[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 26 (Tuesday, March 8, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H997-H1000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SUPPORTING THE DESIGNATION OF A YEAR OF LANGUAGES

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H. Res. 122) expressing the sense of the House of 
Representatives regarding the study of languages and supporting the 
designation of a Year of Languages.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 122

       Whereas the people of the United States have growing 
     social, cultural, and economic ties to the international 
     community that present new challenges as the United States 
     seeks to communicate with and understand international 
     partners from different language and cultural backgrounds;
       Whereas communities across the United States are welcoming 
     many new neighbors, friends, employees, and citizens from 
     many countries throughout the world;
       Whereas increased language learning is a critical national 
     interest and is necessary to maintain the economic edge the 
     United States has in the worldwide marketplace;
       Whereas developing a workforce that is skilled in languages 
     and cultural understanding is vital for conducting 
     international commerce;
       Whereas both the 2000 Cox Commission and the National 
     Intelligence Council have reported that a shortfall of 
     experts in foreign languages, particularly the languages of 
     Asia and the Middle East, has seriously hampered information 
     gathering and analysis within the intelligence community of 
     the United States;
       Whereas studying other languages has been shown to 
     contribute to increased cognitive skills, better academic 
     performance, and a greater understanding of others, while 
     also providing life-long learning opportunities;
       Whereas language education in the 21st century includes a 
     commitment to the study of long sequences of world languages, 
     beginning in early grades and continuing throughout the 
     academic career of an individual, in order to develop the 
     levels of proficiency needed to effectively communicate with 
     people from other cultures at home and abroad; and
       Whereas the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign 
     Languages, along with

[[Page H998]]

     its affiliate organizations, is urging the public to support 
     increased language education for students, which will expand 
     the cultural and literary horizons of adult learners and 
     strengthen the position and security of the United States 
     throughout the world: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved,  That it is the sense of the House of 
     Representatives that--
       (1) the study of languages contributes to the intellectual 
     and social development of a student and the economy and 
     security of the United States;
       (2) there should be a Year of Languages in the United 
     States, during which language study is promoted and expanded 
     in elementary schools, secondary schools, institutions of 
     higher education, businesses, and government programs; and
       (3) the President should issue a proclamation calling upon 
     the people of the United States to--
       (A) encourage and support initiatives to promote and expand 
     the study of languages; and
       (B) observe a Year of Languages with appropriate 
     ceremonies, programs, and other activities.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Nevada (Mr. Porter) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter).


