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IN spite of the fact that “one of the strongest and most persistent trends in American education today is the decline of foreign-language and foreign-area studies,” 1 the teaching and learning of foreign languages is perhaps of more vital importance in the United States at present than at any other time in its history. The position of the United States as a world power requires the proper teaching of foreign languages, especially of the so-called critical or less commonly taught languages, as the best means for promoting international understanding. This becomes all the more acute when we realize that since the end of World War II the United States has assumed a position of world leadership—so much so that we are committed in many parts of the world to providing technical assistance and economic aid. The need for language proficiency has thus become imperative. As President Carter has stated, “Friendly and peaceful relations among nations depend greatly on improved communication between their individual citizens. Becoming fluent in another language is one of the finest ways of achieving such improved communication and promoting better international understanding and good will.” 2
One of the main reasons for placing such an emphasis on the less commonly taught languages is that world horizons have shrunk to such an extent in the space age that distance is no longer a barrier to progress. However, although we have conquered distance—with jets at supersonic speeds and communications satellites—our minds have failed to keep pace in the sense that we are still unwilling to accept the fact that only a few hours away another language is spoken and a set of mores exist that are foreign to our way of thinking. “With the welfare of the United States heavily dependent on the actions of other nations, there is a strong argument for understanding how those other people think. For this, language is a valuable tool. In this context, the fact that there are a billion people today whose languages are being studied by fewer than 200 Americans might give pause.” 3
When we think of foreign language study, we generally think of the more common Western European languages such as Spanish, French, and German. These are, in fact, the foreign languages most often studied in the United States. According to statistics published by the MLA, three major languages all have college enrollments numbering in the hundreds of thousands: Spanish, 362,151; French, 253,137; German, 152,139. 4 If we add to these Italian with 32,996 enrolled and Russian with 32,522, we find that the five leading languages together account for nearly 88 percent of all foreign language registrations in two-year and four-year institutions. 5
Looking at the less commonly studied languages, we find that according to the 1974 survey conducted by the MLA, Hebrew is the most popular in the United States (22,371 registrations), followed by Chinese (10,576) and Japanese (9,604). 6 Chinese between 1970 and 1972 grew rapidly from 6,238 to 10,044 registrations, an increase of 61 percent, and thus “gave clear evidence of a direct connection between language enrollments and external events, in this case the strengthening of political and commercial ties between the United States … and the People's Republic of China.” 7
The growth rate for languages like Arabic, which from 1972 to 1974 grew by 21.9 percent, 8 also shows our heightened economic ties with the oil producing countries in recent years. Portuguese—surprisingly, considering the number of people speaking it and the importance of Portugal and especially Brazil—is in fourth place of the ten less commonly taught foreign languages with 5,073 students nationwide. 9
Much of the interest in studying the less commonly taught or critical languages may be attributed to an innovative method which had a significant impact on language education in the sixties. The Self-Instructional Language Program (SILP) was first conceived between 1963 and 1965 at Kalamazoo College. The project was supported by the Institute of International Studies of the United States Office of Education and directed by Dr. Peter Boyd-Bowman, who developed a basic program in non-Western languages easy to initiate and duplicate on any college campus. In 1966 the program was expanded on a state-wide basis in New York under the auspices of the New York State Education Department's Center for International Programs and Comparative Studies and the State University of New York at Buffalo's Center for Critical Languages, with grant support from the Carnegie Corporation. In 1969, under the auspices of the Council for International Studies and Programs, an organization of a dozen regional associations of some 400 colleges across the country, SILP was expanded on a national scale, support once more being provided by the United States Office of Education. And in December 1972 at the National Conference on Self-Instruction in Critical Languages in Buffalo, the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs (NASILP) was formed. 11 As a program, SILP is a major innovation in the study of foreign languages because it offers the opportunity to learn languages not regularly taught as part of the college curriculum and available in the past at only a few of the largest universities.
Self-instruction as a method of learning another language is certainly not new; indeed, it may be one of the oldest methods of all, long used by travelers, merchants, missionaries, and anthropologists. The concept of self-instruction rests on the basic proposition that the individual student should have the primary responsibility for what he or she learns; this type of program is perhaps best defined as guided individualized study. Because stress is on the practical command of the target language, not all language skills are equally emphasized. The program is primarily for students who want to use the language for speaking purposes and as an adjunct to a specific major such as government, history, anthropology, or area studies.
The undertaking of SILP involves a contractual relationship between students in colleges and universities which offer such a program and a director, who is a person appointed to coordinate the program. It is the responsibility of the program director to supply the necessary course materials the student must use, together with complete sets of accompanying tapes and a portable tape recorder. The director must also recruit native speakers to serve as pronunciation drill masters and monitors. Students meet with the native speakers at regularly scheduled times during the semester. The program, incidentally, is set up to cover only the first two years, or the beginning and intermediate levels, in any given language, because it is assumed that students will attend regular classes when they enter graduate school.
