Foreign languages, compulsory in schools (JUN)

Foreign languages are important for the economy. The more languages someone can speak, the more places they can work. Foreign language skills help companies do business with other countries. It is especially important that children whose native language is not widely spoken (e.g. Dutch, Danish) learn other languages. However, it is also important for English-speakers to learn foreign languages, since not everyone speaks English. And it is polite to be able to speak some of another person’s language. Governments should try to promote economic growth. Since languages are important for the economy, governments should make all young people learn them.

Foreign languages are important for the individual pupil. Employers value people who are able to speak more than one language. Learning a language will therefore help students get good jobs when they are older. It will also increase their understanding of other cultures.

Pupils cannot decide for themselves what is important. Most do not realise that knowledge of another language will help them in almost any job. For some jobs it is essential. It is hard to learn a language in adulthood, because of time pressures and because the brain becomes less flexible. It is therefore very useful to learn a language when young. Young people are often only concerned with the short term and think little about adulthood. Important choices therefore cannot be left to children. They should be made to learn a language.

A pupil may have a hidden talent for languages. If languages are not compulsory, they would never find this hidden talent. All pupils should be made to learn languages, to see if this is something they are good at.

Many pupils think foreign languages are hard. They think that they will get lower grades than other students if they choose to do languages, rather than “easier” subjects. The solution is to make everyone study a language. This would mean that pupils would not be worried about people getting better grades by picking easier subjects.

In the short term, it might be hard to find teachers. However, modern languages graduates could be given extra money to encourage them to become teachers. In a mobile world, it is also easy to attract teachers from another country to teach their native language abroad. In the long term, making languages compulsory at schools would solve this problem. If languages were compulsory at schools, more people would study them at university and more people would become language teachers.