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Ellen McDaniel
English 121
21 October 2014
Saving Rising Generations from the Language Nightmare
Remember walking into that restaurant and the waiters and cooks were speaking words to
each other that you couldnt understand? Recall the time when, walking down the hall at work,
foreign phrases drifted around you from one co-worker to another. It is hard to forget the time
when the man or woman who could speak two languages was hired over you. Many adults live in
this language nightmare and unfortunately many children in Maryland are being raised to enter
the same fate. Admittedly, steps have been taken to teach rising generations a foreign language.
However, some of these steps are being taken too late and a huge opportunity to benefit young
students is being missed. And while there has been progress in the right direction, foreign
language programs for elementary school students are still in the piloting phase and are not a part
of the county wide curriculum. It should be required for children to learn a second language
earlier in their academic lives because they will gain life-long skills and will be prepared for
more successful futures.
It is important to first understand why being bilingual is so important in todays society.
One major reason is that it makes a person much more desirable when applying for jobs. In a
society with a rising population of immigrants and companies who are expanding internationally,
the ability to communicate effectively has become vital. Knowing just how to communicate has
become a significant advantage in the workplace and the ability to do so is not going
unrecognized. Research conducted by Rosetta Stone, a popular computer-assisted language

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learning program, found that people who speak at least one foreign language have an average
annual household income that's $10,000 higher than the household income of those who only
speak English. And about 17 percent of those who speak at least one foreign language earn more
than $100,000 a year ("How Being Bilingual Can Boost Your Career").
If we want our children to find employment and reach financial heights such as these,
they should be taught a second language and the key is teaching them at the right age. Currently
in Howard County public schools in Maryland, students are required to graduate from high
school with only two years of a foreign language class under their belts. While two years is
obviously too little a time to learn the whole language, it is, of course, up to the student to decide
whether or not to continue learning it after high school. The issue here is that, by high school,
"the optimum learning period is lost," (Vos). Continuing with the language can prove to be too
difficult this late in their academic careers. This is why foreign language should be taught to
children much earlier, even as early as preschool.
Previous notions believed that teaching a second language to someone so young would be
impossible, but recent studies indicate that the best time for a child to learn another language is
in the first three to four years of life, (Vos). Interestingly enough, babies are born with the
capability to pronounce every language. Of course, they cannot actually speak a language nor
comprehend it, but during the first six months of life, babies babble using 70 sounds that make
up all the languages in the world. They will then learn to talk using only the sounds and words
they pick up from their environment, most importantly from their parents and caregivers, (Vos).
After a while, the baby's brain will discard the ability to make the sounds found in languages he
or she does not hear. This is why, by immersing them in another language as well as English at a
very early age, children will be able to retain this ability of pronunciation. Also, learning

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languages at this early stage in life is a natural process because they are constantly absorbing
what is being said and done around them. In fact, learning two languages at the same time proves
not to be problem for young children. Studies prove that a child doesn't have to be exceptional
or have any special language ability to become bilingual, they simply must be immersed in the
language when learning and receive consistent exposure ("FAQ: Bilingualism").
Of course, a person could learn another language at any age if he or she was determined
to learn it. So, other than being easier, what are the advantages to learning a foreign language so
young? It is more than having an appreciation and consciousness for diversity, or even keeping
up with the bilingual education in other countries. Learning a new language as a child leads to
cognitive benefits that will last them a life time. The first three years of a child's life are vital for
the development of thinking, language, vision, attitudes and aptitudes. Learning a second
language helps children with these aspects because, according to studies at the Cornell
Language Acquisition Lab, children who learn a second language can maintain attention despite
outside stimuli better than children who know only one language (Lang). Barbara Lust, a
developmental psychology and linguistics expert and professor of human development, and her
partner Sujin Yang, a former postdoctoral research associate, explain that this is so vital because
it is "responsible for selective and conscious cognitive processes to achieve goals in the face of
distraction and plays a key role in academic readiness and success in school settings (Lang).
This cognitive development expands past the class room to a childs interaction with others, goal
setting, determination, and work ethic. Lastly, a young child who is regularly exposed to two
languages from an early age will most likely become a fluent native speaker of both languages
compared to people who start to learn later in life ("FAQ: Bilingualism").

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There has been good progress to integrate these findings into current education. For
example, for the 2011-2012 academic school year, the HCPSS Board of Education in Maryland
created the Elementary World Language Pilot in two local elementary schools, Laurel Woods
Elementary School and Waverly Elementary School. The pilot was established due to the
research done by the Elementary World Language Committee, who proposed an approach that
builds proficiency in a world language through the use of relevant content. The program called
for all students between Kindergarten and fifth grade to participate in a semester of Chinese and
a semester of Spanish for thirty minutes two times a week. The curriculum focuses on grade
level science themes, but integrates other content areas also, such as social studies, mathematics,
health, language arts, and fine arts, ("Elementary School World Language Program). Also,
instructions given in class are 90%-100% in the world language with a primary focus on
building listening and speaking skills while literacy skills in reading and writing are also being
developed ("Elementary School World Language Program). The beneficial results must be
evident, for the foreign language curriculum has already been planned for the next few years.
So, if it is so successful, why is this program being applied in only two schools?
Understandably, school systems need time to plan, prepare and evaluate their new foreign
language program before integrating it into elementary schools county-wide. However, without
the proper push and support from the community, this could take years to perfect. That means
that thousands of young scholars could be going through school without the recognized
developmental advantages. That is thousands of high-schoolers struggling to pick up on a
language and thousands of graduates entering the work force without the upper hand. It is up to
the residents of Howard County to call on our school system for revision and continued progress.

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Each of us can make a difference in the lives of our children, our friends children, and our
neighbors by supporting the movement of early education in foreign language.
Saving children from the language nightmare should be a priority in Maryland
communities. Being bilingual is an ability that is becoming increasingly necessary in todays
society but is not being properly addressed. Waiting until high school to start students on the path
to learning a foreign language is simply too late to achieve optimum success and also misses the
opportunity to provide rising generations with advanced cognitive development as well as
preparation for their futures. After all, todays children are tomorrows leaders, executives,
ambassadors, parents and teachers. We want them to have every advantage to make the next day
brighter than the last, and introducing young children to foreign language will help them do just
that.

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Works Cited
"Elementary School World Language Program." Howard County Public School System. N.p.,
Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2014.
"FAQ: Bilingualism." Linguistic Society of America. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.
"How Being Bilingual Can Boost Your Career." Iseek. N.p., Mar. 2008. Web. 11 Oct. 2014.
Lang, Susan S. "Learning a Second Language Is Good Childhood Mind Medicine, Studies Find."
Cornell Chronical. Cornell University, 12 May 2009. Web. 04 Oct. 2014.
Vos, Jeanette. "Can Preschool Children Be Taught a Second Language?"Earlychildhood NEWS.
N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.