03, no. 2 (December 1971): 46-50 To the Editor Search

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IN SEPTEMBER 1971 the Modern Language Association issued the final report of its Fall 1970 Survey of Foreign Language Registrations in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education, the tenth in a series of surveys conducted since 1958 under contract with the U.S. Office of Education. Basic data for the survey were obtained from a questionnaire sent to the registrars of the 2,572 two-year and four-year institutions listed in the MLA's computerized files, plus an additional roster of institutions—largely seminaries—taken from the Education Directory (Part 3, Higher Education) published annually by the Office of Education. Of the 2,538 institutions replying to the questionnaire, 2,353, or 92.3%, reported registrations in one or more foreign languages.

The 1970 survey is the first in the series of college enrollment surveys to show an overall decline in foreign language registrations: about 1.4% since the last report in 1968. This abrupt reversal of the growth trend enjoyed by foreign languages throughout the sixties is especially serious in the light of continued, steady growth of college enrollments in general, since it suggests that the role played by foreign languages in the U.S. college curriculum is diminishing even more rapidly than the absolute number of students taking language courses. In this sense, the decline in foreign languages at the college level actually goes back to the mid-sixties, when the rate of growth of enrollments in foreign languages first began to lag behind the growth rate of total college enrollments. Table 1 compares total college enrollments (as reported by the Office of Education) with the MLA's figures for modern foreign languages, giving a percentage ratio for each of the five years in which the MLA conducted its survey.

That the downward trend in enrollments also bears some connection to the trend toward abolition or reduction of foreign language requirements for the B.A. degree can at least be inferred from the results of the's MLA 1970–71 Survey of Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements, which was conducted concurrently with the enrollments survey, but drew its data from questionnaires addressed to foreign language department chairmen rather than from registrars. The principal findings of the survey of requirements are reported separately in Table 6 below; a fuller report appears in the September 1971 issue of the ADFL Bulletin , giving the results of a special statistical analysis of a sample of one hundred institutions. ¹ The analysis revealed a consistent pattern of declining enrollments in institutions that had experienced at least a partial attrition of foreign language requirements.

Table 2 shows the results of the 1970 enrollment survey, with a breakdown by language (the seven most commonly taught languages plus an aggregate figure for the “other” languages), tallies for junior colleges and graduate registrations, comparative totals from the 1968 survey, and a figure showing percent change in the language totals between 1968 and 1970. As the table reveals, the general decline in enrollments was not uniform in all languages and segments of the higher education community. Thus, Spanish, Italian, and a number of the “other” or less commonly taught languages (especially Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, and Swahili) continued to enjoy good growth at the same time that enrollments in French and German were beginning to decline; figures in Russian, Latin, and Ancient Greek maintained the downward trend they had begun to manifest in the sixties. While registrations in four-year colleges and universities declined by 3.9%, the rapid growth of registrations in the junior colleges continued unimpeded, though not at the spectacular rate prevalent in the early and mid-sixties (18.0% between 1968 and 1970, compared with 47.2% between 1960 and 1963).

Distribution of Registrations

Five languages—French, German, Italian, Russian, and, Spanish—accounted for 91.9% of the total registrations in foreign languages in the 2,353 colleges and universities covered in the survey; Latin and Ancient Greek accounted for an additional 4.0%; and the remaining 4.1% were distributed among 106 additional languages, ancient and modern. Since prior to 1965 MLA did not collect registration data for Latin and Greek, general and specific growth trends in the decade of the sixties are more clearly evident in the figures for the five most commonly taught languages.

Spanish is now the most widely taught foreign language in colleges and universities, as it has been in secondary schools for many years. Spanish has displaced French from the leadership position it occupied in colleges until 1968. French is still the leading language in registrations in 23 states and the District of Columbia; Spanish holds first rank in 24 states, German in two (Alaska and North Dakota), and Japanese in one (Hawaii).

Spanish now accounts for 38.1% of the total registrations in the five leading modern languages. In 1960, Spanish had only 30% of the total, and French had 38.4%. Table 3, based on the registrations in the five leading languages, shows the percentage of the total in each language from 1960 to 1970.

Table 4 depicts growth trends in the five leading modern languages between 1960 and 1970. It shows that except for some fluctuation in Russian between 1965 and 1968, the rate of growth for all the languages has declined steadily since the initial period of strong growth in the early 1960's, but no decline in actual total enrollments was recorded until the present survey.

Foreign Languages in the Junior Colleges

As junior and community colleges in the United States continue to grow in size and number, they become increasingly significant as centers of foreign language instruction. In 1960, 455 two-year colleges reported foreign language registrations; by 1970 the number had grown to 861. In the same period their language registration increased to nearly three times the 1960 figure, and their share of the total college registration in foreign languages increased from one in twelve to one in seven. Spanish is the leading language in the junior colleges, accounting for 50.4% of the registrations in the five leading modern languages in 1970. French is in second place with 30.1% of the total, and German is third with 15.4%.

