[originaltext] President Bush has proposed to increase the study of foreign

President Bush has proposed to increase the study of foreign languages in American schools. The new plan is called the National Security Language Initiative. It will involve the departments of State, Education and Defense, and the director of National Intelligence.
    The plan calls for teaching foreign languages to more children, as early as the age of four. It also aims to increase foreign language instruction in college and graduate school. The hope is to bring more foreign language speakers into government service. Administration officials will ask for 114 million dollars in 2007 to start the program. They say too many American children learn only English. They say only 44 percent of American high school students take any foreign language. And 70 percent of those are learning Spanish.
    Officials say money would be used to help foreign-language students pay for their education in exchange for future service. The plan also calls for sending more American students to other countries for part of their college studies. And it calls for bringing more foreign language teaching assistants to the United States. Officials say the United States does not have enough foreign language teachers. Research shows that children have an easier time than adults learning languages. Yet less than 1/3 of American elementary schools teach languages other than English. And experts say most of these schools just teach the basics, not how to speak a foreign language well.