Francisco Marmolejo’s “Deficiency in Foreign Language Competency: What Is Wrong with the U.S. Educational System?,” which appeared on The Chronicle‘s website yesterday, is worth reading. I won’t summarize it here, but I do wonder if the attitudes he describes have anything to do with a comment I sometimes hear when I ask a student if he or she knows another language or plans to learn one: “I’m no good at languages.” I thought the same thing of myself thirty years ago. Fortunately, life circumstances and patient teachers later taught me that motivation and practice mattered more than mere aptitude.
This post originally appeared on Language for You (now closed) on on this date.