Polyglot Curricula

I'm glad to hear that not only are local schools offering Chinese, but at different schools, students can elect to take Arabic, or ASL as their foreign language. Apparently the school offering Arabic as an elective feels that this better reflects the community, but I've only heard this through rumor. Certainly Arabic is a language on par with Chinese and Spanish in terms of their importance in world affairs. ASL seems to be a more academic choice. More and more I hear about how ASL assists with learning, and I also know that education programs at colleges are encouraging taking ASL and many schools highly value ASL (as well as Spanish).

My boss told me today that her son's teacher knows ASL and signs everything during class, and how he asks her to say things to her in "the language." On top of all of the benefits I referred to before, apparently the teacher will only sign certain things, and has the children do the same, keeping them quiet, making sure they are paying attention, as well as making it so they have to wait their turns. Find another language that does that!