1. Why Study Foreign Language? Why Choose Spanish as the Language of Study?

2. Why Study a Foreign Language?  Cognitive (brain function) and Academic Benefits  Personal Benefits

3. Cognitive/ Academic Benefits  Has a positive effect on intellectual growth.  Enriches and enhances mental development.  Leaves students with more flexibility in thinking, greater sensitivity to language, and a better ear for listening. (Source: ACTFL website)

4. Continued…  Shown to help delay or stop the effects of dementia (alhzeimer’s disease)  Improves understanding of a person’s native language.  Increases job opportunities in many careers where knowing another language is a real asset. (Source: ACTFL website)

5. Affective (personal) Benefits  Communication  Provides a person the ability to communicate with people s/he would otherwise not have the chance to know. (Source: ACTFL website)

6. Continued…  Cultural  Opens the door to other cultures and helps a person understand and appreciate people from other countries.  Foreign language study tends to help dissolve misconceptions and stereotypes and often helps to create feelings of empathy for native speakers of the language. (Source: Weatherford)

7. Continued…  Cultural continued…  The study of another language provides the most effective tool for penetrating the barrier of ethnocentrism (a single best language and culture).  Experience with another culture enables people to achieve a significantly more profound understanding of their own. (Source: Weatherford)

8. Why Study Spanish?  It is the 4 th most widely spoken langauge in the world, after Mandarin Chinese, English, and Hindi, with 400 million speakers worldwide.  Spanish is an official language in 21 different countries.  There are 35-40 million speakers of Spanish in the U.S. and that number is projected to go up to 50 million by the year 2015.

9. Why Study Spanish?  It’s easy! – it is one of the most closely related languages to English (Latin based).  It’s fun!