Do you think they should start teaching the kids foreign languages beginning in Kindergarten?

One thing I regret. I had the opportunity to start learning a foreign language in Elementary school. I did not do it.

I think it should be a requirement.

I think that it is a great idea. My sister goes to a school that teaches Spanish, Chinese, and French, it is a newer school, but she is in the 4th grade, and is learning Spanish. To me it seems like it’s a lot easier than waiting till high school.

No, They should start teaching them American English, duh!

Yes I do. I wish I had started learning a second language earlier in my schooling.

Absolutely. After you reach a certain age (14 or 15) it’s much harder to learn a language and pick up the accent.

definitely. kids are sponges and can easily learn 2–3 languages the same as just their native tongue. a toddler, just a year or two old, can learn a fact a second.

The sooner the better. Good luck finding teachers.

Yes. My husband started English in pre-school (he was born in Mexico).

There are elementary schools in the DC that are emersion schools. One is Spanish, one is French, the only class in English was English. Miami, way back when, had some schools teach half the subjects in English and half in Spanish.

Unfortunately, most of the US does not put enough emphasis on foreign language. Where I live it is not offered until high school, which I this is ridiculous and shocking.

In Preschool they were teaching us to count in Spanish (Sesame Street does this too)—First grade we started with Spanish or French—the first few years you’re doing games and things, then you start in on some grammer and vocabulary.

It’s a great way to get kids to learn more languages—although because of the moving around (and some other issues) I ended up in the equivalent of High School French I for 5 years solid, and decided I was sick of it… shrug

I think that would be great!

@hartford3 I’m with you on that one! I can’t believe a kid can go through 12 years of school, and come out the other end saying things like, “I seen,” and “we was.” It’s a disgrace, IMO.

Yes. Although it can be problematic when a child changes schools or districts. I took two years of Spanish starting when I was 7, then we moved and I had no foreign language classes available in the new school system. Then in sixth grade they started a mandatory period of Spanish. I hated it and think it turned me off of Spanish because I had to be in beginning Spanish when I already knew a lot. But it should be offered anyway, that’s just one unusual outcome. Besides, if it were offered everywhere, then that sort of thing wouldn’t happen.

Definitely. Kids learn a lot better at a younger age than high school age, for example.
Even if they don’t actually learn a lot, simply experiencing the language as a young child can offer a really, really good foundation to build off of later. I think kids should definitely have the option to study foreign languages.

Absolutely.
Even here in San Diego, half an hour from the border, foreign languages weren’t available until 8th or 9th grade. French or Spanish was available in Middle School, but only a few students got into them at that point. By High School you could take French, Spanish, German, Tagalog and some other language I had forgotten.
And then I moved to another town where Spanish was the only foreign language available.

The younger, the better. The trick is to have the person speaking whatever language to speak it regularly and consistently to the child.

Yes i think Spanish should be mandatory in the U.S. starting at kindergarten . I didn’t have that opportunity and wish I did. Like a dumbass I took French in high school. Millions of French people don’t sneak or legally cross our borders every year. I know some Spanish from working in restaurants and construction jobs but I would have such an advantage to know Spanish really well at this point in my life. Which would be the case if I started learning it at 5 years old. I worked at a used car lot selling cars. The salesman that made the most sales and money knew Spanish. If any salesman came across some mexicans looking at a car you automatically had to get Johnny, the Spanish speaking salesman and split the commission if he sold it.

Yeah – not only do children have a greater ability to learn multiple languages but it also provides educational and cultural enrichment. More learning isn’t a bad thing!

Of course here in Texas (and elsewhere I’m sure) we have a bunch of the speak English only folks (well, they also usually call the Spanish language “Mexican” so I don’t think education in general is a priority).

@inkvisitor haha. The daughter of a friend of ours asked my husband to say something in Mexican—ugh. Even worse is when people say they speak “American;” flipping English speaking American’s have said this to me.

Yes and I think it should be required.

I’m a linguistics major and all I speak is English…it sucks… :(

If you speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you speak one language, you’re American.

In Wales everyone is taught Welsh but I only know one or two people who know more than 50 words in Welsh in the parts of Wales than are not primarily Welsh to begin with.

When I entered Kindergarten, I learned Russian. I took it for the full nine years I was at that school. This was a Chicago Public School, but it was a language academy. Every student had to take a language as part of their daily classes. I can’t say that I liked it very much at the time, but I can see now what the advantages were. I think it is a great idea, but I imagine finding enough teachers could be rather difficult.

I taught French to third and fourth graders and another teacher did it for fifth and sixth grades. We used no textbooks and no English, a lot of props and lots of body language. The kids got the accent and the rhythm immediately since they were still fearless and unselfconscious. They were willing to put their lips, teeth and tongues in odd positions.

We played games; Simon Dit: Canard, Canard, Oie, Oie: Bingo and Buzz using the French numbers:sang French nursery rhymes: had puppet shows…It was wonderful.

@gailcalled awesome.

@JLeslie: Oui

Yes.

I think that would be great. We try to integrate Spanish into my sons vocabulary and he picks it up quickly, and also Mandarin from that Ni Hao, Ki Lan show.

There are some studies in Germany showing that it’s not very effective. The only positive effects relate to pronunciation and an increase of cultural awareness. I think third grade is soon enough.