By Lia Almer
On my first day of seventh grade, I entered my Spanish teacher Señora De Mackiewicz’s classroom for the very first time. Adorned with posters, maps, and trinkets reflecting the culture and geography of Latin America, her room was different from any classroom my peers or I had experienced.
“Buenos Dias, clase!” She bellowed the same greeting every morning, enthusiastically conversing with students in Spanish. While many responded to her with confused looks at first, by the end of the semester, we could execute basic greetings and conversation in Spanish.
Fast forward almost four years later, and I am gearing up to take AP Spanish, an advanced, college-level language course. In spite of all the years I spent studying Spanish, when I try to hold a conversation in Spanish with my native-speaking friends, I often find myself lost and wondering if I will ever be fluent in Spanish.
My experience is not uncommon and fewer than 10% of Americans will actually end up studying a language to proficiency.
These statistics are no fault of our language teachers. Instead, the problem lies within the American education system.
Across U.S. public schools, second languages are typically taught for only oe class period of the school day, not allowing for a sufficient amount of exposure to their target language. With this method of only offering second language as limited elective courses in middle or high school, the culture of learning languages in America is deprioritized, contributing to a lack of multilingualism in the United States.
In contrast, many other countries begin teaching second languages such as English to students much earlier in elementary school or even before. Nations such as Taiwan place a heavy emphasis on teaching English to students throughout their education.
English cram schools have become popular businesses across the island, with up to 70% of Taiwanese students attending private English cram schools. At these after-school programs, Taiwanese students are able to continue practicing and learning English outside of the schoolwork that their public school would assign.
Alexander Almer, a teacher at an English cram school located in Miaoli, Taiwan, reflects upon the differences between language learning in the US versus abroad. Alex emphasizes the cultural differences in Taiwanese education that prioritize tutoring and cram schools, stating, “The cram school system is very deep-rooted in Taiwan. One of the sources is a kind of positive peer pressure to provide the best opportunities for your kid and to have them learn as many things as possible.
The system is deeply-rooted enough,” he said, “that parents see it as a need and it is seen as a disservice to your kid to not send them to cram school.”
This system allows Taiwan’s next generation much more exposure to the English language, yielding a cultural shift towards English/Mandarin bilingualism, which can be seen in the Taiwanese Bilingual 2030 Policy. Originally passed in 2018, the policy strives to bolster Taiwan’s future workforce and economy through bilingualism.
Almer argues that the strength of Taiwan’s English education is based on the importance placed on learning English, as well as the extra time Taiwanese youth spends exposed to English. That is thanks to the rise of cram schools.
However, Almer says, “A weakness is that generally, language education does not focus on communicative ability and mostly on reading, writing, and grammar. This leads to students who can do well on tests but who after 16 years of study cannot really hold a conversation (I’ve seen this many times personally).”
Taiwan may want to focus more on their teaching of oratory English skills.
In the U.S. education system, we can use the experiences of other nations to improve our system. The United States should work to provide more opportunities for language exposure and more study than just one class period. Also, representation and the celebration of cultural diversity is integral to promoting multilingualism across the United States.
If U.S. schools prioritize language learning, students are much more likely to stay motivated and remain consistent in their language studies when the cross-cultural benefits for their careers and social engagement in society are highlighted.
American schools should improve their systems of foreign language education by increasing opportunities and the amount of time allocated for foreign language education.
Lia Almer is an intern with the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg’s 2024 summer internship and enrichment program, sponsored by PennLive and The Patriot-News. She is a student at Northern Lebanon High School. Read the original article here.
