Same here.
I thought about that before, wondering about typical US American things like “spelling bees”, “word of the day”, increasing your (native language) vocabulary for exams… Things that simply don’t exist in Germany, and probably also not in most other countries. I assume it has something to do with the self-centeredness (is that even a good word in this context?) of US American culture. What happens in other countries is just not that important, and it’s also not important to learn other languages.
While, when you live in Europe (and the same must be true for most of Africa), where all around you many different cultures and languages exist, there’s more of a focus on learning other languages. So, increasing my vocabulary has of course always meant to improve my English, French, Polish,… My German vocabulary is big enough just because I grew up in Germany.