Foreign language not valued in spite of booming diversity Wednesday, April 13, 2011 By Tyanna Hughes [ArticleImageHyperLink] Advertising The 2010 census showed that Hudson County is the most diverse county in New Jersey, and that Jersey City is its most diverse city, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. However, students in the school still don’t realize how much value there is in learning other languages, according to Spanish and French teacher Elizabeth Lemagne. Lemagne said this country has a big population of people who speak Spanish, and that  Spanish-speaking people are in almost every place students may go. “So when you start working, it is important that you can speak two languages,” she said. The school offers two foreign languages, Spanish and French. Junior Andrew Mendes, who takes Spanish, said that he thinks the school should mandate Hispanic students to take French instead of Spanish. “[I] don’t see the importance of taking [Spanish] because I am Hispanic already [and] I speak Spanish fluently,” Mendes said. Spanish teacher Olga Perez said that very few students value foreign language education. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that not much importance in general is placed in foreign language,” Perez said. “A lot of students are under the impression that [foreign language] is an elective [and] doesn’t count towards graduation.” Lemagne said she has many ideas about making the foreign language curriculum more interesting for students. The school can do a foreign language club and put different signs in different languages, she said. “For example [we can] put the sign for prom in French. When we make an announcement [saying], for example, ‘Merry Christmas,’ we can say it in different languages,” Lemagne said. “[But] students really have to be interested.” Perez said that, ideally, it would be great to have a language lab. “[However], due to the lack of funding, there is not much room for that,” she said. Senior Julian Isidro, who takes French, said that some of his classmates don’t care and sleep in class. “You can tell they’re going to forget [what they learned] at the end of the year,” Isidro said. “To get students more interested in learning languages, teachers can start getting into the culture, not just the language.” Lemagne said she tries to make her classes fun for her students, but sometimes it’s very difficult because you first have to practice grammar and that's not that fun. But for vocabulary you can relate the activities to the students. “For example, if we are learning time [we can practice with] ‘what time you start classes’ to make the students realize that can use this language to communicate with other people,” Lemagne said.

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