Colleges see 16% increase in study of sign language (U.S.)
While the number of college students studying Spanish, French and German increased only modestly from 2006 to 2009, enrollment in American Sign Language — the fourth most-popular language — surged more than 16 percent, according to a new report from the Modern Language Association.
Sign-language professors suggested various reasons for the rise. They said it reflected the growing acceptance of American Sign Language to meet college foreign-language requirements, and its usefulness as an employment credential — not only for interpreters, but also for cognitive psychologists, educators, nurses and even scuba divers.
With the deep budget cuts of the recession, some universities have cut back their language programs. Even so, enrollment in foreign-language classes grew 6.6 percent from 2006 to 2009 — compared with 12.9 percent from 2002 to 2006 — according to the report, “Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009.”
Foreign-language enrollment in 2009 was 1,682,627, an all-time high. But language courses accounted for 8.6 percent of college classes, the same as in 2006. In 1965, the percentage was 16.5.