Russian, Latin, Greek, and “Other” Languages

The most alarming figures in the 1970 survey report are those showing a decline of 11.1% in registrations in Russian, 13.4% in Greek, and 21.1% in Latin. Enrollments in Russian, after a period of uneven growth in the early sixties, had reached a level of over 40,000 enrollments by 1968, but this trend has now reversed itself, and Russian is in danger of losing its place as fourth leading language to Italian. The figures for Latin and Greek reveal an intensification of the downward trend that these languages have shown since the nineteen-sixties, not only on the college level, but to an even greater extent in the secondary schools.

The growth rate among the so-called “other” or less commonly taught languages continues to be quite encouraging, however. In the aggregate, they grew 39.4% between 1968 and 1970, and several of them, most notably Hebrew, Japanese, and Swahili, grew at even faster rates during this period. Since registrations for Hebrew now exceed those for Ancient Greek, future MLA reports may have to list Hebrew separately from the remaining “other” languages. No distinction can be made between Ancient and Modern Hebrew, however, since normally none is made by the reporting institutions. Table 5 shows enrollment trends in the nine most widely taught of these languages.

Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements

The results of the MLA's Fall 1970 survey of foreign language entrance and degree requirements show a significant decline in the prevalence of the foreign language requirements in U.S. colleges: in 1965–66, 33.6% of the colleges surveyed reported an entrance requirement in foreign languages, and 88.9% reported a requirement for the B.A. degree; in 1970–71 the percentages were down to 27.4% for the entrance requirement, and 76.7% for the degree requirement.

The effect of changes in requirements upon enrollment trends is complicated by the fact that not all institutions which review their policy on requirements choose to abolish the foreign language requirements outright: many prefer simply to reduce them by one or more semesters or to modify them by expanding the number of options available to students. These latter changes, however, also have an effect upon enrollments.

An analysis of detailed questionnaire returns from 786 institutions responding to the MLA's 1970 survey shows that while 14.6% of the colleges reported that the foreign language requirement for the B.A. degree had been abolished at their institutions, an additional 30.8% reported reduction or modification of the degree requirement. In other words, the degree requirement was reviewed by the faculty and administration and then significantly changed in over 45% of the institutions responding. Table 6 shows the results of the detailed survey, the responses being classified in the seven categories defined in the left-hand column.

As described above, a special statistical analysis of the responses to this inquiry revealed a significant correlation between declining enrollments and changes in degree requirements, especially among institutions classified in categories C, D, and F, i.e., those reporting that their requirements had been abolished, reduced, or modified by the expansion of options. ²

Full Survey Reports

The full report of the MLA's Fall 1970 Survey of Foreign Language Registrations in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education is now available for the use of departments, college administrators, and researchers. It consists of an introduction, a series of tables, and an institutional directory. The tables present total foreign languages registration figures by language and state, with special tables for junior colleges, graduate registrations, and “other” languages, plus a series of “trend tables” giving comparative registration figures for 1960, 1965, 1968, and 1970 for all states and for each of the five most commonly taught modern languages.

The final reports of both the survey of registrations and the MLA's 1970 Survey of Foreign Language Entrance and Degree Requirements have been processed into the national ERIC system by the MLA/ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics and will shortly be available in both microfiche and hard copy through the ERIC Document Reproduction Service. Information concerning prices, ordering procedure, and the correct ERIC order number can be obtained from MLA/ERIC. Inquiries concerning the content and findings of the report should be addressed to the MLA-ADFL Research Staff, 62 Fifth Avenue, New York 10011.

Richard Brod is MLA Staff Associate and Project Manager of the 1970–71 Foreign Language Surveys. Data for the report were compiled and tabulated by MLA Research Assistant Jeffrey Meyerson, aided at various times by Cynthia Hartl, Christopher Goulding, and Carol Avins. The staff acknowledges with thanks the wise counsel and helpful concern of three experts: Mrs. Julia A. Petrov of the U.S. Office of Education; MLA Deputy Executive Secretary Dr. Kenneth Mildenberger; and Dr. Glen D. Willbern, formerly MLA Director of Statistical Studies and Secretary for Membership.

¹ Richard I. Brod. “The Foreign Language Requirement—Report on the 1970–71 MLA Survey,“ ADFL Bulletin , 3, No. 1 (Sept. 1971), 55–58.

² Brod, p. 58.

© 1971 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 03, no. 2 (December 1971): 46-50

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