At Steinbrenner, two years of a world language class are required for admission to four year colleges and universities. The school currently offers both French and Spanish as courses inside the classroom. There are also other world languages, such as Mandarin and Latin available as online courses.
Most students choose to take their world language in school, meaning they choose between the two that are offered. It would be incredibly beneficial for Steinbrenner to add some more variety to its world language program, like Gaither has done with its Italian program. In addition to exposing the student body to different cultures, learning a second language has been shown to improve brain health, as well as provide better job prospects to students in the future.
There is curriculum for many other languages available. For example, CollegeBoard has courses and Advanced Placement tests for languages including, but not limited to, German, Japanese and Chinese. The main challenge is finding and paying qualified teachers to actually teach these languages. Spanish and French are two of the most popular languages in our region of the world, but other Eastern European and Asian languages are not as widely spoken here.
German is a language that was offered at one point at other nearby schools. As a language, German is challenging, but provides an interesting and exciting new option for students. Mr. Anthenor, who currently teaches French, but has studied German for four years said, “German is a language that requires you to think about what you say.” Mr. Anthenor continued to describe the language as philosophical because of this. Additionally, the grammar has different rules from most languages. This would require students to really think and engage with the language, rather than some of the other languages that are taught which use similar syntax to English.
Russian would be another worthwhile language to teach. With over 260 million speakers worldwide, the path to fluency would be a tough but worthwhile endeavor. Battling with numerous grammar rules and complex colloquialisms in the unfamiliar Cyrillic alphabet would surely be a challenge, but it would truly provide a sense of accomplishment and distinction to the students who took the class.
With a larger variety of world languages available, more opportunities would be provided for those students who already speak one of the two foreign languages provided at Steinbrenner. When those bilingual students take a language they already know, they certainly do not get as much out of the class as someone actually learning the language for the first time. The variety of classes would allow those students to learn a new language that would almost certainly benefit them more in the future.
While it may be difficult to start a new language program at Steinbrenner, the pros outweigh the cons by far. The school should be working provide the students with as many opportunities as possible, and adding more language courses to the curriculum would be an exemplary way for Steinbrenner to accomplish this. With more students at the school each year, new language classes would most certainly improve the diversity of education that the students receive.
Mattingly Gerasimovich // Opinion Editor
