Lalitphan Gene Thaidej

Mr. Abel Cadias

English 1004

Students Preferences of Language Elective

As many people have already seen, language has evolved over and over again since the

beginning of the human species. Language is a tool that helps human to communicate with each other

either spoken or written. However, our world has various languages because of many countries all

around the world. Even though English and Chinese are interlanguages, people who can speak more

than these languages will gain more benefits. Many students all around the world have to learn their

second language besides English and Chinese. According to Megha Cherian (2016), learning other

languages beside their native language will increase the brain power and it will give them an opportunity

to communicate with foreigners for many purposes. It’s good for travelling and it boosts cross-cultural

understanding, too. MUIDS has only one language elective to choose. MUIDS should offer more

languages to choose from as it may help to develop the school in the future.

The purpose of this research report is to find out the number of students at MUIDS who want

the school to have more language elective to choose rather than Chinese by using a survey. The

importance of this research is to bring awareness to the school about this issue. The author uses three

articles from different sources on the internet to relate the results and interpretation of the survey to

other research studies.

The question asked if students at MUIDS want the school to teach other languages beside

Chinese. The choices are ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe’. There are 64 students that had taken the survey. The

pie chart below shows that 51 students choose ‘yes’ with percentages of 79.4% followed by ‘maybe’

and ‘no’ with the number of 10 and 3 students with percentages of 15.9% and 4.8% respectively. Most

of student want the school to have more language electives to choose because they want to communicate

with foreigners and use it as an advantage when applying a job. Moreover, having more language

electives to choose will strengthen students decision because when they’re choosing the language, they

have to know the benefit of selecting it. However, those who choose ‘maybe’ or ‘no’ might not think

that learning language is necessary.

 MUIDS students had responded that learning many different languages will be useful for

themselves in the future. There are many jobs that require a person who has a lot of skills and abilities

(Moore, 2018). People who can speak more than their native language also make them be more open

minded and see the world in the different way because they have to learn other culture, too. According

to the research of Morales (n.d.), students who learn more than one language and their native language

will be able to recall their memories better than monolinguals. Furthermore, students also respond that

learning language beside Chinese is interesting and it can be widely used. Hence, it is important that

the school should provide more language electives to choose. By doing this, students will have an

opportunity to communicate world-wide with other foreigners.

Figure 1 Responses to the idea of adding new languages

This research report concludes that learning more languages rather than native language is

beneficial to the student. Most of students at MUIDS want the school to have more language electives

to choose beside Chinese because they are all agree that it is more interesting and it can be used world-

wide. However, the rest of the students don’t want the school to have more language electives. Learning

language is important to students not only they can use it to communicate with other foreigners, but

also to use it when applying a job. If the school provides more language electives to choose from, it

might be useful for them in the future.

 References

Czekala, B. (n.d.). 80 Amazing advantages and benefits of language learning. Retrieved May 29,
2019 from https://www.universeofmemory.com/improving-short-term-memory/

Lawley, A. (2018, November 23). 10 amazing benefits of learning languages. Retrieved May 29,
2019 from https://blog.busuu.com/benefits-of-learning-a-foreign-language/

Moore, E. (2018, November 23). 14 Must-Have Skills for Entry-Level Workers. Retrieved May 29,
2019 from https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/must-have-entry-level-worker-skills/