French vs. Spanish

What does everyone think about the fact that Spanish language instruction is slowly taking over as sometimes the only language offered for students to learn in high schools and middle schools? How do you feel about French language instruction diminishing?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Rita Oates on June 12, 2011 at 3:09pm

My friend Carolyn teaches both French and Spanish in a wealthy, suburban school district in the midwest, where parents expect their children to go to college. She says the students think that learning Spanish will be easy and learning French will be hard, and they tend to self-sort into classes that way. The students who want to work enroll in her French classes, and the ones who are taking a language to get two years and get admitted to college, take Spanish.

This school does offer four-plus years of Spanish and French and both AP French and AP Spanish, but as far as overall enrollment, Spanish is far greater.