At my school, every student needs at least 240 credits to graduate. Typically, there are 10 credits received for each year of a class, or five credits per semester. In order to graduate at my school, a student needs at least two years, or 20 credits, of a world language. Usually, two to three years of a foreign language are also required for a four-year college education.

Some students I’ve spoken to at my school dislike this requirement, though most schools in the United States also make learning a foreign language necessary. Students say that learning another language, such as Spanish, German, French, or Mandarin, is pointless. They don’t think they will ever use any of these languages. Excuses include that they don’t travel, don’t have international friends or family, or never talk to foreign visitors.

I think that learning a foreign language can be more valuable than many students realize. Primarily, learning a second language provides countless opportunities. Qualities, such as being bilingual are assets colleges look for in their student applicants; and not only is being bilingual relevant for college submissions, but for one’s career later in life. Whether one becomes a CEO of a major manufacturing company or an elementary school teacher, knowing another language is beneficial.

Living in America places us in the middle of an ethnic melting pot, surrounded by the cultures and races of many countries. The Hispanic population in the United States has increased dramatically over the past decade. More people have been learning Spanish due to the necessity of communicating with their neighbor! This is also part of the reason students learn Mandarin, French, German, and other languages. The United States continues to have one of the highest immigration rates of any country in the world, and the ability to comprehend and communicate another language can be useful when it comes to communication day to day and in the work field.

Due to technology and ease of international travel, we are now living in global society. Whether one is speaking Spanish in Mexico or French in Canada, being multilingual opens up opportunities. These opportunities could lead to new friends and new experiences.

Currently, I am in the middle of my third year learning Spanish. Some students choose Spanish because it is popular, easy, and their friends are doing it. I chose Spanish because of its usefulness. Living in California gives me many opportunities to practice my Spanish. According to 2010 Census results, the Spanish population in the United States has increased 43 percent over the past decade. Clearly, I am able to use my crazy Spanish skills often.

High school is a great time to acquire a new language, because the brain is still developing and it’s completely cost-free in all public high schools. And with all of its uses later in life, why not learn a foreign language while you have the chance?

Priscilla Castro grew up enthralled with French culture despite understanding few words of the movies and music in which she delighted.

Now Castro’s facility with Spanish, which her family spoke at home, is serving as an unlikely bridge to mastering le Francais in a unique Cal State Long Beach program designed to exploit Spanish speakers’ existing language skills.

“I’m not 100 percent fluent, but I can hold a conversation,” said Castro, 21, a journalism major. “A lot of things in Spanish are very similar, although because I learned Spanish at home, I didn’t know a lot of the grammatical rules. So learning French is actually helping me to improve my Spanish grammar.”

The French for Hispanophones program was developed more than five years ago but recently surged in popularity at the Long Beach campus, where more than 30 percent of students are Latino.

About 80 students were enrolled this fall in the French program, which has been such a success that a course in Italian for Spanish speakers was added this year. The university may double the number of class sections for each course next fall because of the demand, officials said.

The program has attracted the interest of linguistics educators from around the nation, including the Air Force Academy, which last year established a Portuguese course for Spanish speakers that is modeled on the Long Beach initiative.

“We realized from our own educational experiences that this kind of foreign language learning was a huge bonus, but what had never happened before was a strategic way of implementing courses that would be successful,” said Clorinda Donato, a professor of French and Italian at Long Beach and one of the program’s creators.

“It’s a highly innovative program, especially for the United States, where getting people to learn a language other than English is the first challenge, and teaching essentially a third language is an even greater accomplishment,” said Rosemary Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Assn.

“Research shows that once someone has learned a language other than their native tongue, it becomes increasingly easier to learn a third, fourth or fifth language,” Feal said. “Students doing this program will be uniquely advantaged if they want to go even further.”

Unlike traditional language programs that focus on the grammar and vocabulary of a single language, students in the French and Italian programs are taught to use similarities in their native language to better comprehend the new one.

The approach is especially effective with French, Spanish, Italian and other Romance languages. For example, the French verbs for “to know,” connatre and savoir, are similar in structure to the same verbs in Spanish, conocer and saber. Students in the Long Beach programs typically acquire skills in a single semester that would take a year in traditional programs, Donato said.

Students said they welcomed the accelerated pace.

“The masculine and feminine structure is similar, and that all came pretty easily,” said Jonathan Beaty, 22, a student of French who is fluent in Spanish. “The teacher doesn’t have to spend time on a lot of grammatical structures and can focus on other things.”

