20, no. 2 (January 1989): 1-2
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From the Editor
Judith Ginsberg
ALTHOUGH I did not formally join the MLA staff until August, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity in July to visit the institute for Texas foreign language supervisors sponsored by the University of Texas, Austin, and the Texas Education Agency. Even this brief observation of the institute sufficed to let me know that my new position was going to be a most welcome and invigorating challenge. After two months that impression has been well borne out. The spark of ideas generated in Austin has multiplied into a substantial agenda, and a number of issues have begun to emerge as particularly significant in a field that does not lack for varying points of view, sometimes leading to controversy: articulation between high schools and colleges, between two-year and four-year institutions, and throughout the foreign language major; proficiency; the teaching of literature in the foreign language classroom; foreign language teacher training; the uses of new technologies; effective management of the foreign language department; curricular innovation and evaluation; second language acquisition research; ethics and evaluation in publishing; the less commonly taught languages and their special circumstances; and the ever-present need to make the community at large aware of what we do and its importance to our nation. This issue of the Bulletin addresses a number of these concerns; subsequent issues will deal with others, as will our summer seminars and convention sessions.
Eugene Eoyang, in his provocative “Taking the ‘Foreign’ out of Foreign Language Teaching,” reminds us that the American dream was often dreamed in languages other than English. Peter V. Conroy, Jr., brings some management techniques to bear on running a foreign language department, pointing out that the two disciplines require similar skills from their practitioners. Richard Brod and Monique Lapointe offer us some hard data on foreign language entrance and degree requirements around the nation, rounding out our section devoted to perspectives on the profession.
David Barnwell, Kenneth Chastain, and Barbara Freed tackle a number of facets of the proficiency movement. Barnwell presents a critique of the “educated native speaker” standard used in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and calls for empirical research on the validity of both the guidelines and the oral proficiency interview. Chastain has compiled the fourteen responses he received, from leaders in the field of second language learning and teaching, to a brief questionnaire that he developed about the proficiency movement, and he alerts readers to its “possible benefits and … potential pitfalls” for the foreign language teaching community. Freed provides an overview of the movement's strengths and weaknesses, cautioning us not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
M. Clare Mather explores techniques for using drama in the classroom, and Lois Vines offers a solution to the problem of attrition at the intermediate and advanced levels of language study. The success of the specially designed courses for journalism and communication majors at Ohio University, where Vines teaches, has brought several unanticipated positive consequences for the department of modern languages. Murray Sachs's “ The Foreign Language Curriculum and the Orality-Literacy Question” suggests that, based on the findings of orality-literacy studies, we should consider revising our curriculum and pedagogy to help our students “attain linguistic and cultural literacy in the foreign language they are studying.” Sachs would thus give priority to the written word and a subordinate role to the other skills.
The issue you have before you is very much a collaborative effort. Denise Bourassa Knight, ADFL's assistant director, who ably edited the April and September 1988 issues of the Bulletin and made many significant contributions to this issue, is currently on maternity leave. We have been fortunate to have Alyson Waters with us as assistant director of ADFL and managing editor of the Bulletin during Denise's absence.
Future issues of the Bulletin will include a new series on teaching literature in the foreign language classroom. As you may recall, the January 1988 Bulletin carried an introduction and four articles devoted to literary theory and the teaching of literature. The call for papers published in this issue enlarges and reinforces many of the premises set forth in those papers. These new guidelines will allow our contributors to share their classroom experience with us, providing readers with insights about both the texts and our students. We also welcome contributions about the upcoming unification of Europe and its likely impact on foreign language study.
Planning is well under way for the 1989 ADFL Summer Seminars, which will take place 1–3 June at the University of Georgia and 15–17 June at California State University, Northridge. Both the ADFL Executive Committee and the host institutions have made a number of valuable suggestions that I very much appreciate. This year brings a significant innovation to the seminars that I would like to call to your attention: we have invited speakers from outside the foreign language community—two professors of management, both with extensive experience as department chairs. Michael Huseman, head of the University of Georgia's Department of Management, a widely published author, and a frequent consultant to businesses and universities, will address Seminar East on managing the equity factor. At Seminar West Elmer Waters, who has chaired management and marketing departments and has consulted both in the United States and overseas, will discuss motivation, conflict, and conflict resolution in the department.
Some of you will soon be receiving the MLA's database survey, the first in a series that will tell us an enormous amount about our profession. In the past our members have been notable for their cooperation in filling out surveys, and I urge you to continue this fine tradition since we have much to gain, both within and without, from greater self-knowledge.
I opened this piece with a reference to last July's Texas institute. I would like to close with a reference to its successor, the MLA's professional development workshop on current issues in foreign language teaching, which will be held at the 1989 LSA-MLA Linguistic Institute at the University of Arizona on 10–28 July. The MLA workshop is open to both school and university personnel engaged in the supervision or coordination of multisection foreign language instruction. There are a limited number of fellowships available to help defray the cost of attending the workshop; applications are due by 1 February. Given the overwhelmingly positive response to last year's institute, this year's workshop, taught by Heidi Byrnes, Charles Hancock, and Renate Schulz, promises to be one of the most significant events in our profession this year. I look forward to meeting some of you there.
© 1989 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 20, no. 2 (January 1989): 1-2 |
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