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President Bush has proposed to increase the study of foreign languages
in American schools.
The new plan is called the National Security Language Initiative. It
will involve the departments of State, Education and Defense, and the
director of National Intelligence.
The plan calls for teaching foreign languages to more children, as
early as the age of four. It also aims to increase foreign language
instruction in college and graduate school. The hope is to bring more
foreign language speakers into government service.
And it calls for expanding an effort begun three years ago to increase
the number of military officers who speak foreign languages.
Most of the new teaching would be in languages not widely taught now in
American schools. These include Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Hindi and Russian.
Administration officials will ask for one hundred fourteen million
dollars in two thousand seven to start the program. They say too many
American children learn only English. They say only forty-four percent of
American high school students take any foreign language. And seventy
percent of those are learning Spanish.
Officials say money would be used to help foreign-language students pay
for their education in exchange for future service. The plan also calls
for sending more American students to other countries for part of their
college studies. And it calls for bringing more foreign language teaching
assistants to the United States.
Officials say the United States does not have enough foreign language
teachers. Research shows that children have an easier time than adults
learning languages. Yet less than one-third of American elementary schools
teach languages other than English. And experts say most of these schools
just teach the basics, not how to speak a foreign language well.
President Bush says America needs intelligence officers who can
understand languages likes Arabic, Farsi or Urdu. But he says that is not
the only reason for the program. He says it will also show that Americans
care enough about other cultures to learn to speak their language.
This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy
Steinbach. Internet users can read and listen to our reports at
voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
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