Why bother studying a language?
Or, an answer to students’ most annoying question, “When are we ever gonna use this?”
On my way home from school one afternoon I stopped to watch the high school football team practice. I watched as they jogged through tires. I watched them do a crab walk from side to side along one of the yard lines. I watched them run in place and drop to the ground at the sound of the coaches’ whistle. And I thought to myself, “This is so stupid! I've been to LOTS of football games and I've NEVER seen players run through tires or crab walk on the field or drop on the ground like that! Why is the coach wasting their time?”
Well the answer, of course, is the coach wasn't wasting their time. Those drills are designed to isolate skills and to build stamina that players will need in the game. In a similar way, world language classes prepare students for the workforce. In many cases this includes developing linguistic proficiency. But in EVERY case, the thinking skills students develop in language study are intrinsically valuable.
Think about this: when was the last time you used the Pythagorean theorem in daily life? But I don't hear anyone lobbying to eliminate math from the curriculum! So why do we treat language classes so differently when language study does such a good job of preparing students for the workforce?
In 2020 the Society of Human Resources Managers conducted a nationwide survey of hiring managers to discover the traits they most valued in their employees. Three of the top traits were effective communication, resilience, and creative thinking. Listen to those again: effective communication, resilience, and creative thinking. Those are the exact skills I spend 90% of my time working on in my language classes!
“We ask students to do a lot of things they don’t become proficient in... language class is no different.”
In short, language study develops these exact valuable traits in our students! That’s why language classes ought to be prioritized as a core component of every school curriculum.
