The Rapidly Growing National Consensus on Reforming the Teaching of Foreign Language

A Quick+ED reader writes in about my post on teaching foreign languages:

I agree completely about language education in the early grades. I wasted a great deal of time in high school Spanish classes and had to learn it years later in Mexico. My daughter, on the other hand, has been in a dual language program since first grade (she's in fifth now) and is fully bilingual.

It's idiotic to wait till kids are teenagers, which is precisely when their aptitude for language acquisition begins to deteriorate. Studying a foreign language has the added benefit of making you think about and analyze your own, if you're fortunate enough to have a good teacher.

Consensus!