Foreign Language Study in America

1
Foreign Language Study in America
Where its Going, Where its Been, and Whats
Being Studied
2
Just how many high school language students are
we talking about here?
28.4 in 1970
44 in 2000
55 increase in language study over 30 years!
3
Which children (and how many of them)
spoke a second language at home?
Largest percent increase (13.64)
Largest percent decrease (12.75)
4
Students with foreign born parents in 2003
5
Languages studied in high school(of all students
enrolled in a language)
69 in 2000
33 in 1970
18 in 2000
48 in 1970
43.5 increase
.86 in 2000
.21 in 1970
44 decrease
302 increase!!
6
Same data, different format
43.5
44
302
7
Enlargement of Data
Increase in high school Japanese language study
8
Which languages do you think have the highest
enrollment?
55
14
1
6
5
9
Language Enrollment from 1970-2002
10
The influence of nonimmigrant Latino students on
Spanish language study in American universities
From 85 to 95, Spanish language study went up
by almost 30.
During same period, the percentage of
nonimmigrant Latin American students dropped
28.
Over next 7 years the percentage of Latino
Students went back up 12
while the
percentage of Spanish students stayed fairly
constant.
11
The influence of nonimmigrant European students
on Euro language study in American universities
From 85 to 95, European language study
decreased by 30
During same period, the percentage of
nonimmigrant European students rose by 49.
Over next 7 years the percentage of European
students stayed fairly constant
while the
percentage of language students declined by
16.
European languages looked at French, Italian,
German, Portuguese, Russian.
12
The influence of nonimmigrant Japanese students
on Japanese language study in American
universities
From 85 to 95, Japanese language study went up
by another 68.
During same period, the percentage of
nonimmigrant Japanese students jumped up 163.
9.5
Over next 7 years the percentage of Japanese
language students dropped almost 5
89
while the percentage of nonimmigrant Japanese
students fell by 18.
13
The influence of nonimmigrant Saudi Arabian
students on Arabic language study in American
universities
From 85 to 95, Arabic language study rose by
15.
During same period, the percentage of
nonimmigrant Saudi students dropped 61.5
33
Over next 7 years the percentage of Saudi
students went back up another 6
10.5
while the
percentage of Arabic students went up by 95!
14
Current trend of high school language study vs.
the future

• R squared value is .73, which isnt
• terribly far off from .8, which is considered
• acceptably linear.

43.8 in 2000
2) We are only forecasting 10 years into the
future from the last year of data (2000), which
isnt an unreasonable amount of time.
3) 2010 is less than 4 years away from where we
are today. It seems reasonable to us that over
the next 4 years roughly 50 of all high school
kids will study a foreign language of some kind.
50.8 projected in 2010
Therefore we are fairly-to-quite confident in
this prediction.