20, no. 3 (April 1989): 13-19

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The UT-TEA-MLA Summer Institute for Foreign Language Professionals: Background Report and Evaluation

Rose L. Hayden

Introduction

After more than a decade of enrollment decline and relative stasis, foreign language professionals now face the challenge of educating the largest cohort of young and young-adult students in this country's history. Parental pressure, career expectations, perceived national needs, school and university reform, and state-level mandates have combined to engineer this growth. Within an overall context of teacher and financial shortages, foreign language professionals also confront a curricular overhaul designed to replace the traditional stress on literature and grammar with an emphasis on communicative competence and oral proficiency.

With support from private foundations and with the consent and encouragement of its Advisory Committee on Foreign Languages, the Modern Language Association has launched what it expects will be a significant new program of summer institutes for foreign language professionals. To realize the goal of strengthening foreign language instruction in America's schools and colleges, these institutes will draw on the expertise of the professionals — supervisors and coordinators of language teaching programs—who influence, oversee, train, encourage, and recruit teachers and thereby shape instructional programs.

Central to the model for the summer institutes is an interchange between those who supervise foreign language programs in the schools at state and local levels and those who coordinate foreign language instruction in colleges and universities. Such persons represent the link between mandates and implementation. Above them are policymakers; below them are classroom teachers pressuring for practical tools and answers.

Another premise underlying the summer-institutes model is an abiding belief in the need to bring relevant theory and research about language learning to those immediately concerned with guiding teachers and instructional programs. To achieve the goal of linking theory with practice, leading scholars in the field, assisted by guest lecturers, will direct a required core course, which will be developed over a three-year period by its instructors, participants, members of advisory committees, other researchers, and knowledgeable coordinators and supervisors. The experience of everyone involved will be considered in planning the following year's program, so that at the end of this process there will be a model course with a well-defined core as well as with elements suitable for local adaptation and experimentation.

The topics to be covered and subsequently developed in the course were outlined by the MLA Advisory Committee on Foreign Languages, which listed these priorities:

Identifying the implications for the classroom of recent theory and research in language acquisition and learning
Understanding discourse analysis and its applications to the special constraints and opportunities of the foreign language classroom
Teaching students strategies for learning specific language skills
Making the transition from speaking to reading and writing
Adapting texts and materials for proficiency-oriented curricula
Assessing student competence: evaluation and testing

The MLA secured a commitment from three institutions to host the three experimental institutes and from two organizations that have been involved in planning and organizing the 1988 and 1989 institutes. Supported by the Texas Education Agency and participating school districts, the 1988 Summer Institute for Foreign Language Professionals was hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. The 1989 institute will be held at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in conjunction with the Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America. The 1990 institute will be hosted and cosponsored by Middlebury College and will be operated during the regular term of the well-established Middlebury summer language schools.

The 1988 Texas institute addressed critical conceptual and professional issues and concerns. For three weeks in July, fifteen school-district coordinators of foreign languages, two core-course faculty leaders, and several guest faculty lecturers engaged in intensive discussion, project planning, reading and debate, curricular and theoretical analyses, and professional assessment. Invited by the MLAs Advisory Committee on Foreign Language Programs to conduct a review of the Texas Institute, I attended three full days of sessions in the final week, during which I interviewed all faculty members, students, and administrators, examined materials and syllabi, and looked through the formal evaluation sheets prepared by each of the participants. What follows is a report on the specific project outcomes of these sessions, informal and formal evaluations of the institute and core-course program, recommendations for the future, and implications for the project and for the MLA.

The Foreign Language Supervisor

The Role and Function of the Supervisor

Reading through the job descriptions for school-district foreign language supervisors is a sobering exercise. Foreign language supervisors or coordinators must be many things to many persons, and it is difficult to imagine a single professional who can meet equally, let alone totally, these diverse and demanding responsibilities. A composite position description illustrates the complexity of these assignments:

