Choosing a Foreign Language for Your Homeschooled Child

Ten or twenty years ago, to learn a foreign language, most people needed to know someone who spoke that language. It was difficult to find public high school programs that taught anything except the basic European languages: Spanish, German, and French. When I was in fifth grade, for example, I started taking German because that was the only option available to me. Now, the possible language choices are nearly limitless. If you are a homeschool teacher, there are language programs that will teach anything from Arabic to Vietnamese. It may be difficult to choose what language to have your child study. Here are some things to consider when choosing a language for your homeschooled child.

Usefulness Today

Spanish seems to be a popular language with many homeschool families. In some parts of the country, there are large Hispanic populations, and learning Spanish can help you speak with many of the locals. It may be easier to choose a language that a large percentage of the population speaks, as it's easy to find television and radio stations that broadcast in that language. In other parts of the world, other languages might come in handy; Canadians might find French (or English, if you live in Quebec) to be a useful foreign language to learn.

While this may be a good approach, it's not necessarily the only approach. I took Spanish as a third foreign language in college (after taking German and Russian in high school). While it may have seemed to be a useful language to learn, I don't actually need to use it much. Had I been more fluent in Spanish, I might have landed a job at Taco Bell in college, but it's not something that I've actually had to use much. I spent a week in Spain once when I was in the Navy, but my high school Spanish didn't do too much good, as I didn't realize (until I was getting on my flight home) that the Spanish used in Spain has an accent to it, and they don't understand Mexican Spanish well. So far, I have used my German and Russian instruction more (I went on a trip to Germany where I could speak to the locals, and I now have a Russian aunt).

Student Interest

You can ask your child what language they want to learn. When I asked my daughter what language she wanted to learn first (I would like her to learn more than one eventually), she said that she wanted to learn Chinese. She became interested in Chinese after watching Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, and watching the Beijing Olympics. So now we're both working on learning Chinese (it's not that difficult using programs like Rosetta Stone, although learning grammar and writing will be more challenging).

The advantages to using this approach is that your child may be more motivated to learn not only the language, but about the culture as well. Someone that is fascinated with Japanese culture may already be motivated to learn Japanese, and it will be easier to get them to do their work. On the other hand, they may never need to know Swahili (but you never know).

Future Usefulness

The other approach is to think ahead and try to pick a language that will be useful to know in the future. As China rises in power, it may be a good idea to learn Chinese. Arabic is another language that could prove a lot of future usefulness; not only is that region of the world doing fairly well economically, but there will be the need for Arabic (and Farsi) translators as long as terrorists are being funded from that part of the world. While Japan is not the economic powerhouse they once were, it is still a useful language in business.

Depending on the age of your child, it can be difficult to tell what languages will be the most useful in the future. While China seems to be on the rise, their government could implode, and the language may not be as useful. In fifteen years, the Indonesians might be the most powerful country in the world, for all we know.

Whatever approach you use to picking out a language for your child to study, it's important to pick something. You may want to pick a language that you are familiar with, although that is no longer a requirement, as there are many computer programs and internet web sites available that can help. I have never studied a language that I've never had the opportunity to use, at least in one degree or another. Learning one language can help you with related languages later on in life. Picking one language now will not prevent your child from learning something else later on in life (or even in a couple of years). Foreign languages are not only a requirement with many colleges, but they also help reinforce English concepts, and can prove useful in a variety of situations.