Some students may wonder why learning a foreign language is worthwhile when they rarely, if ever, interact with speakers of that language. It could seem pointless to learn a language that one seldom has the opportunity to use.
However, studying a foreign language can help students master the language they use constantly: English. Many students have most of their English grammar instruction in elementary and middle school. By the time high school rolls around, their knowledge of, for example, parts of speech, subject-verb agreement, and various kinds of clauses has probably accumulated some rust. Studying a foreign language can help students remove that rust and make them better readers and writers—not to mention standardized-test takers.
Indeed, both the SAT and the ACT test knowledge of English grammar directly. The SAT consists of two sections: one called Reading and Writing and the other called Math. About a quarter of the questions in the Reading and Writing section assess students’ knowledge of so-called Standard English Conventions. These are the questions that ask students to, say, properly join independent clauses, identify and correct misplaced modifiers, or ensure pronoun-antecedent agreement. The ACT comprises four sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science. Roughly half of the exam’s English section tests students’ knowledge of grammar and punctuation, making a strong grasp of these knowledge areas essential to scoring well in the section and on the test overall.
Of course, any native speaker of English has an intuitive grasp of the language’s grammar, but the difference between satisfactory and exemplary performance on the SAT and ACT’s grammar questions often hinges on whether a student has explicit knowledge of the rules governing the language’s grammar. Foreign language study can help a student develop such knowledge.
When students learn a foreign language, they typically study the rules that underlie that language’s grammar to begin making meaning in that language. For example, a student of Spanish would likely learn that there are three kinds of infinitives (the most basic form of a verb) in the language: -ar, -er, and -ir infinitives. Then, they would find out that to form the indicative present tense first person singular form of an -ar verb, they must chop off the -ar ending and add an -o. Thus, the infinitive of bailar (to dance) becomes bailo (I dance). Learning that such rules underlie all languages—including their native tongue, English—is a powerful realization.
Having come to this realization, a student might further understand that the same general principles that govern subject-verb agreement in, say, Spanish also underlie subject-verb agreement in English. Namely, just as in Spanish, in English the verb form one uses depends on what the subject (the person, place, or thing doing the verb’s action) of the verb is.
That insight could help a student answer an SAT question such as this one correctly:
Bengali Author Toru Dutt’s A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876), a volume of English translations of French poems, _____ scholars’ understanding of the transnational and multilingual contexts in which Dutt lived and worked.
Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of standard English?
A) has enhanced
B) are enhancing
C) have enhanced
D) enhance
Students relying purely on an intuition-based understanding of English might read “French poems, have enhanced,” think it sounds fine (which it does), and choose the incorrect answer choice C. However, other students, sensitized by their study of a foreign language to the notion that verbs must agree with their subjects, might set about determining the subject of “to enhance.” They’d ask themselves, “What’s doing the enhancing?” The answer is Dutt’s A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields, a singular subject, and so they would hopefully choose the correct answer choice A.
Studying a foreign language, even one a student won’t speak regularly, can be a worthwhile experience for many reasons. As the example above shows, one of those reasons might be that doing so could help them bump their college admissions exam scores, helping them access the school of their dreams.