In another classroom, students were conversing in Italian and performing skits that would count toward their grades.

Jorge Gonzalez, who is taking Italian, said he studied abroad last year in Spain and was surprised during a trip to Italy to be able to communicate well in Spanish. He said he hopes that being trilingual will help his chances in a tough job market.

“I’m going into teaching, and it opens up so many more opportunities,” he said.

The Long Beach programs are thriving at a time when state and federal funding cuts have led many colleges and universities to eliminate foreign language degrees and graduate programs, despite growing demand by employers for foreign language proficiency. European language programs have been especially hard hit, as countries in the Middle East and Asia have gained economic and political clout.

The focus should be on expanding rather than restricting the language pool, especially in Southern California, which has a population of native Spanish speakers on which to build, said Etienne Farreyre, a cultural attache at the French Consulate in Los Angeles. The consulate initiated the Long Beach program and has provided funding and scholarship support.

“The program has proved that it works,” Farreyre said. “Once you learn those three languages, you can go all over the world.”

The Long Beach program was recently awarded a three-year, $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop French and Italian courses for Spanish speakers in high schools and community colleges. Long Beach instructors are also working with the University of Toulouse to develop specialized course materials.

Studying French has opened a world of possibilities for her, said Abril Calderon, a 2009 Long Beach graduate who works at a Los Angeles marketing firm.

“It allows me to tap into different markets and audiences,” said Calderon, 26, who also studied in France. “Something as simple as making a sales call and speaking Spanish or French can send a message and makes a huge difference in how relationships turn out. Personally, you feel more like a global citizen.”

What started with a study in 2007 finally became a reality — albeit a tentative one.
The long delay in bringing foreign languages to the elementary schools ended this month when the Board of Education passed a $320,000 program with a 6-1 vote. But it remains to be seen if the new initiative will make the Spring budget cuts.

Last year, parents showed up wearing red shirts to multiple meetings to support languages, but the program was axed during the first round of cuts.

A common reason for putting off foreign languages has been the economy, although an argument could be made that delaying this program has helped the economy.

Several immersion-based language programs have been started in town, including LinguaKids which opened in 1999, Franc-O Fun opened in 2009, and this year Playdate’s Maureen Bloom and parent Karen Christiansen partnered to create a Spanish immersion program for two-year olds. The First Congregational Church has had a preschool Spanish program for years.

And business has been good for many of these programs. LinguaKids’ business grew from 33 kids at its beginning in Darien, to hundreds of kids at 20 elementary schools in Fairfield and Westchester counties.

Picking up on the demand for languages, the schools began an earnest search for a program in 2007. After three years of studies and discussions, a proposal came before the Board of Ed in 2010. Spearheaded by Christiansen, a mother of three, the program gained much town-wide backing. Christiansen herself gathered nearly 1,700 signatures in support of bringing languages to town.

But the proposal that came forward was a 45-minute class every six days. The board was torn over the concept, because it was agreed that languages were needed, but the program was shot down as it was seen as not rigorous enough for the cost. Only board members Jim Plutte and Susan Perticone voted in favor of the program last year.

The discussions did, however, open the door for this year’s proposal. After last year’s vote-down, Falcone appeared optimistic about the ongoing conversation.

“It’s a disappointment but I’m also encouraged by what I felt was the support for the concept… and the encouragement to bring it back,” Falcone told the board last year.

This year’s program structure didn’t change the amount of class time, but it became a once-a-week program that would take the place of the library. It had everyone convinced except for board member Amy Bell, who expressed concern that approving the program without approving the money was irresponsible.

“Normally, we… vote on the concept of a new program as well as the funding — during the budget process,” Bell told the Board of Ed just before the vote was taken. “I worry that this separate vote that we are taking tonight will create an expectation in the community — an expectation that may not be fulfilled — because we don’t know what else is being proposed in the budget in January…”

Board Chairman Betsey Hagerty-Ross disagreed, and said they normally vote on a program prior to establishing the budget.

Assistant superintendent Dr. Judith Pandolfo said the program would take up 2.5% of total instructional time. “We’re trying to get as much as we can from the program without making it overwhelmingly expensive,” Pandolfo told the board.

Christiansen lamented the board’s decision. “I really feel like implementing such a weak program will only lead to the program being on the chopping block in short term as our budget continues to need cutting year after year,” Christiansen wrote in an e-mail.

