Foreign language Courses in Universities: looking at economic Values

Foreign Language Courses is a supplementary course offered by local universities. There are three categories of foreign languages offered namely the European Languages (such as German, French, Spanish, etc.), East Asian languages (especially Chinese, Korean and Japanese) and Southeast Asia Languages (such as Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Khmer and etc). Among these courses, the European and East Asian languages which are percepted as the “H language” (High Language), always preferred by the students. The Southeast Asian languages which considered as a “L language” (Low language), on the other hand seems to be neglected by them (and even the universities). Based on the fact that the ASEAN countries gains rapid development in economy and a massive number of its speakers existed in our country, this paper attempts to highlight the advantages of learning these languages rather than European or East Asian languages,which considered as a prestige language.