Stonehill Community Reflects of Foreign Language Education

By Tim Walsh

N. Easton, Mass. – Stonehill College sophomore Alex Swayne says his ability to speak French may have saved lives at his workplace.

“I worked as a lifeguard at a community pool where people who speak lots of different languages came. If English was the only language I spoke, people might not have understood me as much and that could be dangerous.”

Most Americans, at this point in time, realize that the international perception of America and its citizens is unfavorable.

Joyce Collins, a Spanish professor at Stonehill College, has seen the international perception of Americans firsthand.

“When I was in Latin America, the inhabitants always thought that I was from Spain and when I was visiting Spain, the Spaniards always thought I was from Latin America. Their impression was that most people from the United States do not speak a foreign language,” said Collins.

The 2000 U.S. Census reported that 47 million people, roughly 18 percent of the U.S. population, spoke a language other than English at home, a number that continues to rise as America becomes more and more diverse.

Former Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley has argued for years that foreign language education aids children’s understanding of other cultures as well as their mastery of the English language.

A general criticism of American foreign language education is that students start at too late an age.

Collins says to change that, the first step needs to be to “promote the study of foreign languages in elementary schools and in high schools” by starting students on foreign languages at an earlier age.

Even if more opportunities to learn a foreign language are there that does not mean everyone will do it; Americans may need incentives to learn a new language.

Neil Simon may just provide some of that incentive in his 1980 book “The Tongue Tied American: Confronting The Foreign Language Crisis,” in which Simon reported that (as of 1980,) “Each year 200,000 Americans lose out on jobs with business because they do not know another language.”

As America becomes more diverse and technology continues to bring people from all cultures and countries together, the number of people denied jobs due to inability to speak foreign languages will certainly continue to grow.

For Stonehill sophomore Dan Hogan, a Spanish major, speaking a foreign language seems to be a ‘can’t-miss’ opportunity.
“I think speaking Spanish is going to be great for me,” says Hogan.

“Obviously it’s beneficial professionally because you can work and converse with more people than if you only spoke one language, but it’s good for other reasons too. I’m relatively fluent in Spanish now and it’s allowing me to study in Spain this summer and learn more about the culture there.”

For Professor Collins, however, the ability to speak a foreign language offers hope for the world’s future.“The study of a foreign language hopefully will enable us to (have) dialogue with people of diverse nations in order to create a better world and to have a better understanding and tolerance for other cultures. By studying a foreign language, each one of us has the potential to become active agents of positive change in the world in which we live. This will hopefully lead to a world of peace. These are the benefits of studying a foreign language.”