Monitors and evaluates teachers, including lesson plans, classroom performance, and correspondence with parents.
Develops curriculum guides, assists in the selection of text, video, and other materials.
Implements ESL and bilingual programs to ensure compliance with state board of education requirements.
Develops foreign language studies for younger children.
Ensures that foreign language programs are in compliance with state board of education requirements.
Communicates with the community to promote foreign language study and to develop improved relations.
Develops budgets and districtwide plans for improvement of foreign language instruction.
Works with principals and department chairpersons to supervise instruction, screen materials, and restructure instruction to meet proficiency guidelines and other mandates.
Plans and conducts in-service activities for all schools.
Approves tutorial sequences and schedule and level changes, attends professional meetings and conferences, and disseminates information to district leaders in their areas of curriculum responsibility.
Coordinates the textbook-adoption process for the specific curriculum area, monitors the writing of proficiency tests, evaluates all new materials, and recommends how these may be used effectively.
Works with teachers to determine appropriate student-placement guidelines.
Provides overall leadership and guidance and facilitates communication with middle and elementary schools.
Participates actively in national, state, and local foreign language conferences, study groups, advisory committees, and related professional organizations.
Establishes core objectives, develops district exams, designs curricular materials, and initiates program research.
Designs new facilities, including buildings, as these relate to the program area.
Assists in interviewing and placing personnel.
Teaches classes by taking temporary assignments due to unfilled vacancies or by substituting for teachers who need released time.
Takes in-service and college courses.
Prepares a variety of reports on all aspects of job responsibilities.

Professional Issues

The 1988 UT-TEA-MLA institute was fortunate to attract professionals who did, in fact, meet their many functional responsibilities with a degree of dedication and commitment worthy of the challenge. Given this exceptionally qualified and competent group, this institute set a standard of excellence that is encouraging for future efforts. The following conceptual and professional issues emerged as the major concerns of the participating supervisors:

Foreign language district supervisors, as high-level instructional personnel, appreciate the need to develop their professional skills. Thus, a primary goal is to provide such colleagues with professional recognition and with meaningful opportunities for theoretical as well as practical training.
Related to the supervisors' need for recognition is their need for a theoretical base to underpin their daily operational decisions concerning the development of curricular guides, the selection of texts, the design of test instruments, instructional supervision, and pedagogy related to proficiency norms. The institute allowed participants the time to read the literature and to apply it to practical professional decision making.
The relative homogeneity of the participants reinforced the benefits of the institute. Many had worked together previously, all shared similar functional responsibilities within their own professional settings, and all were attempting to comply with similar mandates from the state education agency. Such reinforcement, a strong feature of the 1988 institute, ensured a high level of interaction.
The transition between high school and college is an issue of overriding importance that supervisors want to see these institutes address. Since the schools stress oral proficiency while college placement examinations test traditional grammar and reading skills, there is a crucial need for articulation between the two levels.
The uneven preparation of language education majors is another important concern. The need to attract higher-quality students to foreign language teaching was addressed at this institute and is likely to surface in future state-level institutes for supervisors and in other policy discussions.
Ties need to be strengthened among the various teaching levels. Links between foreign language professionals and bilingual or ESL specialists received highest mention, followed by connections between K-12 and postsecondary instructors.
Related to the matter of bridging professional gaps is the need to make the professoriat in colleges and universities more aware and respectful of colleagues in the schools. Poor information on the part of the academy undermines efforts to improve foreign language programs at all levels and to help students pass from one level of schooling to the next.
Supervisors frequently stress the need to find acceptable solutions to the problem of teacher shortages. Resorting to “out-of-field” appointments, such as assigning a Spanish class to a history teacher who minored in Spanish years ago, is a stopgap means that must be prevented.
Defining reasonable proficiency levels that reflect what can be delivered by instructional systems is a high priority. Without such clear definitions, foreign language teachers will be blamed for their students' failure to achieve fluency. Since the matter of matching expectations with instructional outcomes affects all levels of the profession, such outcomes should be defined to reflect the time and effort dedicated to the language-learning process.
Similarly, another national issue concerns language choice. Larger and more affluent urban and suburban schools may offer various languages at several levels, but this is not practical for many other school districts.
Language maintenance and development for ethnic speakers, programs for gifted and talented students, courses for nonmajors, and in-service courses for teachers—all reflect a national quest for providing language options to a range of intermediate and advanced students. Overall, the current system does not adequately meet the needs of these students, and supervisors urge that this issue be addressed head-on.
Increasingly, foreign language supervisors are being asked to provide and select culturally appropriate and culturally contemporary materials. The proper roles of literature, culture, and linguistic skills and the balance among these related instructional goals are matters for professional discussion and are open to practical experimentation.

No brief summary of three weeks of intensive discussion can do justice to the quality and urgency of the above concerns. It is clear, however, that state-level institutes for foreign language supervisors represent a fertile ground for identifying, refining, and improving the profession's ability to understand and subsequently to manage such issues. An agenda for research and action has emerged that is worthy of intellectual and financial support for improving foreign language education in the United States.

