College and University Blog
Wider Variety of Foreign Languages Now Studied at U.S. Colleges
College students have been studying foreign languages at a fairly constant rate since 2006 but the variety of languages studied has increased, according to the results of a Modern Language Association of America (MLA) survey released on December 8, 2010.
More Foreign Languages Being Studied at Colleges than Ever Before
The study, Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009, was the 22nd produced by the MLA since 1958.
Between 1958 and 1965, surveys included only modern languages. Latin, Ancient Greek, and other classical languages were introduced in 1965. The 1965 survey was also the first to provide enrollments in less commonly taught languages by language name and by institution. The number of foreign languages studied in 2009 was a record-breaking two hundred and thirty-two.
The MLA documented foreign language course participation as opposed to the number of college students studying a particular language for the study. The number of enrollments in foreign language courses grew by 6.6 percent between 2006 and 2009, from 1.57 million to 1.68 million, but it
Melissa Rhone+
Melissa Rhone earned her Bachelor of Music in Education from the University of Tampa. She resides in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys writing about college, pop culture, and epilepsy awareness.