Since students are able, within limits, to set their own goals and pace of learning, this type of language program has the advantage of being a very flexible one. The responsibility rests on the learner to cover the number of lessons required for academic credit. In order to assure the quality of the program a specialist from a leading university is invited each semester to evaluate progress and assign the grade for the semester's work. The outside examiner is a person who has the proper academic credentials and qualifications and who is actively engaged in teaching the target language in a university. Since SILP is offered in accredited colleges and universities, the granting of credits conforms to the standards set by these institutions. The examiner tests listening-comprehension, production of correct sentences, fluency, and pronunciation; occasionally some reading and writing is also expected. It is, of course, understood that a program of this kind cannot be the same as traditional programs in a college or university. A student who spends two hours a week with a native speaker who is not a trained teacher cannot be expected to perform as well as a student who spends five hours a week or more in a classroom where there are opportunities for asking questions and getting them answered.
The program requires no classroom instruction, no minimum enrollment, and no instruction in linguistics. Another feature which recommends SILP to the smaller liberal arts colleges is that the operating costs are such that once established, the program breaks even with only two students in it. 12
It is quite obvious why a SILP program would appeal to Skidmore College, where the study of non-Western languages began in 1967. At that time it was part of the New York State Education Department's Carnegie-sponsored program, launched in May 1966 and destined to expire early in 1971. Beginning in 1970 it became self-supporting at Skidmore College. Originally, the two non-Western languages offered were Chinese and Japanese.
In 1974 Skidmore College was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for an Asian Regional Studies Program. For the past three years the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures has benefited from this grant for its self-instructional language program in Chinese, Japanese, and Hindi. The grant ran from 1974–77. Academic year 1974–75 was devoted to a Chinese concentration, 1975–76 focused on Japan, and 1976–77 was centered around India. Although our program has been devoted primarily to Chinese and Japanese, during the academic year 1973–74 we added Hebrew. The next year we started Portuguese, and last year we introduced Hindi. Since 1970, elementary and intermediate Russian have been included in this program, and in fall 1976 we also offered beginning Swedish and Polish. In the seven years since its inception, our SILP curriculum has had a total of 145 semester registrations in the eight languages. In general, the students are highly motivated, and judging by the grades given by the outside examiners, they seem to work very well indeed. Grades have been mostly in the A and B range, with an occasional low final grade for a poor performance.
We have felt that the Self-Instructional Language Program has enhanced the offerings of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. It represents one more step in the effort to create citizens of a world community of nations, united by common values and aspirations but enriched by a wide range of cultural differences.
A paper presented at ADFL Seminar East, 6–9 June 1977, in Philadelphia. The author is Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages at Skidmore College.
1 S. Frederick Starr, “Linguistically, the U.S. is Isolationist,” New York Times , 18 April 1976.
2 “National Foreign Language Week, 1977,” ADFL Bulletin , 8, 4 (May 1977), 5. (Presidential Message distributed by the White House on 22 March to the Joint National Committee for Languages, the press, and other organizations and agencies.)
3 S. Frederick Starr, op. cit..
4 Richard I. Brod, “Foreign Language Enrollments in U.S. Colleges—Fall 1972,” Foreign Language Annals , 7, 2 (December 1973), 211. In 1974 Spanish accounted for 43.4 percent of the five leading modern languages. See ADFL Bulletin , 7, 2 (November 1975), 38.
5 Richard I. Brod, “Foreign Language Enrollments in U.S. Colleges—Fall 1974,” ADFL Bulletin , 7, 2 (November 1975), 40, Table 2.
6 Ibid ., pp. 37, 38, 40, Table 2.
7 “Enrollments in Less Commonly Taught Languages, U.S. Colleges and Universities, Fall 1974,” ADFL Bulletin , 7, 3 (March 1976), 31.
8 Richard I. Brod, “Foreign Language Enrollments in U.S. Colleges—Fall 1974,” p. 38.
9 “Enrollments in Less Commonly Taught Languages, U.S. Colleges and Universities, Fall 1974,” p. 30.
10 Ibid ., p. 32.
11 See Peter Boyd-Bowman, Self-Instructional Language Programs. A Handbook for Faculty and Students , (Albany: University of the State of New York/State Education Department, Council for Intercultural Studies and Programs, 1973), p. 46. (Foreign Area Materials Center Occasional Publication No. 20.)
12 See Peter Boyd-Bowman, “National Program of Self-Instruction in the Critical Languages: Final Report 1971–72,” ADFL Bulletin , 4, 3 (March 1973), pp. 50–53; also Edna Amir Coffin, “Preliminaries and Preparations for Examinations: Examiner's Report and Evaluation.” Proceedings of the 1975 NASILP Conference (Buffalo: Canisius College, 1976), pp. 15–21.
© 1978 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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