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From http://languagemagazine.com/?page_id=122659

Italian Attraction
by Dona De Sanctis

Italian is one of the fastest-growing foreign languages in the U.S. with about 159,000 students from kindergarten through college studying the language, according to the latest statistics.

The Modern Language Association (MLA), which tracks university and college foreign language enrollments, reports that in 1960, only 11,000 college students were enrolled in Italian language courses. Nearly 50 years later, in 2009, the MLA’s latest survey found that number had swelled to more than 80,000. In the seven years between 2002 and 2009 alone, the number of American college students studying Italian rose 26%, from 63,900 to 80,750.

Italian is becoming more popular in American elementary and high schools as well, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), which tallies foreign language enrollment in kindergarten through high school. In its most recent survey, ACTFL compared foreign language enrollment figures from the 2004-05 school year to the 2007-08 year.

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