33, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 47-50 To the Editor Search

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MAY 2001 marked the fifth anniversary of the adoption of state standards in New Jersey requiring all students in grades K–12 to study a world language. The implementation of these standards has created many challenges for educators in terms of teacher shortage, teacher recruitment, and reexamination of current practices in both preservice and in-service teacher education. During the past five years, the State of New Jersey has developed several key initiatives to address these issues. The initiatives have provided an opportunity to revitalize teacher education programs, find new ways to recruit teachers into the profession, and bring language teaching practice up to date with the most recent approaches and methodologies.

Background

The adoption of the Core Curriculum Content Standards for World Languages in 1996 created the chance for the growth of K–16 world languages programs in New Jersey. Within the national movement for higher standards, the New Jersey State Board of Education adopted standards in seven academic and five workplace readiness areas after receiving significant input from K–16 educators, parents, and members of the business community. The inclusion of the world languages standards represented a key moment in the evolution of the study of world languages in New Jersey, a state where more than 160 languages are spoken. For the first time in the state’s history, world languages was recognized as an essential part of the K–12 core curriculum for all students. The new scope and sequence of language instruction emphasize knowledge about second language acquisition, the importance of communication, and the connection between language and culture as a basis for program development. New Jersey’s classrooms are becoming increasingly multiethnic, multiracial, and multilingual at all levels and the ability to communicate in a language other than English and to demonstrate understanding of the interrelation of language and culture is now considered a hallmark of a well-educated citizen in the state.

To ensure a thorough and efficient education for all students, the state has begun to build an infrastructure to support the attainment of the standards in all content areas. For example, the statewide assessment system at grades 4, 8, and 11 is designed to facilitate the integration of the standards into the core curriculum and is a fundamental component of the New Jersey Strategic Plan for Systemic Improvement of Education. It will provide essential information on students’ progress in meeting the expectations set forth by the standards. To assist curriculum developers and planners, the state has provided curriculum frameworks that illustrate the standards. The World Languages Curriculum Framework (1999) builds on and supports the philosophy and goals of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (1996) produced by the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project in collaboration with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and other language-specific organizations. It is intended to serve as a catalyst for schools in making curricular decisions based on an understanding of how students learn world languages most effectively, thereby providing a blueprint for innovation in local curricula and classroom practice.

The state has also recognized the need for parents to become partners with schools to help students achieve the standards. To this end, the New Jersey Gaining Achievement in the New Standards Project (NJ GAINS) has been developed. NJ GAINS is a three-year comprehensive statewide advocacy project whose primary goals are to inform parents about the new standards and to encourage parental involvement and support in the implementation of the standards. Another goal of the GAINS project is world languages teacher recruitment. As GAINS workshops are delivered throughout the state, parents and community members who are heritage-language speakers will be actively recruited into the profession. Given the level of diversity within the state, heritage speakers have been recognized as a valuable and currently untapped linguistic resource for New Jersey classrooms. In this second year of the project, outreach activities have begun to disseminate the GAINS project to institutions of higher education to use as a training module in teacher preparation courses on building advocacy for world languages programs and also to serve as a vehicle to recruit college students as world languages teachers.

The state board has also adopted a new 100-hour professional development regulation to encourage teachers to take advantage of the many opportunities available to increase their knowledge of the standards and of reform-based teaching and learning strategies. There currently exists a significant gap between standards in theory and standards in practice, a gap that can be addressed only by providing teachers with a continuum of relevant and meaningful professional development.

The Critical Link with Colleges and Universities

The involvement of higher education with the implementation of standards-based systemic reform in New Jersey began in 1992 with the establishment of the task force responsible for the development of the standards. Members of the higher education community provided valuable input into the creation of the world languages standards and related cumulative progress indicators for appropriate benchmark levels. Soon after the adoption of the standards and with the recognition that both preservice and in-service training of teachers is the most critical factor in bringing about change in the classroom, five postsecondary institutions became key partners in an eighteen-month professional development project funded by the New Jersey Department of Education through a sizable Goals 2000 grant. The intent of the grant was to stimulate improvements in world languages instruction at the elementary, secondary, and university levels. The College of New Jersey, Rutgers University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rowan University, and Stockton College were collaborating partners with K–12 school districts in the establishment of four regional New Jersey world languages professional development institutes. Language and methods instructors worked in teams with K–12 world languages teachers under the guidance of national experts, focusing on the areas of curriculum development, authentic assessment, and the use of technology in the standards-driven world languages classroom. A cornerstone of the grant was to develop a recommended curriculum for preparing K–12 preservice world languages teachers to deliver the standards. Helena Curtain, a nationally recognized expert in teacher preparation at the University of Wisconsin, oversaw this component of the project. Because of statewide interest in reforming preservice curriculum, colleges and universities not initially involved with the grant project (Monmouth University, Caldwell College, Sussex Community College, and Montclair State University) became part of this focus group. The document they developed is currently serving as a stimulus for change in numerous teacher preparation programs throughout the state and is synchronous with many of the recommendations set forth by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS).

