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President's Message

Ritter highlights the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages report, Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers. The report is the result of an Ipsos Public Affairs survey of 1,200 US employers commissioned by ACTFL and its Lead with Languag...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Foreign language annals 2019-10, Vol.52 (3), p.463-464
Main Author: Ritter, Lisa Lilley
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Ritter highlights the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages report, Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers. The report is the result of an Ipsos Public Affairs survey of 1,200 US employers commissioned by ACTFL and its Lead with Languages campaign, with the support of Pearson LLC and Language Testing International. Making Languages Our Business indicates a critical need for language skills in the workplace. This report also outlines seven actionable recommendations that will allow US business to maximize the language talents that many professionals already have and thus nurture a future with a multilingual workforce within the increasingly global economy. One of the recommendations of Making Languages Our Business is for employers to "advocate regional, state and national policies that are responsive to industries" foreign language and workforce needs, including the funding of early language-learning programs". Language education is a means to close a critical skills gap when an employer has foreign language needs not currently met by its employees. The ability to compete in the global economy likely will be the ultimate motivator; as the report shows, one in four US employers surveyed indicated that they lost business due to a lack of language skills among their workforce. The language education and business communities can work hand in hand to ensure that the pipeline of qualified candidates is robust across all sectors, all while raising the profile of language as a critical skill and ensuring that language educators starting from pre-K are supported professionally.
ISSN:0015-718X
1944-9720
DOI:10.1111/flan.12420