not just in school but when they have lessons on computers and any other place, all they teach is spanish, portuguese, french and other european languages. there's nothing wrong with that but it wouldn't hurt to have some kiswahili or other african languages around too. there are people who are interested no matter how rare people speak those languages. i'm taking up spanish this year which i've wanted to take for some while but i would love to have learned a language that comes from Africa as well.
2006-09-07 07:49:05 · 10 answers · asked by jdukenumber1 4 in Education & Reference ➔ Other - Education
One reason is economic -- more American kids are interested in learning the old standards like Spanish and French (with German and Japanese close behind) than other languages, so paying for a full-time teacher to come in and teach a handful of kids a less popular language like Setswana or Lithuanian just isn't feasible, especially in the cash-strapped public school system.
The other reason is... well, economic, but in terms of the students. It's more useful to the students to learn the languages of developed nations, so it makes sense to offer Chinese and Japanese, because they're major trading partners with the US and more than likely those languages will be useful to future entrepreneurs who will be working in international finance. Most of the African nations are still developing industrial infrastructures, and don't have a big impact on the international market, compared to European or the larger Asian states. I'm afraid if you want to learn an African language, you're going to have to look for private lessons outside of the school system. Good luck to you!
2006-09-07 07:58:51 · answer #1 · answered by theyuks 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Unfortunately, languages are ussually taught according to their use in bussiness. English is taught throughtout the world. Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, German, and to some extent Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and French.
Swahili, although a beautiful language, is not a bussiness language. French and English are ussually used in Africa.
Several languages are making their mark in the world and are becoming popular, but this is due to world events. Korean is a good example.
If you look around, there are community centers that probably teach a language that you are interested in.
¡Buena suerte con tu clase de español!
2006-09-07 07:56:48 · answer #2 · answered by makawao_kane 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have found some "learn it yourself" tapes for Kiswahili at Borders. It seems pretty easy - I know all the polite phrases but that's about it. One reason that they don't teach African languages in schools is that there isn't a high demand for it. Another reason is that there are so many dialects and languages in each country that it would be almost impossible to teach one basic version of the language. Good question.
2006-09-07 07:59:00 · answer #3 · answered by Susan G 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are those companies that you can buy their interactive tapes or CDs from that have many languages, you might be able to find one of those languages there. I think that most schools look at what people are going to need and what kind of languages are requested. If you tried to get a petition signed about getting an African language, or even an African culture class, the school may consider adding it to their circulium.
2006-09-07 07:57:02 · answer #4 · answered by Lady 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Don't know about your school but Jersey schools have been reducing the language programs. Now only 2 years are required to graduate. Also in our HS we have lost languages; No latin, german, italian. All that is left is french, spanish and american sign language.
2006-09-07 07:56:57 · answer #5 · answered by The Cheminator 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mimi fundishi kidogo kiswahili -- and it was learned in school. If you want to take a language outside the prescribed courses, you can set up a self study, home study or correspondence study program and work on it during the block when you would have taken one of the languages offered in the curriculum.
2006-09-07 08:08:13 · answer #6 · answered by old lady 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Depends upon what you're likely to encounter, I suppose. I don't recall Armenian or Polish being commonly taught in schools outside of those areas...
For English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and German there's a huge demand in the business world because of multinational corporations. For Yoruba- not so much...
2006-09-07 07:57:51 · answer #7 · answered by C-Man 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
okay. my high school only offered english (obviously) spanish, french and german. african languages would be something you would have to get into after high school. they can't offer every language in the world.
2006-09-07 07:55:36 · answer #8 · answered by practicalwizard 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dunno, at my high school they taught English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, and Latin, and I think Chinese.
Remember that European languages have the same alphabet (for the most part), so they're easier to learn.
2006-09-07 07:51:38 · answer #9 · answered by rahidz2003 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because they are not common... How come they don't teach arabic :(
Everyone always teachs french or spanish :(
2006-09-07 07:57:01 · answer #10 · answered by WhiteHat 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