All public schools in the United States should be required teach foreign language up to highschool.

"people in other countries learn English as well as their native language, therefore we should learn more than 1 language." This makes absolutely no sense, and is in fact nonsense. If people in other countries know English, then English is all we need to know! Teaching foreign languages in schools would therefore completely useless, as it has next to no advantage for the students. My opponent says that 2nd languages are important, and help us communicate and travel easier. However, as I said already, other people are already learning English as a second language, so both ours and their ability to communicate and travel are taken care of. We can travel there, because they know English. They can travel here, because they know English. ------- i agree with you here, in many countries we could visit because they speak english well enough, however there are other countries( mexico for example) that do not have required english classes, and, because of this, learning a second language would be beneficial for students. ALSO. because they are required to learn our language, and we are not required to learn theirs, and we think that: "If people in other countries know English, then English is all we need to know" we promote cultural imperialism. by promoting cultural imperialism, by way of requiring other countries to learn english to be able to communicate with us, we damage their culture and damage global stability. basically, by not teaching other languages in school, we force other countries to speak english, which in turn damages their language and the culture attached to their language. When countries realise that if they continue, their language will die out completely, they may stop teaching english, suddenly making it impossible for the united states to communicate. (france would be one country that i could envision this happening to, since they value their language so much) _________ My opponent also asserted that understanding a language helps one understand the culture of the native speakers. However, this is more nonsense. If I learned Spanish, would I understand the culture of Spain, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, any better? If I would, which country would I understand better? Even if I did gain some cultural knowledge from learning a new language, this is no reason for schools to force students to learn a new language. There are not only much easier ways to learn about cultures (like actually learning about them) but there is no reason we should be forced to learn about the culture of county X. ------ actually, this is not nonsense. If you look at the eskimo language, they have 40-something words for snow. this shows us that in their culture, snow is very important. (i've now learned something about their culture) even if you look at spanish, they have masculine and feminine words. this undoubtedly affects what they think of each word, and how they are used. also, by forcibly preventing students from learning about other cultures, this would DEFINENTLY impact the ability to travel, as well as promoting cultural imperialism, which, as i stated above damages the countries culture and damages national stability.(as well as national relations) finally, by not teaching second languages, this would almost completely stop immigration, since, our english as a second language classes are, unfortunately, very much lacking in many places, and no one would be able to understand them.(immigrants usually come from countries w/ problems or underdeveloped countries, most of which do not have required english courses, or any at all) also, right now, immigrants have a hard/impossible time actually earning a good living and moving out of poverty. so, because we do not want to promote cultural imperialism(aka Hegemony.) because it causes many problems, because we want to be able to travel to other countries (even the ones that are underdeveloped.. i mean seriously.. if we don't have translators...) and because we do not want united states immigration to stop, which would cause the economy to be hurt more than it already is, i believe that the united states should require all public schools to teach second language from 2nd to 8th grade, and all high schools to offer second language courses.