Hot Potato: Why Johnny Can't...: Foreign Languages

<body text="#330000" bgcolor="#cccccc" link="#cc0000" vlink="#550000" alink="#ff0000" background="../backgrnd.gif"> <center><img src="title.gif" border="0" width="460" height="60" alt="Hot Potato: Food for Thought"></center> <center><table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width="460"><tr><td width=12></td><td align="left" valign="top"><b> <b>Why Johnny Can't...</b><br> <b>Foreign Languages</b> </td><td align="right" valign="top"> 1997 September 22<br> Monday<br> </td><td width=10></td></tr></table><table border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=18 width="460" bgcolor="#eeeeee" ><tr><td> It is symbolic of the problems in education that schools traditionally begin foreign language instruction at exactly that age at which it is no longer possible to learn new languages easily. It is now pretty well established that kids up to about the age of puberty simply absorb languages by osmosis. Plop a kid into a new environment and he'll be speaking the language in a couple of months. Put a teenager in French class and she'll be lucky if she can ever get a Paris taxi driver to understand a word she says. <P> Why is it, then, that educators try to teach kids languages only after they have lost the ability to learn languages easily? <P> For a variety of reasons it is useful to be able to speak fluently in a second language. Not the least of the advantages is the availability of a second set of thought patterns that arise with learning another language. US commerce is hampered because most Americans only speak English. It is not unusual for Europeans to get along well in three languages and to be able to cope in several more. It is one of the reasons that countries like The Netherlands have fared so well as trading nations. </td></tr></table> <table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="460"> <tr> <td width=12> </td> </td> <td width=60> <font size=-1> <a href="http://www.jhcrawford.com/mail.html">E-mail</a> </td> <td width=60 align="center"> <font size=-1> <a href="http://www.jhcrawford.com/index.html" target="_top">jhcrawford.com</a> </td> <td width=60 align="center"> <font size=-1> <a href="copy.htm">©</a><center></td> </td> <td width=60 align="center"> <font size=-1> <a href="index.html" target="_top">New</a><center></td> </td> <td width=60 align="right"> <font size=-1> <a href="../sitemap_x.htm" target="_top">Site Map</a> </td> <td width=12> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </body>