The Utilitarian Approach of Foreign Language Learning

In the second piece of this New York Times article, Ingrid Pufhal points out the fact that the United States has had a utilitarian approach of teaching languages. This means that the languages learned in schools were driven by world events: during the Cold War, Russian was being pushed, two decades ago, Japanese was in the forefront of people's minds, now since China is such a great economic (and military) presence, Mandarin seems to have everyone's attention. This contrast with a very different approach of learning of languages that deviates from this superficial approach. Pufhal puts it in these words:

Finally, European policy makers, educators and the general public realize that the benefits of language study extend well beyond the ability to communicate in another language. A recent E.U. meta-study presented scientific evidence that multilingualism contributes to creativity by enhancing mental flexibility, problem solving capability, language awareness, learning capacity and interpersonal ability.

Such remarks make me think that if we detach ourselves from this utilitarian mindset, we could actually make a case for a return to German or even more exciting to me: the rediscovery of classical languages beyond Latin: Greek, Herbrew, . . .

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