Compulsary French and Spanish education in America?

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jc6chan
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18 Dec 2009, 7:23 pm

Are there any states in the US where French or Spanish education is compulsary?



Celtic_Frost
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18 Dec 2009, 11:49 pm

The state I live in, Tennessee, is one of them for sure. I hate having to learn a foreign language!



VivaLaConfusion
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19 Dec 2009, 2:05 am

I think it depends on the state, but because a foreign language are generally a requirement for university admission, most high schools tend to offer it. I took French from grades two through twelve in Pennsylvania, and I quite enjoy being able to speak another language.


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Cyanide
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19 Dec 2009, 11:59 am

I don't think it's required in Oregon, because I think I remember knowing some people in high school who weren't taking a foreign language... I could be wrong, though.



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22 Dec 2009, 1:36 am

In California, it is mandatory if a student wants to get into a public university line UC or CSU. At my school, they only offered those two languages so I learned two years of Spanish.

It was a waste of my time. A public school with thirty students in each session is not nearly ready to teach language indepth. I only know the grammatical structure, and I did not get a lot of exposure to the vocabulary.



DNForrest
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22 Dec 2009, 2:15 am

A lot of college programs do require (or strongly prefer) applicants to have at least one year of high school level foreign languages (I ended up taking three years of German and one of Japanese). Random tidbit: One year of high school level foreign language is typically equivalent to just one term of a college level course.



zer0netgain
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22 Dec 2009, 8:56 am

My school had a mandatory requirement. I took one year of Spanish and hated it (flunked it). College had an option other than a language requirement, and I did that instead.

To be fair, my problem was an anger issue. I grew up in South Florida, and the Hispanics were moving in like crazy. Literally, you more and more were discriminated against for being white, and where we used to have cultural festivals for every minority group, it soon became all about the Hispanic culture.

That offended me. It offended me more that I had to learn a foreign language in my own country which had required immigrants to learn English but now was catering to them so much that we had to learn THEIR language.

I know a bit of Spanish now...not enough to be very useful. If I had to learn a foreign language, I probably could if I really wanted to.

I urge parents to get their kids to learn Mandarin. At the way things are going, your kids will likely need it.



Avarice
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24 Dec 2009, 10:45 pm

Why would you need to know a foreign language to get into a University? That just sounds stupid to me. At any rate, I don't know any, I tried to learn one once but I just can't do it.

Since most Americans/Western people in general can barely speak English shouldn't we be concentrating on that first?



ruennsheng
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25 Dec 2009, 12:39 am

Avarice wrote:
Why would you need to know a foreign language to get into a University? That just sounds stupid to me. At any rate, I don't know any, I tried to learn one once but I just can't do it.

Since most Americans/Western people in general can barely speak English shouldn't we be concentrating on that first?


I agree, though I might most probably let my children learn French in addition to English if they can cope with it.


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