Foreign Language Education in American Primary School

The promotion of foreign language education in America’s primary schools is vital to a child’s learning process, cultural awareness, and future in the workforce. Although they are scarce, there are some elementary schools across the United States that incorporate foreign language courses in the curriculum. This is most common in areas bordering other countries and relative to the language spoken, as French is taught most often along the border of Canada and Spanish along the border of Mexico. The process of learning another language is beneficial the learning process of all subjects because the methods used combine teaching procedures present in every class. The broad learning capacity gained from learning a foreign language and the ability to converse with other peoples helps people in careers as well, making them apt for any profession. Special schools have been created to promote a mixed-culture learning environment, such as charter schools and bilingual schools. The students who attend these specialized schools are exposed to different ways of life at the early age that is best for absorbing new information and living in two opposite cultures successfully. Foreign language education in primary school is necessary because during the years a child is in elementary school is the time in which children are most susceptible to taking in new information.

The benefits of learning a second language are vast and measurable in numerous ways. As Lynn Redmond, the executive secretary of the National Network for Early Language Learning and director of foreign language and associate professor of education at Wake Forest University, states, “Children should start learning a foreign language in kindergarten and continue through high school....

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