But if the program survives the budget, it won’t necessarily stay the same over the years. Superintendent Dr. Stephen Falcone said the program is open to change, and the schools could “adjust things” as time progressed to better meet the needs of the students.

Christiansen moved to Darien from Glastonbury, which has had elementary foreign language studies since 1957, and she assumed Darien did too.

When she discovered that wasn’t the case, she thought it was inevitable that Darien would have a program by the time her children entered school. But when that didn’t happen, she said, she approached school officials who repeatedly told her the program was “on the table.”

“I began wondering what table it was on,” she said last year.

It’s still not clear whether the program will be implemented school-wide, or whether it will be phased in by grade level over two or three years. Five teachers will also need to be hired.

Pandolfo emphasized how the program was an “infusion into the whole school community.”

She said that while the 2.5% is the actual time spent on the language, total exposure would more likely be 5%, as the children would be exposed to Spanish throughout the school. “I think some of those are even more nurturing, because you’re applying the language in other settings,” Pandolfo said.

The program is not curriculum based, meaning the students won’t learn about topics that are covered in other classes, but will instead focus on culture and basic language learning. New Canaan, Greenwich, Westport and Weston are similar towns that already have a foreign language program at the elementary level.

For the past 30 years, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language has gathered data on the effectiveness of learning languages early. According to the Council, it enriches and enhances a child’s mental development, leaves students with more flexibility in thinking and greater sensitivity to language and capacity for listening, improves a child’s understanding of his or her native tongue, gives children the ability to communicate with people they otherwise would have never known, opens doors to other cultures, nurtures understanding and increases job opportunities for many careers.

In an increasingly globalized economy, skills such as these will be a growing demand, advocates say. Additional reporting by Jake Kara, Susan Shultz and Susan Chavez.

You’d think that at the age of 70 and after retiring from teaching French and Spanish in a Philadelphia public school (Northeast High) for more than 30 years, East Mt. Airy resident Andrew Sellers, 70, would want nothing more than to vacation in Madrid or the French Riviera and stay as far away from a classroom as possible.

For East Mt. Airy resident Andrew Sellers, 70, teaching was always about much more than a paycheck and even much more than teaching foreign languages; it was always about leaving a lasting impression on his students, whether they were kids, teenagers or adults.

But for Sellers, teaching was always about much more than a paycheck and even much more than teaching foreign languages; it was always about leaving a lasting impression on his students, whether they were kids, teenagers or adults.
So even after he retired from public school teaching, Sellers offered to teach Spanish five years ago at the Mt. Airy Learning Tree, a community-based school that offers dozens of non-credit courses on a wide variety of subjects. And after five years of teaching mostly adults at MALT, you could not pry Sellers out of the classroom with a crowbar.

“There’s such a different attitude,” explained Andrew. “The students are there because they really wish to learn, not because they have to be there, and they really do want to participate. And again it’s the same feeling that when you see somebody learn something; that expression, that smile, when they now have this jewel of knowledge. That really affects me.”

Why did Andrew decide to teach foreign languages, something that very, very few African Americans did 40 or 50 years ago? “I don’t know … I like to talk. I started studying Spanish in 1953, and I found out that the things I wanted to say had another way of saying it. I just became interested in it and developed a talent for it.”

Sellers began teaching at Northeast High School in September, 1969, and retired from the same school in 1999. “I basically taught French, and as tides turned I had to teach more Spanish. Things changed at the time because of a political situation between France and Israel … that dissuaded many people from studying French.”
(In the late 1960s relations between Israel and France were at a low point because of their governments’ widely divergent views on the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A significant percentage of Northeast High students at that time were Jewish, and apparently many opted to take courses in Spanish as their foreign language requirement instead of French.)

Throughout his time at Northeast High, Sellers of course observed dramatic changes in education. “There are so many advances in technology, which sometimes make more intense study not as much of a joy.” Sellers indicated that a lack of concentration, the “television mentality,” has become much more commonplace. “Students expect to be entertained, not taught. This is what I see basically occurring, and I suppose it will continue to occur.”

Nevertheless, Andrew Sellers simply loves to teach. He loves being able to get young minds to think. In fact, he is still an occasional substitute teacher. A source of great joy is the fact that Andrew has reacquainted himself with several former students, some from as far away as California and England, and he has discovered that they’ve had successful lives. “It’s a joy to see them, and it makes me feel good to know I’ve played a part in their lives.”