An outgrowth of this group’s work was the formation of yet another focus group dealing with issues surrounding world languages teacher certification. Participants from institutions of higher education, along with teachers and school administrators, made recommendations to the Department of Education involving revision of the state’s licensing code. The state Board of Education acted on one of these recommendations in January 2000. This involved adopting a conditional certificate to teach world languages because of the need created by the new elementary programs and a two-year high school requirement. Candidates will be required to hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year college or university and to possess linguistic competency in the designated world language as demonstrated on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), by achieving a minimum rating of Advanced-Low. They must also complete three semester-hour credits on second language acquisition theory and related methodologies within twelve months of entering the classroom. For renewal of the certificate, candidates must demonstrate progress toward meeting state requirements for a standard license. Academic studies (thirty credits in the content area) and licensure test requirements must be completed within five years of obtaining the initial conditional certificate.

The New Jersey World Languages Professional Development Institutes are now entering their third year. Since the expiration of the grant, the institutes have become self-sustaining under the auspices of the Center for Global Teaching and Learning at Fairleigh Dickinson University (www.globalteachinglearning.com) and are offered in affiliation with the New Jersey Department of Education, ACTFL, the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey, and the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. The institutes offer sustained, rigorous, and ongoing training for teachers in the 100-hour model (see fig. 1) of professional development beginning with a five-day summer institute. The summer institute offers intensive, hands-on, interactive workshops on the implications of research in second language acquisition for supporting the development and implementation of standards-based world languages curriculum, and instructional and assessment strategies for all students. This is followed by seventy hours of ongoing school-based applications and networking activities that take place during the academic year. The institutes use nationally recognized experts in second-language learning and experienced institute trainers from the university and local K–12 school districts for all workshops and follow-up activities. Specialized institutes for administrators and supervisors have been developed on implementing articulated standards-based programs, on supporting K–12 teachers for standards-based classrooms, on introducing model curricula, and on supervising and evaluating K–12 teachers within the context of the standards-based world languages classroom. To date, the institutes (including the original institutes that were grant funded) have trained over six hundred teachers.

In addition to these institutes, other colleges and universities have developed innovative preservice and in-service programs for content-based, proficiency-oriented instruction and learning. Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, offers courses in current foreign language teaching methodology that reflect both the New Jersey and the national standards. Special topic courses have been developed in French, German, Italian, and Spanish to prepare students for a new global economy in which they will have to communicate effectively in other languages and understand other cultures. Some examples of specialized topic courses conducted exclusively in the target language are French Cinema and the Idea of France, Representations of Prejudice in German Culture, and Language Issues in the Spanish-Speaking World. Topics in the language issues course include bilingualism as a social phenomenon, bilingual education and politics, language and identity, language and gender, and the use of regional varieties in the classroom. French, German, Italian, and Spanish language-across-the-curriculum courses include the development of instructional materials appropriate for K–12 with an emphasis on teaching the sciences and mathematics in the target languages. Students learn to apply national standards in the foreign language classroom and develop technology and culture components of curricula. All world languages courses have a lunchtime program that includes topics such as audio and video conferencing, incorporating the World Wide Web and CD-ROMS into language instruction, the use of authentic materials, and developing a teaching portfolio.

To continue the dialogue involving the Department of Education, K–12 school districts, and institutions with preservice world languages programs, the department has organized a series of seminars on teacher preparation for world languages. All New Jersey teacher preparation institutions have been invited to become actively involved in department initiatives related to systemic reform in world languages education and to participate in opportunities for professional development for postsecondary practitioners.

The Spring 2001 seminar featured June Phillips, dean of Arts and Humanities at Weber State University in Odgen, Utah, as the keynote speaker. Her address, “A Shared Responsibility: Preparing and Developing Teachers of World Languages,” focused on the development of standards for teacher education programs for beginning and accomplished teachers. Panel discussions followed on the challenges and opportunities in world languages teacher preparation and on world languages teacher recruitment in New Jersey colleges and universities. An OPI familiarization workshop was also conducted for participants in response to interest in training university staff members to become certified OPI testers.

Collectively, New Jersey institutions of higher education, K–12 school districts, and the state Department of Education have begun an important dialogue and collaboration to foster systemic reform in world languages education that will continue to have positive outcomes for preservice and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and, most important, for the hundreds of thousands of world languages students in New Jersey’s public schools, colleges, and universities.

Works Cited

Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. Yonkers: Natl. Standards in Foreign Lang. Educ. Project, 1996.

The World Languages Curriculum Framework. Trenton: NJ State Dept. of Educ., 1999.

© 2001 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 33, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 47-50

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