                             General Leave

  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on H. Res. 122.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Nevada?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 122. This resolution expresses 
the importance of foreign language study and supports the designation 
of a Year of Languages. Increased language learning is a critical 
national interest and is necessary to maintain the economic edge of the 
United States as well as serving to better secure our national interest 
abroad.
  Currently, 9.3 percent of Americans speak their native language and 
another language fluently, compared to 52.7 percent of Europeans.
  Foreign language education has long been determined to increase a 
student's cognitive and critical thinking abilities. The Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act names foreign language study as a part of a 
core curriculum, and the Higher Education Act denotes that foreign 
language study is vital to secure the future economic welfare of the 
United States. Therefore, language education in our Nation's schools 
should begin in early grades and continue throughout the student's 
entire academic career.
  By designating a Year of Languages, this Congress highlights the 
importance of foreign languages and cultural understanding in our 
schools, our workforces and our society. The celebration of languages 
will serve as a look to the future for Americans who will be entering 
the workforce at a time when international understanding, cross-
cultural awareness and linguistic capacity are increasingly important 
for their success in the world.
  In light of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the American 
intelligence community stresses that individuals with proper foreign 
language expertise are greatly needed to work on important national 
security and foreign policy issues. As we enter into a time that 
requires an increased understanding of world cultures, foreign language 
study and requisite knowledge in languages is vital for meeting 21st 
century security challenges properly, effectively and efficiently.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak at some length about this because 
it is really so important to our country. I would like to thank the 
leadership for allowing us to bring up this resolution which expresses 
the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the study of 
languages and supporting the designation of a Year of Languages. I 
would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tiberi) for co-
sponsoring the resolution.
  Under the guidance and guardianship of the American Council on the 
Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2005 will be celebrated as the Year of 
Languages in the United States. These celebrations will take place in a 
variety of settings including elementary and secondary schools and 
post-secondary institutions as well as at events at local and State and 
national levels across America. It is an opportunity to focus on 
America's need to focus our attention on the social and economic 
benefits of studying other languages and cultures around the world and 
on the importance of these studies to our national security.
  This initiative will seek to influence the full range of language 
programs in the United States schools and communities, and I think the 
campaign plan will capture the attention and, I hope, the interest of 
all Americans with the involvement and assistance of teachers, 
administrators and local officials. If the United States is going to 
continue to play an important role in the global economy and in the 
business world and to be the leader politically, and I would say 
militarily, we must be able to understand and communicate with other 
cultures around the world.
  According to a 2002 survey from Healthy Companies International, the 
average number of languages spoken by American business executives is 
less than one and a half, compared with say 3.9 languages spoken on 
average by business executives in the Netherlands.
  The goals of the Year of Languages are four: To expand the public's 
understanding of the role of language in all aspects of people's lives, 
in society and in the future of human and international relations; to 
promote the importance of language learning and language proficiency, 
urging every American to commit to learning other languages; to build 
awareness of the diversity of languages that now play an integral part 
of everyday life in our country; and to promote the formation of a 
national task force to study and strengthen national policy on language 
learning and teaching and to make recommendations to strengthen U.S. 
policy.
  Some members of the public and the media might question why, with our 
unparalleled military and economic power, Americans need to learn 
languages of the world. Does not everyone speak English anyway? So they 
say.
  Well, the reasons to launch a government-wide effort to build a 
pipeline of professionals with advanced foreign language capabilities, 
I think, should be self-evident to Americans. Let me quote a statement. 
``The United States today carries new responsibilities in many quarters 
of the globe, and we are at a serious disadvantage because of the 
difficulty of finding persons who can deal with the foreign language 
problems.''
  Those are not my words. Those are the words of former U.S. Secretary 
of State John Foster Dulles, spoken in 1953. What was true in the post-
World War II world of 1953 is even more true in the post-9/11 world of 
2004 and 2005.
  Our national deficiency in the languages and cultures of critical 
areas around the world is compromising American security interests. And 
in addition to diminishing our opportunities economically and 
culturally, the deficiency is making our troops overseas more 
vulnerable and, I would argue, the American people less safer.
  A few years after John Foster Dulles spoke these words, Russia 
launched a small beeping sphere above the Earth known as Sputnik. 
Americans were shocked, even fearful, and Congress, saying America 
would never be caught flat-footed again, passed the National Defense 
Education Act in 1958 that did much to overhaul the teaching of science 
and math and also provided some assistance for the study of languages.
  September 11, 2001, was also a wake-up call for us. If we fail to 
address one of the most serious problems facing our Nation, we will not 
have risen to the challenge of September 11, 2001. The 
9/11 joint inquiry reported a year and a half ago that our intelligence 
community is at 30 percent readiness in languages critical to national 
security. A State Department commissioned report from a year ago found 
that our government has only 54, or at that time, only 54 genuine 
Arabic speakers working in the entire Foreign Service.
  A year or so ago, I asked David Kay, the former head of the Iraq 
Survey Group, how many on his 1,400 member team spoke Arabic and 
understood the

[[Page H999]]

technology of weapons of mass destruction. Well, he said he could count 
on the fingers of one hand.
  I posed similar questions to some members of the special forces who 
had been combing the mountains of Afghanistan looking for Osama bin 
Laden. I asked how many of them spoke Pushtu. Well, they responded, 
they had picked some up during the year they had been there. Although 
our special forces represent some of the best trained forces in the 
world, we are clearly not giving them the skills they need. If Osama 
bin Laden is truly American public enemy number one, how do we expect 
to track him down if we cannot speak the languages of the people who 
are hiding him?
  As Dr. David Chu, the U.S. Undersecretary of Defense, said in his 
opening remarks at the National Language Conference last June, we need 
``a permanent change in our approach to the peoples and cultures of the 
rest of the world.''

