Foreign language courses have been a traditional requirement in American colleges and universities — typically two semesters of French or Spanish or German or another language. The question is whether that tradition makes sense. Are the educational benefits of such study worth the expense? Very few students are looking for language proficiency and almost none achieve it just from their college classes.
In today’s Martin Center article, NC State student Megan Zogby asks the right questions and comes to the conclusion that it’s time to abandon foreign language requirements. “Putting students through language classes adds to their tuition bill, but doesn’t teach them a new skill for their careers,” she writes.
Her evidence: “’Practically no student who fulfills a language requirement of two, three, or four semesters will have acquired professionally relevant language proficiency,’ said Eckhard Kuhn-Osius, a German language professor at Hunter College, Inside Higher Ed noted.”
College officials like to claim that learning about foreign cultures is educationally beneficial. Even that is a dubious claim, since at most students might learn a little bit about a few of the hundreds of foreign cultures, but that goal could be achieved by directly studying cultures themselves, not the languages, Zogby points out.
Those who really want language proficiency can get it without dragging all the rest of the student body through language classes they’ll quickly forget.
Zogby rightly concludes, “With the current foreign language requirements, students already face an uphill battle to reach proficiency. Perhaps it’s best that colleges admit the time has come for a change.”