Learning a foreign language is challenging. I have been taking Spanish for almost six years now, and I seem to have hit a wall. It seems that no matter how many Spanish classes I take, the process of becoming proficient in the language is painfully slow. I realized just how pathetic my Spanish skills were last year in my AP Spanish class. The girl who sat next to me had just moved to the United States from France and could speak French, English and Spanish fluently. She could easily hold a conversation with our teacher while the rest us watched, dumbfounded, barely able to form coherent sentences, let alone carry out an entire conversation with ease. Her level of proficiency put both myself and the rest of the class to shame, making me come to the realization that in the United States, learning a foreign language needs to be introduced in schools at an earlier age.
Compared to Europe, the United States is behind in the foreign language department. Most students in Europe start learning another language when they are around 6 to 9 years old. On average, students in the United States don’t take foreign language classes until the age of 14. This puts us at a severe disadvantage. Not only do students start learning a foreign language years after kids in Europe have started, but we also miss the window of time in which our brains are most receptive to picking up languages.
Young children are naturally capable of learning languages, which is why it should be introduced into their curriculum as soon as they start going to school. The younger a child starts learning a language, the better their chance of becoming fluent. Although it is certainly possible for older students to learn and become fluent in another language, it is much more challenging compared to those who started at a young age. As a college student, it’s likely that I would already be close to fluent in Spanish if I had started learning the language in elementary school, but unfortunately, I didn’t start learning the basics until the seventh grade. I still have a long way to go.
Not only are foreign languages introduced at a later age in the United States, but most students aren’t even taking foreign language classes. Approximately 20 percent of K-12 students in the United States are taking a foreign language in school, compared to the average of 92 percent of students in Europe. This gap is unacceptable. Students could already be proficient in a second language by the time they get to college, but most students in the United States aren’t even taking foreign language classes in the years leading up to college.
As a college student in an intermediate Spanish class, the general goal among many of my peers is the same — we’re all hoping to minor in Spanish. Being bilingual would be a gold star on anyone’s résumé. It’s a valuable skill that would hopefully make us more competitive in the workforce. However, on a global scale, it’s clear that we lag behind compared to our European counterparts, which is why learning a foreign language needs to start in schools as early as possible to give students the best opportunity to become proficient in another language.
Sophia LoBiondo is an undeclared freshman.