During Andrew’s early years at Northeast High School, he was one of only four or five African American teachers in the school. Andrew proudly noted, however, that there were no racial tensions to speak of, especially considering the fact that the civil rights revolution was at its height. Sellers believes that society needs to be more open regarding racial matters and not be on “constant guard, looking for offenses.” Sellers noticed that when he was in Europe, people didn’t pay as much attention to the subject of race compared to America.

Sellers was born in North Philadelphia. Because he was ill as a infant, doctors advised Sellers’ parents to move to an area where there was access to cleaner air. Thus, Andrew lived on his grandparents’ 100-acre farm in Florence, South Carolina, until the age of 6. He then moved back to Philadelphia. Sellers attributes his earliest experiences in helping him meet, understand and respect all types of people, even in the segregated south. He attended Roosevelt Junior High School and graduated from Germantown High School in 1959, immediately traveling to Europe, where he lived and studied for six years. While in Europe, Andrew observed that most Europeans were able to communicate in more than one language. He decided to emulate them, so in May of 1969, Andrew completed his B.A. in Foreign Language Education at Temple University. He was never married and has no children of his own, but many former students consider him a great father figure.

Along with teaching at Northeast High School, Andrew has also worked with the Germantown Theater Guild for years, participating in children’s theater. Through his love of puppet work, Sellers learned the value of “pulling children up to the next level.”

“The most important thing is not the subject that you teach,” said the lifelong educator. “It’s the idea that you’re teaching. It’s that you enjoy doing it because you’re imparting knowledge.”

FOREIGN diplomats in Scotland have banded together in a unique protest sparked by fears over how foreign languages are taught in our schools.

They fear that unless something is done Scottish pupils will lose out in the international market.

Consul generals from five of the country’s major trading partners – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and China – have expressed their joint concern over an 80 per cent fall in the number of foreign language assistants (FLAs) teaching in Scotland’s schools over the past five years.

They claim the reduction has been caused by financial cutbacks by councils and warn that if the trend continues future generations of Scots will be at a disadvantage compared with overseas students.

The cutbacks have emerged despite a Scottish Government aspiration that all pupils will eventually study two foreign languages. It says modern languages are “central” to the success of the Curriculum for Excellence, the controversial teaching framework introduced in August 2010.

But figures compiled by the British Council, which manages the FLAs programme, show that the number of teaching assistants from overseas has fallen from 285 in 2005/6 to 59 this year.

The five countries have trade links with Scotland worth around £4.5 billion a year. They point out that the cost of hiring a foreign language assistant is just £8,000 a year.

Javier Jiménez-Ugarte, consul general of Spain, said: “The Spanish Consulate General regards the dramatic reduction in numbers of foreign language assistants in Scottish schools as one of alarming concern. As native speakers who use the language naturally, FLAs provide an opportunity for young learners to speak another language for real.”

Pierre-Alain Coffinier, consul general of France, said: “Learning a language is not only about learning vocabulary and grammar, but about being able to develop self-confidence, communication and intercultural skills in a foreign language and culture. That is the key to opening Scottish youngsters’ horizons and to broaden their prospects in life.”

Lloyd Anderson, director of the British Council in Scotland, said: “As the most senior diplomats to Scotland from their respective nations, the consuls general are living proof of the importance of language learning for intercultural dialogue. Their alarm at the decline in foreign language assistants must be taken seriously.

“By allowing our foreign language assistant intake to dwindle so sharply, Scotland could be hampering efforts to encourage our young people to continue studying languages to a high level. In the long run, this could undermine our ambition to increase trade and investment with other countries.”

The British Council manages the foreign language assistants programme with a grant from the Scottish Government but individual local authorities decide whether to take on and pay for them. Schools are currently expected to offer at least one modern language no later than P6, although there is no specification over which language that should be. It is expected that all pupils should continue to study a foreign language to at least the end of S3, although there is no statutory requirement for this.

The Scottish Government’s target is that all pupils will eventually study two foreign languages in addition to English from primary school.

A spokesman for Cosla said spending priorities were decided by individual councils, but added: “Along with other important subjects the teaching of foreign languages in Scottish schools remains a crucial part of our education system.”

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: “Foreign language assistants make a valuable contribution to Scottish schools, enhancing classroom learning through ‘real life’ language practice, and we welcome the fact that consular officials here in Scotland recognise this valuable input and are keen to see it continue.

