Ross Chanin on the Huffington Post - هل يمكن أن تقرأ هذا ؟

... The breakdown of Americans studying foreign language and Arabic specifically is representative of a much broader issue in American education – the need to align foreign language instruction with the nation’s present and future economic and national security priorities.

In our educational system, the study of foreign languages has never really been a priority and language study, if actually encouraged and required, has been focused on expanding a student’s cultural horizons – the ability to read Albert Camus in French and Immanuel Kant in German.

While I am not out to underestimate the clear cultural value of studying French (the world’s number #11 most widely spoken language) and German (#10), when American high school students still do not have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement (AP) exams in Mandarin (#1) and Arabic (#4) we have a problem...