intertwined with post industrilized countries
buying products straight from industrializing nations. This makes knowing the languages
between two such countries (e.g. China and the USA) become increasingly valuable. The graph
below shows the how the percentage of the World GDP has changed from the 1960s to 2014. The
North American Decline in the Global GDP Percentage started in 2002 when the US Federal
Government cut funding to many Foreign language programs across the country, this is a direct
cause to the loss of the 8% that North America dropped and Asia picked up (Tani).
If the patterns were to be extrapolated across the next 20 years, Europe and Asia would come
closer together while the Americas would fall behind. Robert Slater implied that because of the
United Statess lack of funding for foreign language programs, America will only fall further
behind the rest of the world as they can communicate quickly and easily with everyone else.
(Zehr 1).

(Tani)

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Ethics Summary:
There is an inherent feeling, which is found universally, through all cultures of the world:
parents will want to create and give the best advantages to their children to get ahead in the
world. This can be seen in many different ways as parents will go to incredible lengths to help
their children create a life in an unfriendly world.
One of the most common practices parents will do to help their children is giving them a
chance to learn. In the current public school system in the United States, students are being given
many chances to get ahead, but one very important opportunity is being overlooked due to its
lack of immediate value. This opportunity is the chance to learn a new language. It is immoral to
deprive the students of the right to take any advantage in the world. The lost opportunity to gain
a skill only a minority of the United States has, will set a limit on their potential and abilities to
become an important asset to international corporations with contracts across many different
languages.
It is seen that the older someone gets the more rigid their brain is and the less likely it is
to accept change to its core structure. The economic benefits that can come with learning another
language is very greatly valued and will continue to be valued more as we see the individual
countrys market start to merge and look more similar to that of the world economic market.
A change must be made to put a greater emphasis on learning at least one foreign
language in school. The ratio of monolinguals to bilinguals is much higher in the United States
compared to the EU and that ratio continues to grow apart from the EUs ratio as they put a much
larger emphasis on learning a second language than the United States does. It seems apparent

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that for the United States to maintain any hold in the World Economy, a new focus on education
specifically in the department of foreign language is necessary.
Proposal of action:
My proposal of action, given an unlimited budget, will happen in a three stage plan, all in
an attempt to create an incentive for people to want to become a teacher of foreign language (e.g.
a high salary). The first stage towards this is to lobby the Representatives in the House and the
Senators in the Senate of both parties, Republican and Democratic. With the intent to create a
bipartisan bill that will pass both the House and the Senate with ease.
Further than this is to initiate stage two, which consists of lobbying each State Congress
men and women of every individual state in the Nation, as it is the state government that is in
charge over the education system. Lobbying on that National and on the State level share a dual
purpose of, first creating the job opportunities needed to show real emphasis and two forms of
enforcement to watch the laws be enacted and carried out.
The purpose of lobbying the National Congress would be to create a bill that will allow a
yearly sum of money to be given to each state in the form of mandates so each state can create a
lasting and sustainable program that will help teach younger students (elementary schools)
foreign languages. With a newly funded program that will last decades and for generations to
come, many students can make America great again.
The funding for this project will come from two separate sources. The money needed to
fund the lobbying that will take place on the state and on the federal will be raised from several
large gratuitous donations from all of the top ten richest Americans. A small sum of 50 million

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will need to be raised pay for the entire operation of lobbying for every state and federal
legislators in the United States.
The money needed to fund these brand new mandates will come from a tax that will be
implemented at that start of the fourth quarter of the 2016 business fiscal year. The tax will apply
to the only the highest group international companies (e.g. Walmart). The tax will have no
available deductions or loopholes; it is to be applied at a high rate of 75% well above the current
highest individual tax rate of 39.6%.
Conclusion:
It is clear, that getting rid of a High School graduation requirement of at least 2 years of
foreign language was a mistake as the benefits of working towards bilingualism greatly
outweighs the seemingly valueless immediate returns. There have been many studies done on
learning multiple languages and they have all pointed the same way, increased cognitive
function. One study shows that learning a second language can help your brain maintain its
normal cognitive and neurological patterns before it enters a state of mental degradation that
come with old age.
Excluding the Decade of Foreign Language where for a brief few years, foreign
language was on an incline, foreign language teaching and learning have been on a decline since
the early 1930s. The Decade of Foreign Language did bring a start to many programs that,
although not in their former glory, they still march forward with the intent to help create and
environments to learn a new language easily. The Dual Immersion program got very big during
this time period, and with its amazing results of being able to teach kids 2 languages

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simultaneously, the federal government still had to cut funding for many of the schools due to the
great recession.
This can be seen as a mistake because it has been shown many times in studies that have
been done that people who are bilingual have more doors opened to them, specifically because
they are able to speak two languages. Not only does knowing a second language help them
personally, it can help the United States with gaining a better foothold in the World Economy.
The percent of the Global GDP that is held by North America, specifically the United States, has
been declining rapidly since 2002, which is when the Decade of Foreign Language ended in
America due to budget cuts.
Changes need to be made to return the United States to its former state of power. The way
necessary to accomplish this task can all be done through the study of foreign language. Showing
how people who can speak multiple languages get ahead in life, the same principle can be
extrapolated to a macro scale where countries that a majority speak another language can get
ahead in the World.

Works Cited
"Alpine 1-3 Dual Immersion Target Goals." Alpine Schools. Alpine Schools, 14 June 2014.
Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Lang, Susan. "Learning a Second Language Is Good Childhood Mind Medicine, Studies Find
| Cornell Chronicle." Learning a Second Language Is Good Childhood Mind
Medicine, Studies Find | Cornell Chronicle. Cornell, 12 May 2009. Web. 13 Dec.
2015.
Marian, Viorica, and Anthony Shook. "Cerebrum." The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual. 31
Oct. 2012. Web. 22 Dec. 2015.

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McLeod, Saul. "Jean Piaget." Simply Psychology. 17 Sept. 2009. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
Phillips, June. "A Decade of Foreign Language Standards." Actfl.org. ACTFL, 1 Oct. 2011.
Web. 3 Dec. 2015.
Piller, Ingrid. "Multilingual Europe." Language on the Move. 18 July 2012. Web. 19 Dec. 2015

Tani, Dariana. "World Economics." RSS. 1 Mar. 2015. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Valsiner, Jaan. "Participating In Piaget." Society 42.2 (2005): 57-61. Ebesco. Web. 3 Dec.
2015.