32, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 1-3
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From the Editor
ELIZABETH B. WELLES
THIS year should mark the beginning of a good period for the study of
languages in the United States. On 19 April President Clinton released a
memorandum on international education policy that begins, "To continue to compete
successfully in the global economy and to maintain our role as a world leader,
the United States needs to ensure that its citizens develop a broad understanding
of the world, proficiency in other languages, and knowledge of other cultures."
He then calls for a "coherent and coordinated international education strategy"
and for the government to support international education by promoting student
and faculty exchanges, high-quality programs for learning languages and cultures,
the preparation and support of teachers, and new technologies that aid the spread
of knowledge. Clinton's statement followed a speech given the day before by
Secretary of Education Richard Riley that emphasized the importance of
strengthening international education in the United States in the interest of
fostering democracy, freedom, and prosperity. He, too, recommended strengthening
language programs for learning second and even third languages through immersion,
study abroad, and distance learning.
These pronouncements are hardly
telling members of the language community anything they don't already know:
Americans need to gain the knowledge of other cultures and languages to compete
internationally. The programmatic features mentioned are not new either:
immersion, study abroad, and technology have long been in the repertoire of
fieldwide innovation and program development. Yet despite the sense of
déjà vu, it is important that policy makers in the highest places
are now paying attention to international education in which language study is
considered central. Riley's speech was labeled "historic" in a press release from
the Joint National Committee on Languages, because no other secretary of
education that anyone could remember had ever addressed these issues before.
Whether the resounding rhetoric of a "coherent and coordinated international
education strategy" will trickle down to the educational community in any
significant way, in the form of programs, legislation, or funding, remains to be
seen; as far as I know, these statements made hardly a ripple in the press. But
still, we should take advantage of this strong public top-down support and use
Clinton's and Riley's words to garner further visibility, prestige, and support
for teaching languages, literatures, and cultures.
In this issue of the ADFL Bulletin there is much evidence of the lively and intelligent ways the
foreign language community has already taken up the task of furthering
proficiency in foreign languages and cultures through inventive programs,
research, and good governance. Hiram H. Maxim and the team of Jeffrey Schneider
and Silke von der Emde dive into the language and culture matrix in the
discussion of their pedagogical approaches to introductory and intermediate
language teaching. Noting the curricular dichotomy between lower-level language
courses and upper-level literature courses, Maxim proposes the use of authentic
texts as the basis for course work from the very beginning of language study. By
approaching these texts as documents of cultural difference, students not only
learn languages but are also encouraged to reflect on notions of alterity. Maxim
argues that by practicing cultural analysis, his students are better prepared for
advanced work than students in a strictly language-oriented class are. Having
experienced an intellectually exciting introduction to another language and
culture, students are also more likely to continue into the advanced levels.
Schneider and von der Emde lay claim to cultural studies as a means of affirming
the intellectual mission of language study. For this purpose they have developed
an online approach through using a MOO, a computer program that allows students
to share text-based virtual reality. Their goal was to "build an environment that
not only enabled intensive practice in the target language but also sustained
reflection on the processes of cultural production and reception." Guiding the
reader through the process of their experimentation and its results in this
medium, they show how students grew intellectually and linguistically by
responding to the course readings and discussing them with one another. In both
courses, texts were crucial, whether read in a printed book (which uses
technology developed in the fifteenth century) or on the Internet (which uses
technology invented in the late twentieth century); they were the catalyst for
lively interaction among students, who provided support and assistance to one
another in gaining a heightened awareness of language and cultural
difference.
The three research studies published here focus on very
different topics and enrich our understanding of programs and teaching strategies
whose rationale or results we may have taken for granted; for example, the
advantages of programs for heritage learners, the benefits of study abroad, and
the effects of outside funding on program development. Noting that there are
innumerable definitions of heritage learners, Barbara Gonzalez Pino and Frank
Pino throw light on the complexity of Spanish heritage learners through a study
of the authors' program at the University of San Antonio. They explicate
variables that should be taken into account in planning programs, such as
institutional location, the percentage of Hispanics in the student body, the
types of Spanish spoken, the attitudes of teachers toward student language and
culture, the length of time required to learn the standard language, and the
difficulty of placement procedures. While generally considered a positive step
for teaching students of Hispanic background by the language teaching field,
university programs designed for heritage speakers have failed to attract
students in two separate instances. The authors therefore decided to query the
students themselves about their perspectives on their language and the kinds of
courses they would find useful and desirable. The research showed, once again,
that most of the heritage students did not wish to be segregated from their
native-English-speaking peers. Thus researchers concluded that the best way to
serve these students was by infusing linguistic and cultural material suitable
for heritage speakers into the regular Spanish track. For example, they developed
a component on southwest Spanish, the language of the community, which benefits
both the Spanish- and English-speaking students. In an interesting turn of
events, the Spanish curriculum is to a large extent becoming a heritage language
curriculum.
