HOW AMERICANS LEARN FOREIGN LANGUAGES: FROM KINDERGARTEN TO COLLEGE

This paper focuses on the way languages other than English are taught in the United States. It briefly examines the history of foreign languages in the U.S., and examines recent enrollment figures in language courses. Despite the common misconception, the United States does not have an official or national language. This fact underscores the significance of multilingualism in U.S. history, while also alluding to the continued importance of foreign languages today. However, while the U.S. is demographically as diverse as ever before, second language education is in a slow decline across the country. Spanish, French, and German continue to dominate in language education at all levels, while training in strategically important languages such as Chinese, Arabic, and Russian is severely underdeveloped at all levels. The second half of the paper describes the author‟s personal experience learning languages in the United States, opining that the problem is not in the quality of language education, but in its accessibility.