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

I'll get right to responding to my opponent's points. First, he asserts that by not requiring foreign language classes to be taken, we're forcing people to learn English to visit here. However, this is simply wrong. I went on vacation in Italy, I don't know Italian. I was fine. Perhaps I would need to know Italian to LIVE there, but that would be a burden I should bear. Don't live in Italy if you don't know Italian, don't live in the US if you don't know English. Any problems you have by not following this advice are YOUR fault, not the fault of the country that didn't require its children to learn your language. My opponent makes statements like "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." Since when am I advocating that we stop teaching foreign languages? I am simply advocating that it should be a choice class, an elective. Also, there's nothing forcing them to teach English (just as there's nothing forcing us to teach Spanish, French, or Swahili). My opponent states: "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)" However, this does not contradict what I was saying. I don't know any of the Eskimo language, and yet I already knew this oh-so-surprising tidbit of information. Why? Because learning about a culture does not require you to learn their language. You can simply learn heir culture. What we learn in social studies classes is enough, and if it isn't, we should have to take more social studies classes about culture, not learn more languages. Also, do you claim we should now have to learn the Eskimo language? I don't understand what you attempt to prove with this point. My opponent said: "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)" I don't recall ever saying we should FORCE students NOT to take foreign language classes. It is my opponent who seeks to force students to do something, I am leaving the decision up to the students. My opponent said: "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)" A> If someone wants to live in country X, they should learn the language of country X, the country should not have to learn theirs. B> Once again, I am NOT advocating "not teaching foreign languages." I am advocating such classes being electives. C> This is a reason to better our own ESL classes, not to become a nation that bends over backwards to anyone who doesn't want to learn English. What if someone who speaks Swahili moves here? Are they out of luck, simply because theirs isn't one of the languages we'd be forcing kids to learn? Yes, they are, as is anyone else who thinks we should be learning their language so they can move here. They chose to move here, so they need to deal with the consequences. High schools should offer foreign language classes, as should middle schools and even elementary schools. But they should not be forced on the student. Also, consider the following: I took Russian and French classes in middle school. Can I still speak more than a few words in these languages? No. Because I, like most people both in and out of school, do not use foreign languages on a regular basis. Whatever languages you force kids to learn in 2-8th grades will soon be forgotten by most of these students. Only those interested in the first place will retain the knowledge, and they would have taken the class as an elective. Also, why do you say we should only cater to the needs of certain countries? Why not teach mandatory Swahili? Are they not as important as the French? Why not force children to know Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Portugese, Bengali, Malay, Japanese, Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Tamil, Wu, Javanese, Turkish, Telugu, Korean, Marathi, Italian, Thai, Cantonese, Gujarati, Polish, Kannada, and Burmese too? Are the speakers of these languages not as important? Is it okay for us to destroy their cultures, which you claim is what we do by not forcing kids to learn their languages? There is no legitimate reason kids should be forced to learn any language except their country's native tongue.