Should students be required to take second langauge exams before graduating from high school? |
It is considered as natural that high school students learn second language. This happens because people believe that learning second language as fast as possible is beneficial for students. However, I believe that they have misguided beliefs. Students would not be able to communicate as their mother tongue or mother language, if they learn foreign language so early before they have the ability to speak their mother language freely. Teaching foreign languages force student to get stressed out. First of all, students should learn first their mother language instead of second language. This is due to the fact that mother language is so essential and considerable method to live in their native countries. So if students learn foreign language before they fully strengthen their mother languages, they would have difficulties in dealing with or persuading their native people. To give an idea, Korea emphasizes English education so strongly that almost all high schools teach their students English everyday and thus many students are able to speak and more accustomed to it than Korean. However, many recent researches demonstrate that Korean students have increasingly lost their abilities to communicate with people after instituting teaching English in high schools. This shows that too early language education can rather hurt students' abilities to speak in their mother languages. Secondly, if the education government inaugurates teaching second language to high school students, it would force students to be stuck. This largely results from the fact that high school students already have a great amount of stress and strain, due to the national college entrance exam. For example, when I was in my high school, I spent most of my time on studying math, science and many other subjects in order to get acceptance from prestigious universities. I even rarely have chances to meet closer friends. In this condition, if I had studied second language, I could have not endured my severe period of time and gotten acceptance from my present university. In summary, teaching second language to high school students is beneficial. However, disadvantages of it far outweigh advantages of it. It is possible that students cannot learn their native languages well. High school students already have so many subjects without it. Therefore, the government and authorities should not force students to study second language in high schools. |