Greek to Me
“Since a number of students apparently were, and are, choosing courses, majors and even careers based on foreign language requirements,” says Horwitz, “I felt some urgency in determining what was causing the anxiety. Over the past 25 years or so, the FLCAS has shown us that students with debilitating foreign language anxiety can be identified and that they have several traits in common.
Dr. Elaine Horowitz, a researcher here at the University of Texas, has been studying “foreign language anxiety,” which is, as you may have guessed, acute anxiety related to the learning of foreign languages. This is a pretty compelling issue — I myself suffer from some strain of this particular worry. Foreign language courses have always been my lowest grades, and I actually dropped out of my third semester of French during college because I just couldn’t take the stress any longer.
I finally completed my foreign language requirement for my graduate program this semester, but the process was mildly terrifying. I was particularly concerned that I was going to be stuck taking the class over and over again, desperate for a passing score. I question the utility of these sorts of requirements for many degrees. While I would not hesitate to argue that we all should be multi-lingual, I’m not sure that these course requirements necessarily serve the best interest of students, either educationally or, later, professionally.