TOWAMENCIN: B-pod isn’t your typical pod at North Penn. The colorful and vibrant atmosphere of the home to the World Language Department is pleasing to the eye but often overlooked by many students.

“In the US, it’s not necessarily needed to speak a second language, obviously our home language is English, which is worldwide, but I think that we need to expand our horizons and kind of look to the future in the sense that I believe our world is shrinking, not physically, but globally we are all connected, ” French teacher Anya Fuga stated.

With only ten teachers and many opportunities offered, the World Language Department is one of the smallest but most important departments at North Penn. It gives students the opportunity to study a language, a skill that opens many doors.

“A lot of colleges still want three years, and it’s good that colleges are still seeing the benefit of it [language learning], so a lot of students do get that year three in and stop, but it’s also a shame because you should keep going, and I feel like a lot of the students are only doing it for the resume,” North Penn World Language department chair Brittany Atkiss stated.

Learning a second language isn’t just good for your college application, it is a key that opens doors to many opportunities around the world. With six languages offered, students are always welcome to begin or resume their language studies. But even with such an important contribution to the North Penn community, the department faces some significant challenges that may affect its future expansion. 

“It’s hard to find teachers nowadays, I know last year we needed a part-time teacher, so we were looking for French teachers, so even finding people is a challenge right now, I would love if we had expansions, but I know North Penn is not going to invest in all of them, so finding a balance between a wishlist and a reality list is definitely difficult,” Atkiss explained.

The biggest limiting factor in the expansion of the World Language department is staffing issues. Currently, a North Penn student’s path in language learning is somewhat ‘linear’, only offering classes based on general linguistic leveling, not concentration on different aspects of the language.

The College Board offers two AP Spanish courses for students interested in pursuing different directions in their path towards learning the language: AP Spanish Literature, designed to be comparable to a third-year college Spanish Literature course; and AP Spanish Language and Culture, a college-level Spanish grammar and language composition course. 

“I think [language literature class] is an opportunity for the language to come alive and be more meaningful for students, so I would love to dive into kind of older works, but obviously also modern works, highlight that Francophone appeal, and bring in more cultural topics of the language,” Fuga stated.

Offering ‘flexibility’ in a student’s language learning career is one of the most important things an educational institution can do. Language learning isn’t something that should be forced or overly difficult, it should be something that a student enjoys.

“I would love to see more classes offered, more level classes like French 1 6.0, French 2 6.0, I would love to see students be given a chance to complete some type of French 4 or French 5 program where it is not as rigorous,” Fuga said

An incorporation of these classes would align the language system with CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), an international linguistic level standard, the development of which was led by the Council of Europe, and officially finalized in 2001. The levels of this system are ranked from A1 to C2, with C2 being the equivalent level of fluency, and levels such as B1 or B2 being more intermediate. 

This would not only make the structure of teaching and learning a language more organized and planned out, but will also give students the opportunity to evaluate themselves and decide to which level they want to pursue their studies.

With the world becoming more and more connected every day, it’s more important than ever to learn a foreign language, as it will always open doors in any career field. Considering these additions to the North Penn World Language offerings, it will not only encourage students to pick up a new language but promote a wider worldview for the entire community.