🎓 Language Education In The United States

Language Education In The United States

Language education in the United States has historically involved teaching American English to immigrants and Spanish, French, Latin or German to native English speakers. Bilingual education was sponsored in some districts, often contentiously. Japanese language education in the United States increased following the Japanese post-war economic miracle. Chinese as a second language began to be taught more frequently in response to the Reform and opening of the People's Republic of China; this has included funding from the PRC Government. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, US Senator Norm Coleman called Arabic "the next strategic language".

High schools in Oklahoma offer Cherokee and other Indian languages as second languages to count toward a foreign language requirement, and thousands of students, both indigenous and non-indigenous, enroll in classes. In North Carolina, the North Carolina House of Representatives has passed a state bill which mandates the requirement of constituent institutions of the University of North Carolina to recognize Cherokee as a language for which a student may satisfy a foreign language course requirement for degree completion. The bill was introduced by North Carolina State Senators Jim Davis and Andrew Brock and was passed in the North Carolina Senate on May 13, 2013.

Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) is a designation used for languages other than Spanish, French, and German, the three most commonly taught foreign languages in US public schools.

List Of Most Commonly Learned Foreign Languages In The United States:

K-12

Below are the top foreign languages studied in public K-12 schools (i.e. primary and secondary schools). The tables correspond to the 18.5% (some 8.9 million) of all K-12 students in the U.S. (about 49 million) who take foreign-language classes.

Rank	Language	Enrollments	Percentage
1	Spanish	6,418,331	72.06%
2	French	1,254,243	14.08%
3	German	395,019	4.43%
4	Latin	205,158	2.30%
5	Japanese	72,845	0.82%
6	Italian	65,058	0.73%
7	Chinese	59,860	0.67%
8	American Sign Language	41,579	0.46%
9	Russian	12,389	0.14%
	Others	255,825	2.87%
	Total	8,907,201	100%

Colleges And Universities

Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on fall 2013 enrollments.

Rank	Language	Enrollments	Percentage
1	Spanish	790,756	50.6%
2	French	197,757	12.7%
3	American Sign Language	109,577	7.0%
4	German	86,700	5.5%
5	Italian	71,285	4.6%
6	Japanese	66,740	4.3%
7	Chinese	61,055	3.9%
8	Arabic	32,286	2.1%
9	Latin	27,192	1.7%
10	Russian	21,962	1.4%
11	Greek, Ancient	12,917	0.8%
12	Hebrew, Biblical	12,551	0.8%
13	Portuguese	12,415	0.8%
14	Korean	12,229	0.8%
15	Hebrew, Modern	6,698	0.4%
	Others	40,059	2.6%
	Total	1,562,179	100%

Source: Language Education In The United States, Most Commonly Learned Foreign Languages In The United States