It’s 2018 and I hate to break it to you, but we live in an America that is not a monochromatic country lacking diversity or culture. We live in a beautiful, thriving country filled with radiant cultures and people from all across the globe. Our country is rich with different languages and diversity so, why is it acceptable for us to not require a second language until high school? Why are we not taking advantage of all of these amazing languages just outside our door?

By the time we are in high school, we have already been speaking our first language for over a decade; we are set in our ways, and this makes it harder for us to be open enough to even attempt to learn a second language. So, why is that the time our education system decides to require us to start learning our second language? We are set up for failure.

It needs to stop. We need to wake up and teach our kids and while we’re at it, teach ourselves.

There’s a myriad of reasons why teaching a foreign language at a young age can be beneficial so, if I haven’t been convincing enough thus far, stay tuned.

Right now, we live in an America divided. We have so many problems culturally because so many of us do not understand each other. Learning another language at a young age can not only help us become more understanding towards other cultures and eliminate close-mindedness, but it can also improve our communication skills greatly. Jobs are more likely to hire you if you are bilingual and not only that but American college graduates who are proficient in a second language earn a 2% salary premium, according to pandatree.com.

I’m sorry, but is there is an issue with earning more money?

We can travel the world and not be those ignorant tourists who have no idea what the natives are saying. We can know the “outsider’s” perspective, we can make friends cross-culturally, and we can be more understanding which is something we desperately need right now.

We are a country filled to the brim with heritage that spans the entire world. Let’s give our children the chance to speak to those strangers who don’t talk like them or look like them and open their eyes to the world outside. Let’s give future generations with roots in Colombia or Libya or Malaysia a chance to connect with their heritage. We can give them the tools to embrace who they are and where they come from.

Can you come up with a reason good enough for anyone to be monolingual? That’s right. Nada.

Let’s teach our kids to be open-minded and give them opportunities to travel the world and fully experience all it has to offer. Let’s not raise another generation that thinks Mexican is a language. It needs to stop.

Learning another language can reunite us and launch us out of this world that is becoming wretched with bigotry and division. We can come together, finally.

We were a melting pot and right now, we are starting to separate. Let’s do something about it.

Source: https://www.pandatree.com/reason_foreign_language