U.S. policymakers and administrators have long touted better STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math) as a way to bridge achievement gaps and spark innovation. But STEM should not be promoted at the expense of other subjects, particularly foreign languages.

1. Is STEM missing
a subject?

2. We’ve all heard about the importance of improving
education in the STEM fields: science, technology,
engineering, and math.

3. But something is missing from that equation.

4. Did you know that foreign languages are at the heart of our
national STEM sector’s ability to communicate, innovate,
collaborate, and compete?

5. The $15-billion, highly-technological U.S. language
industry enables U.S. STEM businesses to reach foreign
markets worth $1.5 trillion.
- Dr. Bill Rivers, Executive Director of JNCL-NCLIS

6. We’d argue that languages really are as much a part of
STEM as biology, engineering, information technology,
and many other fields.

7. Language has long been a STEM research subject.

8. For over 50 years, the federal government has funded
R&D in fields such as theoretical and applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, computational linguistics, language acquisition,
human language technology, machine translation, and beyond.

9. This funding has resulted in breakthroughs for both the
private and public sectors, such as the basic machine
translation tools used throughout industry and
government.
Image by Matti Mattila on Flickr.com

10. Language is a high-tech STEM industry.

11. Human translators and interpreters are no longer mere linguists with
thick paper dictionaries; they work alongside computer-aided and
automated language tools.

12. It is impossible to manage the 21st-century content explosion without
technology. Localization is now entirely digital, relying on numerous advanced
technologies including translation management systems, translation
memories, terminology and data mining, complex desktop publishing, content
management systems, and machine translation.

13. U.S. STEM industries depend on the language industry.

14. Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are tackling global issues from climate
change mitigation to infectious disease prevention. Breakthroughs in these fields
don’t typically come from only one lab (or even one country).

15. While the majority of scientific studies are published in English, but
the majority of publishers are not native English speakers. Who
knows what may be lost in translation?

16. Slate provides a humorous but not uncommon example:
“Chinese scientists discussing the electrical conductivity of copper
nanotubes in a 2007 Royal Society of Chemistry paper, for example, chose
a rather unfortunate acronym for the subject of their study. (It rhymes with
“runt.”) […] Innocuous to people who don’t know English slang and
amusing for culturally immersed Anglophones, but
hardly helpful for scientists wishing to be taken seriously.”

17. Despite all of this, some states
are literally voting against
languages. Florida, Arizona, and
Massachusetts lawmakers are
considering allowing a coding
language to fulfill foreign
language credits in public
schools.

18. Meanwhile, schools from K-12 to university are acknowledging
the link between languages and STEM.

19. In small-town Maryland, Anne Arundel County Public Schools
have married the two fields, instructing their K-5 students in STEM
subjects in Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish.

20. The University of Rhode Island’s engineering department offers a 5-year dual
degree in engineering and a foreign language, which includes a compulsory
year of studying and interning abroad.
Northern Arizona University and Valparaiso University have both
launched international STEM degrees modeled after the URI program.

21. In the increasingly globalized economy, students entering the
workforce need to be more than technically skilled. They need
knowledge about the world: languages, cultures, social
systems, and beyond.

22. Competency in foreign languages opens the doors to international
STEM markets and results in more and better communication. In
the struggle for education reform, language instruction should not
be discounted, particularly by supporters of STEM fields.

23. We want to help your school district put the FL in your STEM curriculum.
Learn more about Transparent Language Online for Education.
(No longer in school? You can always learn on your own!)