With so many languages being offered to learn, including ASL, Spanish, Chinese and French, what do students actually get out of taking these classes?

In Montgomery County, you can start taking a language as early as 6th grade and many choose to take it for the next seven years. After taking language classes throughout secondary education, some feel that they are not getting enough out of the class.

“[I] really have a lot of passion to learn Spanish, but I’m not able to have a continuous conversation yet,” senior Daniel Gershon said.

Students come from all different backgrounds, where some only speak English, while others know multiple languages. Some bilingual students choose to take their native language if it is offered at WJ. This may throw a barrier between the native speakers and those who have just started through the MCPS curriculum.

”When speaking with a native speaker, it would be kind of intimidating, but with people that are at my level, it feels normal and I feel comfortable having a conversation with them,” junior Ipek Guner said.

Montgomery County creates an overarching curriculum for language classes. The curriculum fosters learning vocabulary and grammar, but students feel that there are many limitations to the curriculum.

”Every time I try and talk to my French cousins, they always tell me that what I am saying is not right,” senior Alex Krouse said. “They say that the grammar is not correct. They talk in slang, but we don’t really learn slang; we learn more professional French, which is hard to have a conversation in.”

Others feel that the MCPS curriculum opens up a wide range of cultural learning that helps give a sense of the actuality of what the language and culture are like.

“While taking Chinese, I noticed that there was a lot of opportunity to have a lot of cultural experience outside of the classroom,” senior Eden Munford said. “We went on a lot of trips, including to a dumpling house in the area, and I got to learn a lot. We learned different songs and different ways to make Chinese food, which made me more interested in the class.”

Students feel that repetition of vocabulary would be highly crucial to remembering more words and phrases as they advance in levels.

“I think that learning and reviewing past word lists slowly and reviewing coursework from past years would be beneficial to remembering key importances of the language,” Krouse said.