Foreign language skills pay off

This letter is written in response to, “Why Spanish immersion?” (Oct. 6).

First let me state I am not a foreign-language teacher. I am a retired military officer who was based in three foreign countries (Greece, Panama and on Okinawa). In Greece my wife and I lived off base and learned Greek through college classes on base, as well as through immersion off base. On Okinawa our children took Japanese in school, and conversed with locals off and on base - immersion.

Multiple studies have shown learning a foreign language, especially at a young age, helps with development of logical progression thinking skills which later helps in areas such as math and science skills, primarily in fields such as trigonometry, calculus, chemistry, physics — think STEM areas.

Learning a foreign language also develops more ‘memory muscle’ and generally makes a person more marketable later in life.

Lonnie V. Scott

Spangle