Students at Swarthmore can and do bring up lots of reasons for not wanting to begin or continue a foreign language. It’s too much work; it “costs” too many credits; it’s not as important or interesting as the things they do want to study.
Maybe you don’t want to feel stupid at first, with a tiny vocabulary and a strong accent … like all the people who immigrated or fled to new places, or people whose places were invaded by aliens who expected them to learn the alien language (while making fun of the way they spoke).
“I did it in high school.” Why would a college-level class differ from a class in high school? The cognitive benefits of learning and knowing more than one language, identified by neuroscientists? – No, I’m eighteen or nineteen years old and my brain is never going to age.
The “global” and “international” statements in various versions of Swarthmore’s institutional goals don’t constitute a requirement. (I won’t ever read that article, “The Hypocrisy of All-English Decolonization.”) All the people working in the field I hope to join publish their results and studies in English. Let them assume the chore of learning English and getting their work edited before I read or hear it.
I trust the interpreters at business meetings, professional conferences, or political negotiations if I do have to deal with someone who wants to use their native language.
I trust the translators and publishers of the sources I read not only to translate them accurately but also to offer what I need for a complete picture of what is going on as the basis for my own work.
I can trust the AI on my cell phone to translate a sign or a menu or my side of an attempted conversation. It’s so advanced that even “small” languages whose cultures are less digitally represented can be rendered accurately.
We don’t need to educate U.S. citizens to a high level of proficiency with foreign languages when we have immigrants who speak them natively. Although apparently we don’t want immigrants either.
Considering all of that, I ask: What about current events suggests that English will continue its global dominance – that people all over the world will still be willing to cater to monolingual Anglophones into the next generation?
