To return to the current issue please click here . If the youth of America needs to learn foreign language, the time to do this is when they are in elementary school, not college. It has been proven that young children take in language easily. European schools take advantage of this. By age 12, most German students speak English fluently and have been exposed to a third and fourth language.
American schools try to match European standards, but often do so when it's too late.
They are greatly mistaken. The motives of the school board are unclear and their method is virtually useless. Colleges get government funding for offering culteral classes while pretending that that their goal is to produce well-rounded students. It's hard to convince students that they need to learn another language when they see that every other country is speaking our language. Other countries should not have to facilitate our laziness.