Learning foreign language vital to education

When I was in elementary school, we were taught Spanish every week in our class. In middle school, I had a lot of confidence in my knowledge and I felt more invested with my learning, because I could understand it. I realize now that this wasn’t just because of elementary school, I also grew up with a Spanish-speaking nanny, and she taught me a lot about the culture of Mexico.

This was a big part of my childhood, learning about different cultures, and that really boosted my learning skills when the time came to apply that in the classroom. I see people struggle with learning because they weren’t provided with the background of knowledge in their childhood like I was.

Learning another language helps improve your overall brain function and cognitive skills. Children ranging from five to 14 are at a vital learning stage, and learning another language will help their growth and, according to Deanne Alban of bebrainfit.com, it will “...increase the size of the brain’s language center and the hippocampus — the area of the brain responsible for forming, storing and retrieving memories.”

All elementary and middle schools should teach a foreign language (the most common one being Spanish), and the student’s learning skills will benefit from this.

This story was originally published December 19, 2016 at 2:37 PM with the headline "Learning foreign language vital to education."