                              {time}  1430

  Our need to understand the world is a prime national security 
concern.
  He went on, ``National security concerns have taken us from the 
streets of Manhattan to the mountains of Afghanistan and to the resort 
cities of Bali. Our economy has brought workers here to America and 
sent jobs to 100 countries around the world. Our health is affected by 
conditions and events in China, Britain, Africa and South America. 
Criminal cartels and corrupt officials hundreds of miles beyond our 
borders have an immediate impact on our streets, in our schools and our 
homes. Within one generation, we have become integrated into the world 
as never before.'' Those are the words of the Undersecretary of Defense 
Dr. Chu.
  While the Defense Department, the State Department and our 
intelligence agencies have recently turned their attention to the 
language problem, their approach remains focused on immediate needs. 
They are stepping up recruitment efforts, and they are expanding the 
language education programs in Monterey, here in Washington and 
elsewhere, and these are promising and necessary changes, but they only 
scratch the surface.
  They do not deal with the problem of the pool. From what pool will 
they be recruiting the linguists for the Defense Department, the State 
Department, our intelligence agencies?
  The root of the problem, I think, is in our schools. If we are to 
address adequately the language shortage in the Federal Government, we 
have to look past the issues of immediate recruitment and foreign 
language training. Federal language schools are building on a poor 
language foundation. We must design and implement a Federal language 
strategy that begins at the earliest years of education and continues 
through college.
  Mr. Speaker, consider the following facts: Al Qaeda and similar 
terrorist elements operate in over 75 countries where hundreds of 
languages and dialects are spoken. However, 99 percent of American high 
school, college and university programs concentrate on a few, mostly 
European, languages. According to figures from a couple of years ago, 
2002, more college students study Ancient Greek than Arabic, Korean, 
Persian, Pashto and a number of other languages put together. Nothing 
against Ancient Greek, but certainly it is an important area of study, 
but the shortage of training in Arabic, Korean, Persian, Pashto and a 
long list of others should be cause for concern.
  Out of 1.3 million graduates at America's colleges and universities, 
17, two years ago, earned a bachelor's or advanced degree in Arabic, 
according to the Department of Education, 17. In Chinese, the language 
spoken by billions of people, 217 degrees were granted, according to 
the Department of Education. That is compared with almost 3,000 in 
French, more than 8,000 in Spanish. We need to improve not just the 
number of degrees but the quality of education throughout the 
educational years.
  In addition to the resolution before us today, I have introduced the 
National Security Language Act, legislation that would expand the 
Federal investment in education in foreign languages of critical need. 
It would provide Federal incentives for high school students to study 
languages in college. It would give universities resources to expand 
language programs overseas, and it would identify Americans with 
preexisting language abilities for recruitment.
  The bill would create an international flagship language initiative 
that would provide Federal grants to specific universities and colleges 
to establish high-quality, intensive, in-country language study 
programs in countries around the world. It would establish a science 
and technology advanced language grant program for institutions of 
higher education to establish programs that encourage students to 
develop foreign language proficiency as they study science, engineering 
and other technologies.
  The bill would provide loan forgiveness of up to $10,000 for 
undergraduate students in foreign languages. It would encourage early 
northern language studies by establishing grants for foreign language 
partnerships between local districts and foreign language departments 
at institutes of higher education.
  It would create a commission of national study of foreign language 
heritage and a Federal marketing campaign to identify heritage 
communities with native speakers of critical foreign languages and 
market to them the need to pursue the study of languages.
  I believe the next step then would be to increase the supply line of 
students who have strong language skills, and this can only be done 
through the K-through-12 system. The Council for Basic Education 
recently released a study. Foreign language instruction experienced 
decreases in instruction time as reported by principals, particularly 
in high minority schools. Whereas in low minority schools, 9 percent of 
the principals reported a decrease in time spent studying languages; 11 
percent reported an increase. But in minority schools, schools with a 
high proportion of minority students, there was a 23 percent decline in 
instructional time, with only 9 percent of the principals reporting an 
increase. In other words, this is also a matter of our educational 
divide in this country.
  In addition to developing a lifelong ability to communicate with 
people from other countries and backgrounds, other benefits include 
improved overall school performance and improved problem solving 
skills. Students of foreign languages tend to score higher on 
standardized tests. And results from the Scholastic Aptitude Test show 
that students who had studied a foreign language for 4 or more years 
outscored other students on the verbal and math portions of the test. 
This is according to the college board SAT as reported in 2003.
  Knowledge of a second language also seems to coincide with high 
academic achievement. It is not just whether a school has a rigorous 
program, although certainly that helps, but time spent in studying 
foreign languages means that students earn better grades in college and 
are less likely to drop out.
  There are all sorts of reasons to study foreign languages, and 
studying the language, learning a language at any age is beneficial. 
Some studies have shown that the brain is more open to linguistic 
development in the early years. I have certainly seen that in my own 
grandchildren and children. When children have an early start to a long 
sequence of language instruction that continues through high school and 
college, they will be, studies have shown, able to achieve levels of 
fluency in that and to pick up other languages. Nevertheless, older 
children and adults can still be successful at learning a second or 
third or fourth language. Although the level of attainment is a little 
more predictable for us older learners, it is still worth doing.
  In 1958, as I said, Congress responded to Sputnik by passing the 
National Defense Education Act. It focused on science and engineering 
and, to some extent, on languages. Immediately after September 11, 
Americans found themselves once again facing a Sputnik moment. 
Americans realized that we were caught flatfooted and unprepared to 
deal with not just hatred around the world but hatred that was turned 
into vicious attacks.
  We need a national commitment to languages on a scale of the NDEA, 
the National Defense Education Act, and Mr. Speaker, I think today's 
resolution that will, among other things, recognize 2005 as the year of 
languages is a

