my final essay,please help

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my final essay,please help

Why multilingualism should be a national priority

By Domna C. Stanton

Originally published December 28, 2005

There‘s an old joke that says: "Someone who speaks three languages is
trilingual; someone who speaks two languages is bilingual; and someone who
speaks one language is American." That punch line might have been funny a
few years ago, but in a post-9/11 world, Americans‘ lack of language skills
is no laughing matter. It‘s cause for great concern.
Our linguistic deficit has created an increasingly acute national security
and intelligence crisis. It has affected our ability to build a public
diplomacy effort that can improve our standing and relations in the world,
to address burgeoning security challenges and to understand the cultural
nuances that can spell the difference between life and death at Baghdad
checkpoints.



After 9/11, the government discovered that we did not have enough speakers
of Arabic and Urdu, of Farsi and Chinese, among a host of languages. As a
result, hundreds of thousands of pages that could contain crucial clues to
impending attacks remain untranslated in the depths of the FBI.

And the federal agencies that have the largest foreign language programs -
the Army, the State Department, the Foreign Commercial Service and the FBI
- are experiencing shortages up to 44 percent in translators and
interpreters in such key languages as Arabic, Korean, Mandarin Chinese,
Persian-Farsi and Russian.

To tackle this crisis, we need more than just translators. America must have
multilingual competence, not only for reasons of national security and
international standing but also to ensure our economic success in the global
marketplace and to engage in scientific, legal and educational work with
people around the world.

To do something about this, we need to gather resources, set new policy and
raise public awareness. Congress has acknowledged the crisis by designating
2005 as "the Year of Foreign Language Study" and calling for the promotion
and expansion of foreign language study "in elementary schools, secondary
schools, institutions of higher learning, businesses and government
programs."

And Congress has designated 2006 as "the Year of Study Abroad," recognizing
that we do not have enough graduates with foreign language skills today and
that intensive study abroad can help "to share the values of the United
States, to create good will for the United States around the world, to work
toward a peaceful global society, and to increase international trade."

But these steps are not enough. There are at least four ways to address this
critical situation:


Schools and universities, the best arenas for learning languages at all
levels, need far greater federal support. The economic burden for Congress‘
initiatives to promote foreign language study should not fall primarily on
educational institutions.

The U.S. Education Department should make foreign language competence a new,
well-funded priority from the early grades through graduate school.
Our educational motto should be: "no child left monolingual."

We should look to the millions who speak a second language as extraordinary
resources instead of trying to strip them of their linguistic heritage to
assimilate them into American society.
The language map of the Modern Language Association shows that there are
more than 1 million in-home speakers of Spanish, French, German, Italian,
Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese in the United States. These languages and
the cultures embedded in them are great assets to be tapped.


At the state and local levels, we should follow the lead of Oregon and
Washington, which have passed resolutions promoting the policy and practice
of an indispensable proficiency in English and in a language other than
English - what is now called the "English plus" movement.
Multilingual competence is an urgent priority for our nation. We may be
justifiably proud of the status of English in the world, but we remain
dangerously handicapped as long as we cannot hear what others say and do not
know how they view the world. As a federally appointed Commission on the
Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program recently warned in its call
for global literacy: "What nations don‘t know can hurt them."



Domna C. Stanton, distinguished professor of French at the City University
of New York, is president of the Modern Language Association. Her e-mail
address is [log in to unmask]



In response to concerns like those raised in "why multilingulism should be a national priority" ,the year 2006 has been designated " the year of study abroad" a number of positive outcomes to study abroad are articulated. do you agree that large numbers of U.S. students studying abroad would achieve these goals?be concrete in addressing how and why study abroad would bring benefits to you individually and to our society. imagine yourself studyng in a very different country. Name the country and speulate on what your presece there would teach others and how you would benefit. Name your major and specify the tpyes of activitiesyou might engage in. how would be experience change your ideas and attitudes?