The Demand for Foreign Languages in Schools

Learning a foreign language is now considered one of the most valuable courses because of its power in developing communication skills. One is not only equipped with the skill of speaking an additional language but also with improved knowledge about their mother/regional languages. 

The pace at which India is witnessing increasing globalization in the past couple of years has persuaded more and more schools and institutes to offer certified courses in foreign languages. 

While French, German, Spanish, and Mandarin are prevalent today, languages like Korean, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Polish, Dutch as well as Italian are now gaining high demand.

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What is the reason behind this change? 

More and more students are looking forward to moving to foreign countries for further studies, many want to pursue a profession in fields that require knowledge about foreign languages such as PR, BPO, international organizations operating from different countries, and work as translators/interpreters, etc. Another reason could be hobbies like learning about diverse cultures and traveling, creating content for personal pleasure about various places, like writing blogs, making videos and art, or to broaden their outlook about the world in general.

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Hence, the popularity of foreign languages in the Indian curriculum is at its peak. Students and parents are searching for a global connection to their education, and a lot needs to be done and achieved in this area.

The Delhi Board of School Education (DBSE) signing an agreement with Institut Français en Inde (IFI), the French Institute in India, to introduce the French Language, and Goethe Institute to offer German language courses to more than 30 government schools all across Delhi are one of the few examples of advancements India is making today.

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Many schools are also focusing on working closely with the digital platforms offering the facility of online courses in foreign languages to enable students to learn foreign languages of their choice.

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In addition to that, governments around the world are implementing new mandates for their school systems as well. They are directed toward designing course structures to increase proficiency in the new languages and provide global exposure to all the students.

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A short piece of info:

The Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Scale of the US Federal government, the US Foreign Services Institute (FSI) as well as the European Language Proficiency Scale (CEFR) state that you can learn some languages within 400 hours of classroom studies of four hours each daily over a five-day week. On the other hand, some languages require 2,200 hours of classroom study spread over five days a week for two years.