Outcomes of the Texas Institute

As a group, participants in the 1988 UT-TEA-MLA institute produced two major policy documents. The first, entitled “Envisioning for Foreign Language Education,” is a statement of purpose and philosophy to guide all foreign language education for the state. In succinct terms, it outlines student and teacher behaviors that characterize effective instruction and successful foreign language programs. After the Texas Education Agency reviewed the statement, the participants discussed it further and then gave their approval.

A second document, “Proficiency-Oriented Textbook Evaluation Form,” is self-evidently useful to supervisors and teachers in selecting textbooks and instructional materials. It enables language professionals to assess how appropriate these resources are to language acquisition and proficiency goals. Lack of fit between texts and expected pedagogical outcomes represents a chronic problem in the field. This document reflects the group's consensus on evaluating instructional materials most likely to complement and reinforce proficiency standards. ¹

A third highly tangible and productive result of the 1988 institute was the development of individual projects for implementation at the district level. Considerable time and attention were spent refining original proposals in the light of the theoretical and practical insights acquired during the three-week program and through the core course. Participants plan to reconvene in the spring of 1989 to discuss the progress of their respective projects. Brief outlines of several are reproduced here.

Staff Development for an Urban School District: Designed to assist teachers in teaching for proficiency, the project encompasses in-service workshops on the topics “Teaching Reading and Speaking for Second Language Acquisition,” “Teaching Multiple Proficiency Levels in the Second Language Classroom,” “Integración de lecciones adicionales a las guías del programa de español para el hispanohablante,” “Review of Proficiency Guidelines for Second Language Acquisition,” “Teaching Modern Languages for Proficiency,” “Developing Materials for Proficiency-Based Language Classes: A Make and Take Workshop,” “Evaluation of Student Progress in the Proficiency-Based Language Classroom,” and “Staff Development Evaluation and Planning.” Guest lecturers and outside consultants will participate, and a special videotape will be produced to illustrate effective classroom teaching. Evaluation of the series is planned as well.
Implementing an Oral Proficiency Program in a School District: To determine the best possible teacher-training methods for implementing an oral-proficiency approach in the classroom, the supervisor and teachers will test three separate models in three separate schools. Communicative activities will be shared with other teachers, and the supervisor will meet with school principals to explain and implement this project throughout the district. Teachers will be offered workshops that will provide thirty hours of advanced academic training. Idea workshops and evaluation activities are planned.
Using Instructional Strategies That Meet the Needs of Foreign Language Students of Varying Abilities: This project addresses the challenge of motivating slower learners in the classroom without frustrating highly motivated students. The approach will involve the design of a framework that lists realistic expectations for students and teachers. A cadre of ten second-year Spanish teachers will examine, pilot, and utilize specific instructional strategies in the classroom. These teachers will receive six to twelve hours of credit for their participation in this project. Student questionnaires at the outset and completion of the project will form part of the evaluation component. Successful learning strategies will be compiled for districtwide use.
Professional Development for Foreign Language Department Chairs: Generally speaking, foreign language chairs at the school level have no formal training for their responsibilities. Good teachers do not necessarily make good managers. Leadership training and interpretation of duties (administrative, personnel, curriculum and instruction, communication) will be the focus of this project. The goal is to develop a program model for training department chairs and to emphasize their role in the proficiency-based curriculum. Specifically, a survey based on a standard job description will be designed and administered, and in-service training will be geared to areas where chairs indicate the greatest professional need.
Evaluation of the Selection and Implementation of Speaking Activities Leading toward Communicative Competence in the Foreign Language Classroom: In its focus on the selection and compilation of functional speaking activities, this project will be used by all foreign language teachers and will be correlated with each unit of the traditional textbook in a way conducive to oral language communication and pertinent to real-world situations. Schools will supply curriculum materials. Consultants will review principles of proficiency with teachers based on the 1988 UT-TEA-MLA institute and will compile a minimum of ten speaking activities that employ five strategies for each level. Consultants will then disseminate teacher and student surveys, collect and analyze data, and evaluate the effectiveness of the project. Results will be shared with all foreign language teachers and administrators. The goal is to assist teachers in the selections, utilization, and evaluation of proficiency-oriented speaking activities at class levels I-IV.

