response 1 of 65:

Sep 5 18:28 UTC 1991

It is often not offered because most schools only have so much money (not
true of the school I attended, but that's another whole story), and can't
afford to offer more than one or two languages.  If they can only have
that many, they would prefer to offer "living" languages, that the students
can learn by the new, communicative teaching methods and use lots of videos
and computer programs.

The fact is that it's difficult to get high school students to see the use
in foreign languages at all, much less ones they will never have the chance
to use in a foreign country.  And, to some extent, they have a point.

Griz

response 3 of 65:

Sep 6 03:46 UTC 1991

East Lansing High School offered a Latin class when I was there.  I should
have taken it, but I didn't like the teacher.

response 5 of 65:

Sep 6 14:20 UTC 1991

I found that Latin was the most practical of all! I read foreign languages
far more than I have to speak them. As the original Romance language, Latin
gives me the ability to decipher many texts. I think more people don't take
Latin because it seems impractical and has a bad rep.

On a lighter Latin note:

Illegitimum non carborundum, domine salvum fac.
Illegitimum non carborundum, domine salvum fac.
Gaudeamus igitur, veritas non sequitur.
Illegitimum non carborundum, ipso facto.

 -- Harvard University Band lyrics to "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard"

(Off-color second verse available privately, on request)

response 7 of 65:

Sep 6 21:24 UTC 1991

"Impractical" in the sense that you may not be in a situation that requires
reading texts.  If you plan to live in Canada, it doesn't hurt to learn
French.  If you're not going into academia, you're better off with
spoken, living languages.

response 9 of 65:

Sep 7 14:33 UTC 1991

Again, if you have a limited amount of time, you're better off going
straight to the language.  Most high school curricula don't allow for
the possibility of taking two languages, especially one right after
the other.

response 11 of 65:

Sep 9 00:54 UTC 1991

At my high school, if you were in the 'college prep' class, you took:
4 years of English (including AP), 2 years of History (including AP),
4 years of sciences, 4 years of math, and one foreign language.  I
suppose you could have taken two languages (they only offered two)
if you wanted to nuke all your electives, but I really preferred to
learn to type...especially given the mediocrity of our French program.

response 13 of 65:

Jul 7 18:05 UTC 1992

   The best way to learn a language is to be an exchange
student for several months.  It helps to have had a couple
of years of grammar and vocab. first, but nothing can
teach a language as quickly as bare necessity.

   I've heard that the best immersion program for learning
Spanish is given by a monastery in Bolivia.  After one
year, you come out fluent in Spanish, but with a strong
Bolivian accent.  I learned most of my French as an
exchange student in France, and my Spanish in an immersion
program in Guatemala.  The two months in Guatemala were
probably the equivalent of a couple of years of taking
university classes.

response 15 of 65:

Jul 8 01:19 UTC 1992

I took Latin for 3 semesters ina row--then I moved to Texas and registered
for Latin again.  The teacher said, on my first day in class, that it is
"impossible to speak Latin" because Latin "was only ever intended to be
a written language".  So what exactly was it the Romans used to speak
to each other, I wondered...and dropped the class.  She struck me as an
idiot.

response 17 of 65:

Jul 9 17:57 UTC 1992

   Said teacher was indeed stupid.  The Romans, obviously,
spoke latin.  So did educated people through the middle
ages.

response 19 of 65:

Jul 13 18:26 UTC 1992

   Right :)

response 21 of 65:

Jul 27 19:01 UTC 1992

   Why? 'Tho I admit, it's a bit frustrating not being able
to communicate at first.  I couldn't say much for the first
month or so of my four-month exchange student stay in France,
and I'd had a year or so of high school French.  It took a
lot of work and patience to get fluent enough to communicate,
but it was worth it!

response 23 of 65:

Jul 31 14:28 UTC 1992

  You have a good point, but one can learn the structure
afterwards, too, and get just as far.  After all, that's
what we do with our native tongue.