Why isn't english the official language of the United States?

[Scott5114]

I can't say I got better at grammar or language... everything was essentially rote memorization of vocabulary and verb conjugations (they claim that romance languages have less exceptions than English, but it sure didn't feel like it!).

That's the fault of your teacher using a bad teaching method, equivalent to teaching history by forcing the memorization of dates or geography by the memorization of capitals and population figures. The facts are an intellectual curio you can carry around, but you haven't learned much because you don't know the context of the facts you have to learn. (Knowing New Delhi is the capital of India doesn't tell you much about India at all, knowing the date of a battle doesn't tell you why it was important or what its causes or effects were, and knowing that "bufanda" is Spanish for "scarf" is pointless if you can't form a sentence around it.)

[US 41]

In Indiana you are not required to take a foreign language. English is the official language in our state.

[billtm]

In Indiana you are not required to take a foreign language. English is the official language in our state.

I live in Indiana and I am required to take a foreign language.

[vdeane]

I can't say I got better at grammar or language... everything was essentially rote memorization of vocabulary and verb conjugations (they claim that romance languages have less exceptions than English, but it sure didn't feel like it!).

That's the fault of your teacher using a bad teaching method, equivalent to teaching history by forcing the memorization of dates or geography by the memorization of capitals and population figures. The facts are an intellectual curio you can carry around, but you haven't learned much because you don't know the context of the facts you have to learn. (Knowing New Delhi is the capital of India doesn't tell you much about India at all, knowing the date of a battle doesn't tell you why it was important or what its causes or effects were, and knowing that "bufanda" is Spanish for "scarf" is pointless if you can't form a sentence around it.)

The curriculum could use some work.  I had it even worse as I started late and essentially missed two years.  The typical sequence is typically Intro to [language] -> grade 7 [language] -> grade 8 [language] -> [language] 2 -> [language] 3 -> [language] 4 (optional) -> [language] 5.  Mine was Intro to Spanish -> Spanish 1 (which was actually just a repeat of Intro to Spanish because only the middle school had the special classes for those who start late; Spanish 1 was actually the high school make-up class for those who failed the grade 8 state test!  This flaw has since been fixed with a Spanish 1B class for those who start late covering the grade 7 and grade 8 material, but it was too late for me) -> Spanish 2 (did I mention that the teacher I had for Spanish 2 was brand new and didn't know that Spanish 1B didn't exist for my year?) -> Spanish 3 -> Spanish 4 (optional).  A good fraction of my teachers were native speakers, but there's no denying that nobody wants to grade a test that has more than a little listening, writing, or any speaking at all (I entered public school at the same time as New York converted everything to be "teach to the test", though my school district resisted more than most, but if you weren't in advanced classes, which I obviously was not for Spanish, it wasn't noticeable by the time I got to high school).