The range and diversity of these projects, plus their practical outreach, guarantee that during this academic year at least a dozen major school districts in Texas will be designing and implementing curricular reform that will have national import. The success of these projects should encourage other states to consider supporting similar summer institutes for foreign language coordinators. The applied professional and experimental value of these activities is a distinctly positive outcome of the 1988 UT-TEA-MLA institute.

Evaluation

In addition to group and individual interviews, participants at the 1988 UT-TEA-MLA institute were asked to complete a written evaluation. The leadership institute for foreign language supervisors had three overarching objectives: to provide new insights for participants into foreign language professional issues, to help participants gain experience with various implications of a proficiency orientation, and to provide leadership training pertaining to issues in supervising foreign language teachers. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing the highest rating, participants indicated the extent to which the objectives of the institute were achieved. Overall ratings were uniformly high, and the average of the evaluations in all three categories equaled 4.66.

Answers to specific questions provided detailed and useful insights. Participants singled out a number of the most beneficial aspects of the institute to foreign language supervisors, citing the mix of theory with practice, the acquisition of practical aids for text evaluation, the provision of applicable exercises for proficiency-oriented instruction, and the opportunity to interact with nationally recognized leaders in the field.

Most participants answered that the mix between theory and practice was appropriate, although some would have preferred less theory and more practice or a more direct application of theory through immediate discussion. In particular, they praised the ability of the conference instructors, Charles Hancock and Heidi Byrnes, to blend theory and practice in the core course. The synergism that these instructors brought to the core course was essential to the success of the institute.

When participants were asked what additional concerns might have been addressed at the institute within the constraints of time and resources, they listed the following:

Problems of articulation from a middle school language program to a high school program
A unified approach to training counselors about foreign language instruction
Incorporating higher-level thinking skills into daily programs
Designing postsecondary procedures to articulate the high school and university levels
FLES programs in general and how to make them effective and provide for sensible articulation to the next level
Upgrading the professionalism of teachers
Techniques to motivate native Spanish speakers to acquire all skills
Rewriting textbook units in the target languages-Spanish, French, German, and Latin—and making them proficiency-oriented
Application of the writing process in foreign language instruction and developing techniques for assessing writing competence

As these responses show, the profession faces the challenge of developing proficiency-oriented curricula appropriate to all four skill areas. How best to articulate and deliver foreign language instruction that avoids discontinuity is a concern that needs to be addressed at the highest levels of policy-making.

In the “culminating activity” of the three-week proceedings, participants prepared individual follow-up projects, which enabled them to integrate assorted informational gains and to apply various theoretical insights. In practical terms, participants will be able to adapt these exercises—with the official blessings of higher administrators—to the district setting.

When asked which features of the institute could be considered most applicable to their professional needs, participants listed the following: access to national leaders and experts, textbook evaluation, integration of all skills in a proficiency-oriented curriculum, specific curricular applications, individual projects, samples of effective listening strategies, and research to back up practice in the district. They felt that they were in touch with the latest developments at the national level and had learned how they could apply these developments to the local district setting.

When asked about specific insights that could assist foreign language supervisors, participants frequently cited access to theoretical background. With greater knowledge of the research base, they felt that their position as advocates of change could be defended and advanced. They pointed out, for example, that they had gained a better understanding of pedagogical debates about the place of grammar. In general, they emerged with a sense of enhanced professionalism and self-confidence in their supervisory role, strengthened by a positive group dynamic.

Recommendations

The following set of recommendations for future institutes is based on the perceptions of this past year's participants, but it includes my own views of the institute's implications for various sectors, including state education agencies, the federal government, private foundations, school districts, colleges and universities, and the Modern Language Association in its capacity as project leader and professional standard setter.