In her observations about study abroad, Sharon Wilkinson
confirms the advantages of immersion in another linguistic and cultural
environment, but she points out some problems that may arise for individual
students. In focusing on a small part of a larger research project on study
abroad, she highlights the difficulty two students encountered in their stays
with French families: they were uncomfortable with their hosts, rarely spoke
French with them, and were led to misinterpret French behaviors. The outcome for
the students clearly ran counter to those touted in the promotional literature
about the program and the received wisdom of the advantages of study abroad. The
author believes that such experiences are cause for continued examination of how
students develop cross-cultural understanding and linguistic competence. She
leaves the reader with questions to provide directions for study-abroad program
development that might be more responsive to the needs, backgrounds, and talents
of individual students.
Title VI of the Higher Education Act is known in the foreign language field for its funding of area studies programs, the National
Language Resource Centers, and the Centers for International Business Education
and Research. It is less well known for its twenty-five-year-old Undergraduate
International Studies and Foreign Language Program. Ann Imlah Schneider's report,
derived from an evaluation of this program, shows that it has had long-lasting
results in developing curricula in languages and in encouraging more
internationally oriented campuses. Many of the funded institutions worked to
strengthen languages already taught, and more than a third added a language,
usually an Asian language, to their offerings. Enrollments in the participant
institutions increased 17% overall, but when French, German, and Spanish are
excluded, enrollments increased 50%. Unexpected benefits occurred in the
establishment of new majors and minors, in the creation of interdisciplinary
connections, and in the forging of linkages with foreign institutions. It is no
surprise that the additional money provided a resource and motivation for change
and innovation. Perhaps what is surprising is that the effects--such as faculty
hires and curricular changes--have remained so long after the funding stopped.
The author is at pains to note that other factors, besides money, such as
institutional leadership, interdisciplinary cooperation, and foreign language
curriculum development, were critical for the success of these programs. Further,
the prestige conferred by the grant was useful in leveraging collaboration with
other sectors of the campus and more funding in support of languages.
What holds programs such as these together in higher education is institutional
structure. While this structure may be changing as borders of disciplines become
less distinct and as ethnic, gender, and other topical programs arise, teaching
and learning are still rooted in disciplinary departments. The leadership that
Schneider found critical for successful programs most likely resides in the
department's chair. Frank Trommler, drawing on his experience as chair of the
German department at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the art and ethos
of chairing, or governance as he calls it, in all its duties and opportunities.
The chair develops multiple personalities as administrator, mediator, visionary,
and entrepreneur. He or she needs to orchestrate routine administration, manage
contervailing factors and colleagues in departments, deal with the dean's office
and the world outside the academy, set academic goals, raise funds, and handle
public relations. As Trommler shows through his examples, none of these
activities is simple and direct; most are fraught with ambiguity, subject to
interpretation, and tempered by diverse circumstances and personalities. He is
able, however, to identify eight important tools that a chair has at hand to help
carry out this multifarious work and maintain an effective department. But
Trommler also takes into account lessened urgency in the American attitude toward
language learning that has occurred as the cold war has ended and the center of
the liberal arts curriculum has shifted away from western Europe. Against this
background, he points out, the chair has the added burden of legitimizing the
department and language study in an era in which the value of the knowledge of
another culture cannot be taken as a common assumption.
With the essays of J. David Edwards and Andrew S. Gordon we move outside strictly academic
concerns into "real world" jobs and careers. Edwards is the executive director of
the JNCL/NCLIS, the lobbying organization for language and international studies
in Congress, and thus an insider in languages and education in government
circles. He reports that policy makers are redefining national security to
include greater emphasis on commerce, economics, and global competitiveness and
are beginning to recognize the importance of cross-cultural communication and
international knowledge, as we have seen in the messages of Clinton and Riley. He
predicts that in the government sector, there will be a greater number of
positions at higher levels for translators, interpreters, and other language
professionals. In describing specifically the field of interpreting and
translating, Gordon draws on the full trajectory of his career path that has led
him from his PhD in Spanish language and literature to positions in government
translating, court interpreting, bilingual lexicography, and departments of
Spanish, to mention a few. Thus he demonstrates the possibilities that accrue to
the development of a dual professional life in college-level teaching and
translating. Besides encouraging those with academic training to look not only
for remuneration but also for intellectual satisfaction in a field closely
associated with language and literature pursuits, the article offers a wealth of
information on training, certification, and potential employers.
Despite
the wide range of topics and issues represented in this Bulletin, each overlaps
or is connected to another. I find it impossible to discuss one aspect of
language and culture education without implicating another. Various threads
emerge from these articles that can be followed from one to the next: the
importance of learning about culture and cross-cultural difference, the
importance of leadership to bring about change, the complexity of programs and
governance, and the emergence of new issues within old ones. Concern about
teaching and learning language, literature, and culture is the strongest link of
all and brings us as members of the field together under the umbrella of
imagination, curiosity, talent, and hard work to implement "a coherent and
coordinated international educational strategy."
Elizabeth B. Welles
Clinton, William J. Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and
Agencies. Subject: International Education Policy. 19 Apr. 2000.
www.languagepolicy.org. "Secretary Riley Speaks of 'Growing Importance of
International Education.'" Press release. 24 Apr. 2000.
www.languagepolicy.org.
© 2000 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All
Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 32, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 1-3 |
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