“Our Languages Working Group will consider how they can help deliver our ambitions to boost language learning in Scotland’s schools.”

Figures from British Council Scotland revealed the total had dropped to 59, down from 284 in 2005/06.

Only seven out of 32 local authorities employed native speakers of French, German, Italian, Spanish or Chinese.

The British Council warned that Scotland could miss out on future international investment as a result of poor foreign language skills.

It said the fall in numbers of language assistants had been steeper in Scotland than in England, which saw a 21% decrease over the same period.

The foreign language assistant programme, run by British Council Scotland, is funded by the Scottish government.

Up to three schools can share a native speaker post, which costs £7,911 per year.

But, with the end of ring-fenced budgets, many councils have decided to spend the money on other areas.

British Council Scotland director Lloyd Anderson warned the decline in foreign language assistant (FLA) numbers would harm language teaching – and in the longer term damage Scotland’s economic performance.

Councils employing FLAs

Angus
Edinburgh
East Renfrewshire
Inverclyde
North Ayrshire
North Lanarkshire
Orkney Islands

He said: “In an increasingly globalised world, Scotland needs to be outward looking.

“Speaking foreign languages shows our willingness to engage with the wider world, but it also has potentially huge economic benefits too.

“Scotland could miss out on international investment and export opportunities if we simply expect everyone to speak English.”

The Scottish government stated recently it wanted Scottish pupils to learn at least two languages as well as their mother tongue.

Alastair Sim, of Universities Scotland, backed the British Council’s call for language teaching to be maintained.

“Having one or more languages in addition to the mother-tongue will be a hugely valuable asset for future generations of Scottish graduates,” he said.

“Starting languages at a young age, whilst in school, is the best way to learn and will hopefully ensure universities continue to see a steady stream of Scots hungry to learn languages at university several years later.”

A spokesman for Cosla, the local authority umbrella body, said foreign language teaching remained a crucial part of the education system.

He added: “The delivery of education is rightly and properly an operational matter for individual councils together with budgetary decisions.

“They are the ones who have to by law present a balanced budget every year and who best know the local needs and priorities of their own areas.”

The following article was written by Andrew Ujifusa for Gazette.Net, October 26, 2011:

Students studying foreign languages soon will have clearer and standardized expectations in the classroom, but those in immersion programs won’t be affected by the changes.

Following changes made to how other subjects, such as math and social studies, are taught, the Montgomery County Board of Education unanimously approved a new structure for foreign language education earlier this month.

The organizational method for “World Languages” in secondary schools, called a “curriculum framework,” outlines what students are expected to know by their level of proficiency — an expectation called for by the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning. The school system’s guidelines mirror those approved by the Maryland State Department of Education.

“This is the first time we now have a very clearly laid-out, clearly articulated curriculum framework, which is kind of the public document that says, this is what we’re going to teach each year in generally this order across the year,” said Betsy Brown, director of the curriculum and instruction department.

Brown said although foreign language instruction has not been instructed haphazardly, teachers now will be able to find resources in print and online that reflect these standard curriculum guidelines.

A report last year from the school system’s Foreign Language Work Group, which made recommendations on foreign language instruction, suggested better professional development and easier access to teacher resources, and also recommended introducing “exploratory” foreign languages in elementary school, instead of beginning them in middle school.

The frameworks break down foreign language learning into five “standards,” including communication, cultures, comparisons, connections and communities, and state where students should be based on their skill level in each area.

For example, students in the middle level of their intermediate stage of communication are expected to be able to have spontaneous conversations on academic topics, such as an environmental issue’s global impact, and ask detailed follow-up questions and self-correct.

“You see more of the function of language, what students are able to do with language after the first year, the second year,” said Judith Klimpl, program supervisor for foreign language instruction in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

In the work group’s report, it noted more than half of middle school students in 2008-09 — 16,00 students — took at least one foreign language course for high school credit, while nearly two-thirds of high school students — 27,000 — did so. In the entire system, 35 percent of students graduate with at least four high school credits in a foreign language.

The school system offers 10 foreign languages; Brown said there are no imminent plans to add or subtract the number of foreign languages offered.

In a memo to the board, Superintendent of Schools Joshua P. Starr wrote, “Twenty-first century challenges, both economic and strategic, have brought the need for world language competency to the forefront.”

The next step, Brown said, is for the system to develop instructional guides for foreign language based on the curriculum frameworks.

