Foreign Language Learning

Foreign language learning is much more than learning words, phrases and being able to build sentences. With the language you learn the culture too and that’s what will make you more versatile and your skills more sellable. When we learned Russian in high school, we also learned and practiced how a Russian family communicates when sitting down for a meal, or how a Russian boy courts ( yes, those days there was courting which was a prelude to dating) a Russian girl, and how the Russian girl responds to the boy. In English class our beloved (she was really beloved by all of us) teacher once told one of the boys in the class to take away another student’s school bag and dump its content into the street from the third-floor window and do their argument in English and their gathering of the stuff on the street together while talking in English. The entire class followed them to the street and listened how they continue arguing and making peace at the end. With this dramatization she helped us to get into and out of conflict situations in a foreign environment. 

To conclude my comment foreign language requirement is not a waste of time if the foreign language teaching is appropriate and prepares the student for real life.