The American attitude toward foreign language education from the 1700's to 2006

As a foreign language observer, the author became increasingly interested in language education in American society. The United States has been home to several non-English languages; nonetheless, there seems to be a lack of choices when it comes to a career that involving foreign language. The choices, based on foreign language course enrollment, consistently seem to be Spanish, French, and German, regardless of the focus of the nation's global participation. As a basis for this study, the author decided to explore the American attitude, between the 1700's and 2006, that has fostered the current state of foreign language education in the United States. The author presents an argument based on contextual factors which are likely to have affected foreign language education in the United States. The factors explored in this work are immigration, foreign language instruction, federal funding for foreign language instruction, and foreign language course enrollment