Top 3 Critical Languages to Teach Kids in 2017 and Beyond

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Top 3 Critical Languages to Teach Kids in 2017 and Beyond

Critical LanguagesThe Top 7

If you’re like most parents, you do want the best for your child. And, this may come in the form of teaching them a second language. If you’re bilingual yourself, youunderstand the advantages that can bring with it and you’re already well on your way to enriching your child’s life with language learning. If you’re like the other 50% of parents who only speak one language (monolingual), teaching your child a foreign language will take work, dedication, and money.

According to the National Security Educational Program (NSEP), a critical language is a non-Western European language that is critical to the United States’ national security. If you think of the global threats or enemies we may have, write down the languages spoken in those countries, and you’ve just made a list of the criticallanguages. In fact, the State Department maintains a list of over 20 such languages.

When choosing the best foreign language to teach your child, the choice is yours to make. However, if helping your child become bilingual is to boost their competitive advantage, then you may want to consult the list ofcritical languages and narrow your search from there.

$ ArabicChineseHindiIndonesian

KoreanRussianTurkish

What is a critical language?

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Why aren’t people learning these, if they are soimportant?

Is it really a competitiveadvantage?

These are languages that are not commonly taught in American schools, so they require a great deal of self-study and self-learning. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are hard to learn, but coming by the resources to help you learn these critical languages may be difficult. Often these languages are commonly used outside of specific areas within American cities and urban centers, so there may not be an opportunity for face-to-facelearning or communication.

The problem is that there is limited incentive (upfront at least) and few available resources for learning critical languages. We simply aren’t focusing on learning critical foreign languages. If your child learns Arabic, forexample, the chances he or she will get to use it on an everyday basis may be more limited, than if they were to learn Spanish.

A big reason critical languages are important is that they have direct application for military andgovernment-related jobs. National agencies will actively pursue candidates with bilingual skills in criticallanguages for jobs such as international relations,intelligence, translation, working in an embassy, and national security. Critical languages are important because the demand for speakers exceeds the supply available, especially in the United States! Plus, knowing a critical language can give your child a tremendous competitive edge, and research has shown it can lead to a 10-15% increase in pay.[1] Not only will it open the door to government jobs but also jobs in the private sector. Having a second language in a critical language can lead to jobs in translation, teaching, publishing, business and customer service. Learning a critical language can give your child a special skill that can take their career or personal life in upwarddirections. 2

It can lead to a

10-15%

increase in pay.

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We often put emphasis on learning languages like French or German instead of critical languages, but even still, only 7 percent of college students in America are enrolled in a language course.[2] In 2013, roughly 198,000 U.S. college students were taking a French course; just 64, on the other hand, were studyingBengali. However, if we step back and look at the larger picture for a moment. Globally, 193 million people speak Bengali, while just 75 million speak French.[3,4] If you’re looking for a global competitive advantage for your child, then stepping outside of the box a bit and considering the larger global picture may help you decide whichlanguage to choose.

Unfortunately, full immersion is still in its infancy. There are over 1,000 language immersion schools in thecountry – but, that accounts for less than 1% of the 135,500 K-12 schools in the United States.[5] And, when it comes to Chinese, there are 330 official institutions teaching

Chinese as a foreign language around the world, with 40,000 non-native Chinese speaking students enrolled.[6] Sounds like a large number, until youconsider the population of the United States alone is nearly 320 million, then 40,000 isn’t big enough. If you keep an eye on the news, the need for children to learn critical languages is popping up more and more. In fact, in September 2015, President Obama announced the launch of “1 Million Strong,” an initiative that aims to bring the total number of stateside learners of Mandarin Chinese to 1 million by the year 2020.[7]

[1]http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelli-gence/2014/01/29/the-business-benefits-of-learning-a-foreign-language[2]http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/fill-ing-americas-language-education-potholes/392876/[3] https://apps.mla.org/about_search_flsurvey[4] http://www.ethnologue.com/17/statistics/size/[5] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372[6]http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/03/03/chinese-as-a-sec-ond-language-growing-in-popularity[7]http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/25/chi-na-us-obamas-one-million-students-chinese-language-mandarin/

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RESALTAR ESTADISTICAS

If you keep an eye on the news, the need for children to learn critical languages is popping up more and more.

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Mandarin Chinese

While English is currently the mainlanguage of the international community, all three of the followinglanguages have the possibility of becoming necessary for business and trade in the very near future. So, it is a good idea for a child to build a knowledge of one or more early in life. While there is a long list of critical languages, three of the most highly sought-after are:

Mandarin is the most spoken dialect in China, and with almost 1 billion speakers worldwide, it is the most spoken language in the world. The use of characters instead of an alphabet and the emphasis on intonation (using sounds and stressing to make different words) makes learning Mandarin a very difficult process. But, starting your child during the critical period of theirdevelopment will help them nail the accent as if they were a native Chinese speaker.

Modern Standard Arabic

Russian

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There are two main branches of Arabic, Classical and Modern Standard, which is becoming widely used in the Arabic world. As a traditionally spoken language, the speaking element is arguably simpler than writing, but the difficulty comes from the script alphabet system that is read from right to left and has letters change based on their location within words. If you take this route for your child – be sure to sort out the various Arabic dialects before purchasing resources.

As Russia continues to grow as an economic andpolitical power so too does the need for bilingual Russian speakers. Russian can be difficult because of its use of the Cyrillic alphabet and its difficult pronunciation rules for stressing and accenting words. Apart from learning Russian as a criticallanguage, the rich history of Russian literature makes Russian a commonacademic language in the West.

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[8] http://bit.ly/2aUWq7I[9] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11007/

Which languages are missing?

Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, etc. It is not to say these are not important or good choices when choosing a second language for your child, it just means that they are easier to learn later in life and have far more native speakers in the United States than the critical languages do.

Without going too much into the research, the critical period hypothesis is that language learning is biologically linked with age and that there is an ideal time for a person to learn a new language. It is possible to learn a language after this “critical period”, but it becomes more difficult and the chance of fluency is decreased. As a general rule of thumb, the critical period is most often defined as anytime between the ages of birth and ten years old.[9]

It is a researched fact that learning a second language is difficult, but that every subsequent language becomes a bit easier as a child expands their “metalanguage”.Metalanguage is the ability to notice patterns that are in all languages and have the mental techniques already in place to learn them. A Department of Education study showed that learning a more “complex” language like the critical languages creates the ability to learn “easier”languages much faster later.[8] There is also a theory in language learning called the critical period hypothesis. While it is still debatedacademically, it is generally accepted as true and gives extra credence to teaching your child a second language early in life. 5

What is the critical period?

The critical periodAnytime between the ages of birth and ten

years old.

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Key Takeaways•Critical languages are languages that are important for many economic and political reasons but have a limited number of bilingual speakers.•There are not many resources in place to learn criticallanguages, so self-study and free applications like Duolingo can be beneficial.•Learning a critical language can increase lifetime income and open interesting career paths for your child.•Learning a difficult and complex second language can make learning other languages easier.•It is important to start teaching our children a criticallanguage early when they are within the critical period forlanguage.

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