Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spanish and Mandarin are the only languages that make sense to teach at public school, based on regional demographics and world geopolitics and economics.

People really underestimate French.

Agree. It or some form of language that has it interwind/based are spoken in many places. Also Arabic.

Anonymous wrote:Spanish and Mandarin are the only languages that make sense to teach at public school, based on regional demographics and world geopolitics and economics.

Not Spanish then

Anonymous wrote:Spanish and Mandarin are the only languages that make sense to teach at public school, based on regional demographics and world geopolitics and economics.

People really underestimate French.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol--i didn't realize MCPS offers Italian. So bizarre how some schools have niche offerings.

The richer schools have lots of different offerings. This is what MCPS considers equity. We have french and spanish.

It’s most interesting considering it’s not the most diverse cluster. You would think more languages would be offered in areas where more languages are spoken given students the opportunity to try language with peers and the community.

MCPS can't offer everything. And with online translation software that can translate text instantly and conversations instantly, I'm not sure how much effort should be expended in learning languages.

I'd much rather my kid have more time/resources dedicated to teaching him to learning to write properly in English.

Anonymous wrote:Spanish and Mandarin are the only languages that make sense to teach at public school, based on regional demographics and world geopolitics and economics.

Given the amount of time available for language instruction at MCPS, I would warn that Mandarin is a hard language to learn. My kid learned it for a few years in private school when we lived overseas for many more hours per week and their progress in speaking/writing characters was pretty minimal relative to learning Spanish which is just an easier language for an English speaker to pick up quickly.

Spanish and Mandarin are the only languages that make sense to teach at public school, based on regional demographics and world geopolitics and economics.

Anonymous wrote:In 5 short years there will be no jobs. It’s stupid to learn Italian.

We'll always have The Italian Job.

Schools list multiple languages as options but then are unable to offer them every single year.

Whitman lists Italian, Latin, Arabic, Chinese etc.

My kid took 12 months of Arabic independently in 7th / 8th grade only to be told "we're not teaching it this year at Whitman" but the Arabic teacher profile remained on the website.

Its the same with clubs - "we have over 100 clubs" but many of them in name only, with zero activities and zero members.

Anonymous wrote:Chinese is offered forgot whic schools have it

Do people know that Chinese is not a language? Mandarin, Cantonese, even Wu are languages. I assume what’s being taught is Mandarin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol--i didn't realize MCPS offers Italian. So bizarre how some schools have niche offerings.

The richer schools have lots of different offerings. This is what MCPS considers equity. We have french and spanish.

It’s most interesting considering it’s not the most diverse cluster. You would think more languages would be offered in areas where more languages are spoken given students the opportunity to try language with peers and the community.

Anonymous wrote:In 5 short years there will be no jobs. It’s stupid to learn Italian.

So don't have your kid take it. Obviously not everyone agrees with you.

Anonymous wrote:Chinese is offered forgot whic schools have it

There's one school that hosts a Chinese immersion program that's open only to kids in that school.

In 5 short years there will be no jobs. It’s stupid to learn Italian.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol--i didn't realize MCPS offers Italian. So bizarre how some schools have niche offerings.

Blair offers Japanese - I don't know if there are other high schools that have Japanese as a language offering

Einstein has Japanese

Chinese is offered forgot whic schools have it