Elementary Foreign-Language Instruction on Descent

Cutbacks Expected to Continue in Recession

The United States lost ground over the past decade in the proportion of elementary schools that offer foreign-language lessons, following a decade during which those schools had increasingly launched such programs. And the decline is likely to continue as a number of districts consider cutting back their foreign-language programs at all levels because of the recession.

Robert Slater, the director of the National Security Education Program, which is housed in the U.S. Department of Defense, said it was troubling that elementary school foreign-language offerings are slipping nationwide, "because children learn second and third languages easier at that level."

"That's what the rest of the world does," he noted, implying that the United States will fall even further behind other nations in producing bilingual people if primary schools aren’t...