The school system received about 100 comments from the public about the guidelines. Most of them said they also should apply to immersion programs and Foreign Language in Elementary Schools, an after-school program offered by the nonprofit group Educational Programs, not the school system.

But the school system said the immersion programs in elementary school are governed by separate guidelines, the Elementary Integrated Curriculum.

The American Council on Education (ACE), in conjunction with a coalition of higher education associations, is stepping up efforts to prevent Congress from making further cuts to the Department of Education’s (ED) international and foreign language programs.

Funding for Title VI International Education programs was cut $50 million (or 40 percent) in the FY 2011 spending bill. Now, as Congress works on FY 2012 spending bills for the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1, 2011, it is possible that further reductions are in the offing.

While the Senate proposes to fund these programs evenly, albeit at the reduced funding level approved last year, the House draft makes an additional $9 million cut, completely eliminating the Fulbright-Hays programs as well as the Institute for International Public Policy. The associations are working to persuade Congress to maintain these programs at the FY 2011 level of $75.7 million provided in the Senate bill.

One part of this effort is a letter sent last week to House and Senate Appropriations Committee leadership by a coalition of education groups, including ACE. The letter asks that funding be maintained for ED’s international and foreign language programs.

“The nation continues to face a dangerously short supply of Americans with in-depth knowledge of world regions and international markets, and fluency in foreign languages and their cultures,” the groups wrote. “These skills help to ensure our security and global economic competitiveness, including job creation and sustainable recovery from the economic crisis. The FY 2011 funding reductions already have weakened the educational opportunities needed to address these shortfalls, as well as to prepare our students for the 21st century global workplace.”

Despite our nation’s long history of immigration, and the fact that almost all of our ancestors were immigrants, the control of a second language among the populace is surprisingly low. Not so with our presidents. Thirty of them were at least bilingual, with some mastering six (John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt), nine (John Quincy Adams) and even ten languages (Thomas Jefferson)!

While Greek and Latin were compulsory subjects for anyone looking at higher education at the time (Princeton, for instance, requires the proficiency of both languages to be considered for admission), the high rate of secondary languages among them indicates the understanding that languages offer them competitive advantages over their peers, either culturally or intellectually.

In an amusing anecdote, Jefferson, in an attempt to polish his Greek, drew the ire of his good friend John Adams by writing much of his letters in Greek. The two of them probably inspired Adam’s son, John Quincy, who became a translator at the age of 14! James Garfield, whose language skills remain a matter of debate, was also a notable linguist. At 27, he was appointed as the Professor of Ancient Languages and Literature at Hiram College.

Presidents

Fluent

Fair

Poor

George Washington

English

John Adams

English, Hebrew, Latin, French, Spanish, Greek,

Thomas Jefferson

English, French, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish

German, Arabic, Gaelic, Welsh

James Madison

English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew

James Monroe

English, French

Latin

John Quincy Adams

English, French, Russian

Dutch, German, Latin

Greek, Italian, Spanish

Andrew Jackson

English

Choctaw

Martin van Buren

Dutch

English, German, French

Latin

William H. Harrison

English

Latin

French, Choctaw

John Tyler

English

Greek, Latin

James Polk

English

Greek, Latin

Zachary Taylor

English

Millard Fillmore

English

Franklin Pierce

English

James Buchanan

English, Latin, Greek

Abraham Lincoln

English

Andrew Johnson

English

Ulysses S. Grant

English

Rutherford B. Hayes

English

Greek, Latin

French

James A. Garfield

English

Greek, Latin

Chester A. Arthur

English

Greek, Latin

Grover Cleveland

English

Benjamin Harrison

English

William McKinley

English, Latin, Greek

Theodore Roosevelt

English

French

German, Italian, Latin, Greek

William H. Taft

English

Woodrow Wilson

English

German, Latin, Greek

Warren G. Harding

English

Calvin Coolidge

English

Herbert Hoover

English, Mandarin, Latin

Franklin D. Roosevelt

English, French, German

Latin

Harry Truman

English

Dwight Eisenhower

English

John F. Kennedy

English

Latin

Lyndon Johnson

English

Spanish

Richard Nixon

English, Latin

Gerald Ford

English

Latin

Jimmy Carter

English

Spanish

Ronald Reagan

English

George H.W. Bush

English

Latin

Bill Clinton

English

German

Latin

George W. Bush

English

Spanish

Barack Obama

English

Spanish, Indonesian