Nowadays, it is debated whether studying a foreign language should be part of a child’s education. Some claim that it is a vital part of one’s education, while others insist that time spent on it could be better used to acquire more costly skills and knowledge. In my view, there surely is a place for a foreign language learning in child’s education.
On the one hand, while a career used to be rather unimaginable without fluency in a couple of languages, not native to most of the people, it has become more skill-oriented. Given rapidly increasing demand for practical skills across many industries, it is reasonable to consider learning more vocational subjects like coding or robotics, which offers direct career pathin tech-driven fields. For instance, in the US jobs in AI and engineering paying high salaries and requiring expertise rather than any specific language knowlenge. Moreover, with modern AI-technologies enabling real-time translation, the need to learn a foreign language has lowered.
On the other hand, a child’s education is not solely about chasing career goals, but rather is a complex process of growing and becoming a happy and complete person. Namely, a key part of it is to learn how to communicate and how to percieve the world around, which can be boosted by the use of different languages, not just a native one. As it has been discovered by neurobiologists, “a second language gifts us a second life”.
To conclude, there is a lot of industry-based skills to learn in one’s education. Nevertheless, a foreign language could broaden one’s horizons.