Foreign Language Requirement

            In today’s constantly shirking world I believe that knowing a foreign language is more important than ever.  It is amazing that even in a state like New Hampshire we have so much diversity.  My family is from the Dominican Republic and my parents speak Spanish.  Some of my best friends are from countries like Haiti, Colombia, Bosnia, Russia, Germany, China, Canada and Mexico, and they live right here in New England.  I did not really learn to speak Spanish well until my late teens and it wasn’t until my early 20’s that I actually felt comfortable speaking it.  If it wasn’t for foreign language education in my junior high school and high school I would have never been formally introduced to the Spanish language. 

Knowing a foreign language is not only an indispensable skill, but I think that it expands your mind and your perception of the world around you.  I did not consider myself even close to proficient after four years of Spanish at the secondary school level.  It took some more classes in college and time abroad to make me feel comfortable, and now I feel confident saying that I’m fluent; though learning a foreign language is a continuous process, which goes for even your native language.  There are still new words and phrases that I learn in English daily and spoken language changes constantly.  

At the college level students should be required to prove proficiency in a second language.  I was surprised to learn that foreign language proficiency is only required for students in the College of Liberal Arts here at UNH.  It doesn’t surprise me that colleges now want to see 3-4 years of a foreign language when looking through prospective students’ college applications.  Understanding and speaking another language opens a person up to a whole other culture, a completely different way of thinking and expressing oneself.  I believe strongly in bilingual education, where a student doesn’t have to lose their native language skills in order to become more proficient at another, such as ESL students in the US.  Students would feel more comfortable learning and speaking another language if it was introduced in elementary school.  Language is what makes us human and knowing a foreign language makes us appreciate being human.  Being able to communicate better with those around us is a gift.  Requiring foreign language proficiency from university students shouldn’t be seen as a mere requirement, it is essential to living in our networked world.