Future institutes, embracing both K-12 and postsecondary teachers and administrators, should focus on articulation as a central unifying theme. Attention should be centered on recognizing the participants' disparate expectations, which reflect their institutional types, locations, levels of education and experience, policy concerns, and personal and professional development needs.
In addition to the all-level institutes, a series of state-specific institutes, modeled on the Texas example, should be launched. The value of such a program is high, the cost will be moderate, and the impact will be substantial.
A focus on individual projects is valuable, and their design should continue to constitute a large part of the institute program.
In my view, two weeks is the ideal length of time for a summer institute of the Texas type.
At the Texas institute, I would note, the communal living experience contributed greatly to the program's success, as did the openness of the core-course instructors.
The mix of theory and practice was appropriate at the Texas institute, but the degree to which participants benefit depends on the similarity of their professional experience and the ability of outside speakers to discuss practical applications. The core-course instructors are vital to this aspect of institute success.
Since only a few supervisors are able to attend, I suggest that the institutes be selectively videotaped and that key presentations be distributed throughout the state.
Follow-up is essential to the impact of these institutes. State-level professional associations represent a fertile ground for discussion, and yearly institutes would ensure continuity of effort and diffusion of effect.
I recommend that pertinent sessions be held at national and regional foreign language conventions, where advances related to the field and to these institutes can be shared and validated by the organizations involved.
Incentives for professional development are important. Institute participants should be awarded certificates as well as various forms of credit.

Finally, I recommend that state education agencies (1) encourage this type of summer institute activity and provide financial and related support, (2) circulate information about these institutes and the various subjects treated to all supervisors (a newsletter would be useful here), (3) assist districts by supplying information on ways to raise funds from various donors to support professional development for foreign language educators, and (4) help set guidelines for the position of district foreign language coordinator. This last point is particularly important because many coordinators are not foreign language specialists and are also responsible for English and bilingual or social studies curricula.

Implications for Federal, State, and Private Support

Never a source of sustained or appreciable funding, the federal government could and should promote and cofund state agency programs to aid foreign language professionals. Some of the traditional federal funding sources have recently been cut, while newly authorized programs have received no appropriations.

Just at the point when the public and the state education authorities are most aware of the priority of foreign languages and the demand for foreign language teachers, the federal government has decreased assistance to foreign languages and international education by about $5.5 million and has eliminated two small but valuable programs.

The Texas institute is but one example of the type of activity that could be productively cofunded by the federal government and state education agencies. It represents a focused, intelligent, and professionally welcome initiative with true impact. Congress, backed by the new administration, would do well to put some respectable funding behind the rhetoric calling for educational reform in this country.

Only a handful of national foundations support foreign language education and international studies. Local, community, and regional foundations have ignored opportunities to provide financial assistance and related encouragement to foreign language projects like the one held at the University of Texas, despite the modest investments, the low risk to funders, and the high likelihood of success. In partnership with local school districts and state education agencies, such foundations can make a significant contribution. The time is ripe for development of this source of funding, and the need has never been greater.

Implications for the Modern Language Association

Institute participants would like the Modern Language Association to address the following professional areas: affective issues as they bear on foreign language acquisition, closing the gap between foreign language teachers and bilingual and ESL teachers, theoretical and practical development of placement tests that are nationally normed and that assimilate both proficiency orientation and college-level practice, regular reporting in the ADFL Bulletin of instructional developments that concern program coordinators in schools and colleges, administration of a survey of college language placement practices and requirements, research and development of advanced placement courses for gifted and talented students and for postsecondary students who are nonmajors, creation of a speakers' bureau from which states and localities could draw professional consultants of proven effectiveness, programs that would give college and university foreign language professionals a deeper understanding and appreciation of their secondary school colleagues and that would expand opportunities for communication between these groups in the interest of better articulation and improved foreign language education, and the design of model programs involving foreign language departments and teachers colleges to ensure that foreign language instructors receive adequate preparation and a range of pertinent quality courses.

It matters that the Modern Language Association participates in the Summer Institutes for Foreign Language Professionals. As the senior and most respected professional association in the field, the Modern Language Association supports the professional development of foreign language supervisors in this nation's schools and colleges through its timely, essential, and welcome leadership. In partnership with major foundations, with state education agencies, with local districts, and with departments of foreign languages in colleges and universities, the Modern Language Association has launched a successful initiative that future summer institutes are certain to refine.

With pressures for improvement in education coming from every major sector of American society, from every level of government, from parents and students, and from foreign language professionals themselves, the effective in-service training of the Texas institute provides a practical and inspiring model that can and will be replicated.

The author is Senior Project Consultant for the Modern Language Association's foreign language institutes project.

Note

¹The statement “Envisioning for Foreign Language Education” and the “Proficiency-Oriented Textbook Evaluation Form” were designed for use by school personnel in Texas. Copies may be obtained by writing to Mr. Robert W. LaBouve, Director, Foreign Languages, Texas Education Agency, 1701 N. Congress Ave., Austin 78701.

ADFL Bulletin 20, no. 3 (April 1989): 13-19

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