What is the point of being required to take a foreign language if you attend an I.B. school? Other schools that are not I.B. schools do not have that requirement. Do you as students feel as though you do not have enough time to study your core classes? Well…if you attend an I.B. school then you would probably have more time to do that if you were not as busy working on your Spanish, French, German, and ect. Our foreign language class puts an unnecessary extra load of homework and studying onto our shoulders. Not only do we have math, science, language arts, and humanities to worry about but there is also a foreign language class? That hardly seems fair! Learning a foreign language does not help us as students to study for the classes that really matter. It takes studying time away from our core classes. (Language Arts, Science, Math, Humanities.)
Oh yes we do not have anything better to do than sit in a class that does nothing but eat up precious time. Has anyone ever thought that the time when we are in our foreign language class we could have a study period? Would that not be a better use for that class period?
I am so sure that all of us I.B. students will just DIE without being bilingual. There are plenty of super smart people out there in the world who are…believe it or not…..NOT BILINGUAL! Nobody has gone homeless and tossed onto the streets because of only being able to speak one language. (Unless it is required for there job and were not able to meet the requirements but then again that’s there problem isn’t it?) It would be much more beneficial and enjoyable if we took a foreign language because we wanted to not because we have to. I think that being in middle school we are old enough to decide if we are going to pursue a career that would need us to be bilingual. By now all middle school students should know if they are interested in doing that. The rest of us should not be required to learn something that will not help us with our future career. Instead we should be able to work towards what we want and need. I am sure that it would not be that difficult to organize a study period for students that are not interested or have no need for a foreign language class.
It does not help that most foreign language teachers expect us to devote all of our time to studying for their class then chastise us when we have not met their high expectations. They do not realize that there are more important things in school then their little foreign language class. It would be much better to spend an hour on algebra than on Spanish or French or German……… (You get the point). All that I am trying to say is that I strongly oppose all I.B. school students being required to take a foreign language. I think that we should have a choice.