Outward Bound

America may be turning inward, but thank goodness the rest of the world isn't too.

BY CHARLES KENNY | FEBRUARY 13, 2012

As the U.S. Republican presidential primary has staggered on over the past few weeks, one candidate was forced to sing "America the Beautiful" to shore up his patriotic bona fides after having been accused of speaking French. But there is good news for those who believe that talking in the language of l'amour is the first step to a socialized medical system that will force priests to distribute condoms with communion wafers: Fewer and fewer schools are actually teaching French.

In fact, a decreasing number of primary and secondary schools are teaching any foreign language at all. That's one sign of a continued disengagement between Americans and a planet they have such a big impact on -- and could gain so much from engaging more closely with. Perhaps it helps to shore up Fortress America by ensuring fewer and fewer people inside the walls know anything about what is beyond them. But it does seem like a lost opportunity.

There are some helpful signs when it comes to Americans' interactions with the rest of the world. Some 260,000 U.S. students studied abroad in the 2008-2009 academic year, up from around 75,000 20 years ago. More than 1 million Americans reported volunteering abroad in 2008. And of course, a lot of people come to the United States to visit or stay. Just shy of 60 million tourists came to the United States in 2010, according to the World Bank. Add to that the 723,000 foreign students studying in the country and all those who come to the United States to work. A little over 6.3 percent of the U.S. population is non-citizen, and another 5 percent are naturalized, according to the Census Bureau. But the other 89 percent really need to get out more. Most Americans are still incredibly insular, and that costs the country dear.

What do Americans know about the rest of world? A 2006 survey prepared for the National Geographic Society of 18-to-24-year-olds found that fewer than four in 10 could find Iraq on a map of the Middle East, and only one in 10 could find Afghanistan on a map of Asia. Better news was that nearly seven out of ten could find China on the Asia map, which is more than could find Louisiana, Mississippi, or New York state on a map of the United States. Still, the gaps are considerable -- and they also show up when it comes to language. Four in 10 18-to-24-year-olds in the United States claim to speak a foreign language fluently, but only 14 percent of Americans as a whole know conversational Spanish. Any other language is way behind that.

Unfortunately, chances are that those numbers will go down rather than up in the future. The percentage of U.S. elementary and middle schools offering foreign-language instruction fell between 1997 and 2008 -- from 75 percent to 58 percent in the case of middle schools, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics. On top of that, the number of languages offered also declined. For example, French used to be offered at nearly half of U.S. middle schools in 1997, but was offered at less than a quarter 11 years later. Chinese, as you might imagine, saw big gains (well, relatively): A little more than 2 percent of middle schools offer the language, up from below 1 percent in 1997.

Don't worry, though. Not many Americans will get lost on their way overseas or be confused when they get there, because they aren't going overseas in the first place. In 2008, the United States actually saw fewer of its citizens travel abroad as tourists than Britain or Germany, despite having a considerably larger population. Only one in five 18-to-24-year-olds in the United States even has a passport.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

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Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, and author, most recently, of Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More. "The Optimist," his column for ForeignPolicy.com runs weekly.

CAPITALZERO

11:53 PM ET

February 13, 2012

Anti-Catholic? I don't think so, but it was distracting.

Mr. Kenny, I found your article very informative, but it was hard to recover from the distraction of the highly partisan opening, which had only the most tangential relationship to the subject of the article itself. "Condoms with communion wafers" is a rather memorable alliteration, but in the interest of a strong opening and cohesive writing as a whole, I suggest you save it for a health care politics piece, not for an article about trends in language and internationalization. Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

10JACOBF

3:31 PM ET

February 14, 2012

I don't think it's that simple...

1). Your first point is that Americans not only know too few foreign languages but are getting worse at it.

I've looked at this problem myself and it appears we're not alone. News sources I've seen point out that any English-speaking country (think Canada, UK, or Australia) has this problem as bad as we do. And experts there are equally troubled. But from what I make of it, this is one of those pitfalls from being in a country that already speaks the international language of communications, Internet, science, diplomacy, commerce, aviation, etc.

Though you are rightfully alarmed about it, there's really not much to it if you ask me. America is better known as the graveyard of languages not a melting pot - it's old news and I don't think it matters much now. Besides, how well did public school levels of French or other languages pan out in later life anyway? The issue probably doesn't matter.

2). You also said that, in bulk, fewer Americans travel abroad than Germans or Britons.

But isn't that because Europe has dozens of countries and languages whereas North America largely has just three? For Europeans traveling abroad means jumping on a train or a few hours of driving; and a good chance of encountering a completely different language to boot. But in America or Canada traveling abroad means a half-day plane ride at least; and local linguistic variation is rather anemic by comparison.

Again, I think that's rather irrelevant.

3). And another point you made was that American media is too Amero-centric when it comes to news.

Well what else would you expect? When I look at British news sources their news is primarily about countries in the Commonwealth or covering European football matches. And for Japanese news sources it seems that anything that involves ethnic Japanese is reported on and don't do much better than US sources for covering foreign-based news.

Once again, a rather flimsy argument.

4). And then there's all the economic metrics you discussed.

What I got from it is that we import too much and invest too little abroad. Both of those things have been a way of life for several decades now so I see little reason to make much fuss about it. Though I think we'd be better off otherwise I still think that this is a rather dull, historically evident point to make.

5.) Too few students going abroad for studying.

Well this is much more complex than a few paragraphs you gave it; Charles Kenny did it better weeks ago. But then again the reason for this has a lot to do with what I said in point 2. Although I don't know any better, I seriously don't think Europeans are traveling much further than Americans are for study abroad programs. It's usually 2nd world or 3rd world nations that go to exotic, around-the-world places for education.

*I'll concede: In the whole, yes I think America would do better by being more "global" but it won't work the same way so many other countries do it. Though I can't argue that the geography lessons concern me and need thorough reforms.

 

REKLAMOLOGY

4:16 PM ET

February 14, 2012

Outward Bound

Unfortunately, chances are that those numbers will go down rather than up in the future. The percentage of U.S. elementary and middle schools offering foreign-language instruction fell between google reklam 1997 and 2008 -- from 75 percent to 58 percent in the case of middle schools

 

GUWINSTER

7:21 PM ET

February 14, 2012

One point of disagreement

Of course the UK and especially Germany send more tourists abroad than does the US. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't even need a passport to visit at least 26 other countries if you're a German. You can simply get in a car and drive a few hours to the Netherlands. Any German could conceivably make a day trip (in their car) to multiple foreign countries without any papers.

An American in say ...Georgia... faces a $100+ passport fee, a 20+ hour one way drive, and only two possible countries to visit. If you want to argue an American could fly to other countries, the only place that even approaches the convenience of simply flying across the Channel would be if a Floridian were to go vacation in the Bahamas.

Fortunately, Americans have the luxury of living in a big, diverse country and many Americans do not need to leave the country because it would take multiple lifetimes just to explore (both physically and intellectually) the complexities of our own country.