Guest Post by Heather Witten, a Spanish teacher at Elizabeth High School in Colorado, where she has been on the CCFLT (Colorado Congress of Foreign Language) Board for the last 4 years. She has been flipping her Spanish class for the last 7 years and has written a chapter in the book “Flipping 2.0” describing her experiences as a flipped classroom teacher. You can also follow her classroom experiences and reflection on her blog.
Of the world’s 400 million Spanish speakers, more than 37 million live in the United States. It’s no surprise, then, that Spanish is by far the most studied second language in U.S. schools and universities.
It really is a happy new year! We just found out that Transparent Language Online is receiving the Modern Library Award’s Platinum Award again this year.
Of the 140+ languages offered in Transparent Language Online, English is the most learned.
And for good reason.
We care about every language, not just those with commercial value. That’s why we donate our technology to the non-profit 7000 Languages. They worked with endangered language advocates Indigenous communities to help them leverage technology to preserve their languages.
According to the Center for American Progress, “more than one out of four of all children in the United States are from immigrant families, and in most cases these children speak a language other than English at home.”
If you’re teaching French to K-5, you have to be particularly careful with language learning apps.
Public libraries are busier than they've been in years.
According to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, U.S. public libraries logged over 800 million visits in 2023, almost double the 2021 total!
But the digital side tells a different story: for every 4.37 physical items checked out per person, Americans borrowed just 1.68 e-books, audiobooks, or videos. And the most recent Pew Research Center data found that only about 3 in 10 adults had used a library website in the past year.
That means most Americans, and language learners in particular, are missing out on the free online resources their library card unlocks.
Spanish is by far the most popular language in American classrooms.