[[Page H1000]]

start toward making that commitment.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, may I ask the time remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). The gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Holt) has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Davis), my colleague.
  (Mrs. DAVIS of California asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House 
Resolution 122.
  For years, we have known that, to be competitive in the world, 
Americans must acquire the language capacity to speak with our 
counterparts. Personally, for myself, when my husband was stationed in 
Japan during the Vietnam War, we lived in a Japanese community, and 
with my toddler and baby there, I learned some minimal Japanese so that 
I could speak with and spend time with my neighbors in a way that was 
really meaningful to both of us. We became friends, and the importance 
of language study became so real to me in those days.
  In San Diego, we are keenly aware that so many of our residents are 
bilingual. Indeed, in our schools, students come from homes where 
English is not spoken. Over a hundred languages are represented in our 
schools.
  As a school board member, I have worked hard to develop better 
training of foreign language instructors and to bring in more 
initiatives that recognize the diverse languages in our schools, but I 
must say that that issue really did not progress nearly as much as I 
would like, and in fact, today, we still have issues around certifying 
teachers in many different languages.
  Critically, we are also so aware that our service members must be 
equipped with even the basic ability to speak with the citizens of Iraq 
and with the citizens of Afghanistan. So I am proud that our service 
personnel in Camp Pendleton are now being given that very introductory 
language instruction from our higher education institutions.
  It is clearly appropriate that we establish a year of languages to 
focus on the importance of developing proficiency in a language other 
than English, and it must be a strong initiative that we bring forward. 
It will only be meaningful, however, if we only move forward and we 
develop a kind of strategic plan so that we find the resources, and 
more than anything, we find the will to make foreign language 
development an integral part of our daily lives.
  I salute my colleague for bringing this forward. I thank him very 
much because I think it has to be the kind of initiative that goes 
beyond many of our dreams for this area. It must have the kind of 
applicability that says this is important to us; this is important to 
our country.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and 
I am delighted to hear that my colleague has studied Japanese.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues pass this resolution and work 
with me on other language projects to see that we address this Sputnik 
moment that this country faces and that we work hard to address our 
poor, I would use that word, language proficiency here in the United 
States, for reasons of culture, for reasons of economics and for 
reasons of national security.
  I urge the passage of H. Res. 122.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) that the House suspend the rules and 
agree to the resolution, H. Res. 122.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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