The institutional affiliation
Nowadays, in the era of globalization learning foreign languages became very important. The reasons to start learning them may be quite different. One that is for sure is that foreign languages help people to communicate and get to know better other countries and cultures. Additionally, people are required to learn languages when they are living on the culturally diverse territories.
The United States of America is considered to be a country with a great majority of different ethical groups. According to the official statistics, the most numerable one is a group of people of Hispanic origin (Kaplan University, 2015). Thus, in his speech “Your children should learn to speak Spanish”, Barack Obama, the President of the USA, invokes children to learn Spanish (Youtube.com, 2015). However, some people disagree with this point of view as they suppose that children should be given the right to choose which language they would like to learn as a second one. Obama paid attention mostly to Spanish; though at the same time his major point is helping children to know two or more languages. It is quite reasonable, but it is doubtful that such innovation should have legal force.
It is understandable that not all people have equal talent for languages and to force them to study them is initially wrong. Of course children should be encouraged to learn foreign languages, but that is to be done on a voluntary basis. Implementing obligatory language courses may be justified only in the areas where the number of ethical minorities is overwhelming. However, language assimilation may happen by itself without any special forces, as a person is surrounded by foreigners and automatically starts to memorize words and word constructions.
References
Youtube.com. (2015). Barack Obama: Your Children Should Learn To Speak Spanish. Retrieved 21 July 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZprtPat1Vk
Kaplan University. (2015). Cultural diversity in the United States – Kaplan University. Retrieved 21 July 2015, from http://www.kaplanuniversity.edu/public-service/articles/cultural-diversity.aspx
