Speaking Foreign Languages in the United States: Correlates, Trends, and Possible Consequences

Abstract

With President George W. Bush's unprecedented call in January 2006 to expand the foreign language capacity of the United States, it has become clear that languages other than English (LOE) are of great interest to public policy in the United States. Yet the language capacity of the United States remains poorly documented. The 2000 General Social Survey (GSS) included new questions concerning the languages spoken by 1,398 respondents. Although about one quarter (26%) of respondents to this GSS sample claimed they could speak another language, only 10% overall said they could speak it very well. Those respondents who speak a foreign language were typically aged 25–44, graduate school educated, self‐identified as being of a race other than White, and living in large metropolitan cities and on the coasts. Spanish (50%), French (15%), and German (9%) were the most common languages spoken by the survey respondents. Whereas 67% of respondents who learned the language at home as a child said they could speak it very well, only 10% of those who learned it in school or elsewhere did speak it very well. As expected, LOE speakers gave significantly more responses revealing support of LOE and policies favorable to immigration, with LOE‐home speakers being more positive about these issues than LOE speakers who learned the language at school. These findings can help to inform national policy debates concerning how best to address the language needs of the United States.

A Hidden Curriculum in Language Textbooks: Are Beginning Learners of French at U.S. Universities Taught About Canada?

“…The historical fact in the United States is that heritage languages other than English have tended to disappear and that school language learners have been notoriously unsuccessful in ultimately using the foreign languages that they study. In a 2000 survey (Robinson, Rivers, & Brecht, 2006) of over 1,000 people in the United States, for example, 26% of the respondents claimed that they could speak a language other than English. Of those respondents who learned to speak a language other than English at school, only 10% claimed to speak the language well.…”

Gaining global perspective: educational language policy and planning

“…Consequently, a partnership developed between homeland security and national foreign language education initiatives (Edwards, Lenker, andKahn 2008/2009;Frey and Whitehead 2009;Robinson, Rivers, and Brecht 2006). These initiatives have tried to increase appropriations for Chinese and Arabic foreign language programs at the KÁ12 level, recognizing that the United States has a substantial need to strengthen its language capacity.…”

America's languages: The future of language advocacy

“…Figure , reproduced from Malone and Rivers (), shows this in graphical form; we note also that there is strong support for foreign language study in schools, with no conflict with English as the dominant or “official” language of the United States. At the same time, roughly 20% of the population claims some ability to speak another language, although this varies according to the data source (e.g., the U.S. Census or random stratified surveys). This proportion has remained steady for at least 15 years (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ; Robinson & Rivers, ; Robinson, Rivers, & Brecht, ).…”