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<TITLE>ILR: New book on language policy</TITLE>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><FONT color=#000000
size=3> </FONT><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt">Learning other
languages must be national priority<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #666666; FONT-VARIANT: small-caps; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">By
Nancy E. Roman<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>-- </SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Originally published
November 15, 2006<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> <o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>The standoff between the United States and Iran over nuclear
weapons, the military challenge in Iraq, the threatening trade war with China -
the pressing issues of the day all call for dialogue and understanding. <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Unicode MS'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Yet there is no dialogue without speech. There is no speech
without language. And while the world is busy learning English, not many
Americans are reciprocating in kind. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Three hundred million Chinese are learning English. By 2025,
China will have more English speakers than the United States. Meanwhile, only
34,000 American college students are studying Chinese. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Roughly 10,000 American college students are studying Arabic,
with only 300 reaching advanced Arabic each year. Fewer than 1 percent of
American high school students study Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean,
Russian or Urdu. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>The trend lines are clear, but there is a tendency to dismiss
them. English has become the language of international business. It is hard to
go to any major international city and find hotel clerks and restaurateurs who
cannot speak English. English also dominates the Internet. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>The path of least resistance is to slip comfortably into a
sense that English is sufficient - until it is not. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>What we may be missing, as we bask in our ability to be
understood, is that we lack the ability to understand. They get us, but do we
get them? Chinese, Russians, Indians and, increasingly, Arabs have access to our
literature, our intelligence, our technical manuals, our academic journals and
our culture. We lack parallel access. We are choosing not to position ourselves
to understand friends, foes, business partners or competitors. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>In foreign policy discussions at the Council on Foreign
Relations, the need for critical language speakers repeatedly arises. The
Pentagon wants officers to speak a second language to improve ground operations;
intelligence agencies decry the lack of officers who can speak critical
languages; international businesses fret about competition with India and China
and their hundreds of millions of technically skilled, bilingual workers. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Increasing the number of Americans who speak Mandarin, Arabic
and other important languages is clearly in the national interest. Yet the
American school system does little to expose its future workers, soldiers and
diplomats to foreign languages when their brains are best able to learn them -
in elementary school. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>It is time to change that. A handful of school systems are on
the right track. In Chicago, a Mandarin program evolved after Mayor Richard M.
Daley visited China. It now teaches nearly 10 percent of the American students
who study Chinese. In Charlotte, N.C., the Asian Chamber of Commerce was able to
persuade the school system there to begin teaching Chinese. In Oregon, the
federal government is helping to fund a K-12 immersion program for Chinese. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>But we need to move faster. The most often cited obstacle to
doing so is a shortage of teachers. As we move on all cylinders to recruit and
develop language instructors, we should consider using new technologies to bring
the best language teachers to the classroom - and to bring them early, beginning
in kindergarten. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>An idea for the Gates Foundation, which supports
foreign-language instruction efforts, is to develop quality video instruction
for children, patterned after the videos used for foreign-service recruits, and
make them available to schools on an optional basis. This approach would not be
as effective as tens of thousands of live teachers in classrooms across the
country, but it could be done for a fraction of the cost and could begin now,
allowing schools to expose children early, capturing even a small percentage
with an aptitude and desire to pursue language instruction, while laying the
building blocks for more-intensive instruction later. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Such a strategy has the added advantage of bringing
high-quality teaching to schools in lower-income areas as well as to those in
wealthier areas. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>President Bush's National Security Language Initiative sets
aside $114 million to create incentives for K-12 language instruction,
scholarships and other good ideas. Congress should fund it. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>But producing citizens who can communicate internationally is
a task so important to the national interest and so large that it will require
involvement far beyond that of the federal government. Parents, educators,
not-for-profit organizations, businesses and local school districts need to make
foreign languages a priority for students, rather than a luxury for dilettantes.
</P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Languages should no longer be considered as part of the
optional humanities. Instead, we should see them as akin to science and math -
critical not only to crucial diplomatic and military goals but to competing
successfully in a global economy. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN style="COLOR: black">Nancy E. Roman is vice
president and director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Washington program.
Her e-mail is nroman@cfr.org. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></I></P>
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<P><FONT face=Arial size=2>//signed//</FONT> <BR><I><FONT
face="Bookman Old Style" size=4>DAVID J. SIEDLING</FONT></I> <BR><FONT
face=Arial size=2>Strategic Consultant</FONT> <BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Associate Directorate for Education and Training (ADET)</FONT> <BR><FONT
face=Arial size=2>Commercial: 410-854-8052, Fax
410-854-5816</FONT></P></BODY></HTML>