Language is power, to teach language is to empower.

The quotes in this post are from the article, “Busy Week for World Languages,” October 15th, 2007, by Michele Anciaux Aoki, found at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/educationforaglobalage/archives/123668.asp?from=blog_last3 on October 21^st, 2007.

I found this article quite interesting and informative. I’m not one to follow politics, but I’m glad to learn a bit about the current legislature of language education. The first bill discussed is a House Bill titled “Enhancing public school world language instruction.”

Its focus was on reinstating the position of Worlds Languages Supervisor at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

This would be a great help to language education. It would cause a greater emphasis on it’s importance in schools. It was sent as an amendment to a larger bill which was vetoed. I don’t know what was on the rest of the amendment, but I’m disappointed in America’s lack of caring about languages.

The article also describes a Senate Bill, “creating a pilot program of Spanish and Chinese language instruction.” This requested about $1 million,

a rather modest amount compared to the $30-$40 million dollars requested for math and science.

It didn’t make it out of the Legislature. Again, I am quite sad with this result. That foreign language education for two very important languages in our world today can’t even get a thirtieth of what math and science get shows that America doesn’t feel the need to make any effort to increase communication with other countries. As the author of this article says,

It’s great that the Chinese are learning English, but what does that say about us that we’re either unwilling or unable to show the respect due by making some effort to learn Chinese?

Do we honestly believe that everyone else should learn English and we shouldn’t have to bother learning their languages? That sounds pretty egotistic and self-centered to me.

I did find some good news at the end of the article. “World Languages and International Competencies” is prioritized #12 out of 28 this year. Doesn’t really sound that great, but, as the article says, all 28 are quite important. Being in the upper half of a group of priorities seems pretty good to me. Even better than that, #1 is K-12 Education Funding, which “entails a new definition of basic education that includes World Language.” It would make me quite happy to see more languages incorporated in Elementary school. I just hope this inclusion of World Languages into basic education isn’t just a class or two of foreign language. That’s more like an introduction to one World language. I would much prefer that students reach at least basic proficiency in a Foreign language and also have the option to continue further in this language and/or take another language.