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For those who would see the collaborative ideal prevail in our profession, there is your motto: “Live in fragments no longer.”
Murray Sachs
THE first meeting of the Santa Clara—San Mateo Foreign Language and Literature Collaborative was held at Stanford University in May 1983, under the aegis of an ad hoc committee made up of representatives from Stanford University, Santa Clara University, Foothill College, the San Mateo County Office of Education, four school districts, and the Foreign Language Association of Santa Clara County. About thirty educators attended, and the main concerns were the group's organization, purpose, and aims. A similar seminar held five years later, again at Stanford, attracted fifty educators, ranging from elementary school teachers to university professors and representing the languages of French, Spanish, German, Latin, Italian, and Japanese. It was a full-fledged meeting, and everyone participated actively.
What interests me here is what has happened in those five years; I focus less on how the collaborative got started and how it has progressed and more on where it is now—after five years of experience. Although each collaborative must find its own equilibrium, depending on its geographical area, the needs of its members, and its resources, it is obvious that each can learn from the others. Past accomplishments can be emulated, pitfalls can be avoided, and new ideas can bring a fresh perspective on how to reach the ultimate goal: rejuvenating both teaching and learning within the community.
As most educators know by now, the collaboratives are part of a national project started by Claire Guadiani, formerly of the University of Pennsylvania, now president of Connecticut College. Originally entitled “Strengthening the Humanities through Foreign Language and Literature Studies,” the program is now called “Academic Alliances in Foreign Languages and Literatures” and coordinated by Ellen Silber. The original dream was to improve the quality of instruction locally by forming a professional organization for foreign language faculty members from all academic levels in the area. 1 As envisioned by Gaudiani, the collaborative groups were to differ from already existing language and literature associations on several grounds: (1) they would involve institutions from elementary schools to universities and unite their faculties in a common endeavor; (2) since the groups would be local, they would function with a small membership, unlike most associations covering larger geographical areas; (3) all languages taught locally would be represented; (4) the meetings would be scheduled regularly throughout the year rather than annually; and (5) the costs would be low: local meetings meant no travel expenses, no hotel bills, and no registration fees.
In examining how one specific collaborative has fared, I begin with the role of the steering committee, the format of meetings, and the main topics covered in the time period. Composed of representatives from the different types of institutions involved, the steering committee has proved critical to the smooth running of the seminars. This dedicated group has met once or twice between main sessions and has made all basic decisions. Its first task was to assess the issues of concern. It gave priority to the following three educational programs: (1) improving the quality of foreign language and literature instruction, (2) using that instruction to broaden students' global outlook, and (3) exploring the psychology and sociology of language learning. The steering committee's ongoing task has been to deal with the organization of each meeting: choosing topics, selecting speakers and panels (involving as many members as possible), finding locations for meetings, sending letters of invitation, making arrangements for the dinners, and so on. Once the collaborative seminars were established, the steering committee asked each participating organization to contribute $150 annually. This small funding base was created to cover the cost of mailings, duplication, and occasional guest speakers. A final and fundamental task has been to keep in touch with the participants from meeting to meeting in order to balance all issues of interest, including, among other things, methodology, the teaching of culture, textbooks, teaching aids, and the teaching of literature.
Let us now examine the format of the seminars. Each meeting has run from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., ending with dinner and wine, and has focused on a single theme in some depth. A typical meeting has consisted of some combination of the following elements: a keynote speaker on the theme, a panel representing the various educational levels responding to the speaker, reports on professional activities, and announcements of professional meetings and opportunities (e.g., MLA conferences, summer workshops, ACTFL meetings). Thanks to State Foreign Language Issues, a publication of the California State Department of Education, the group was always informed of coming professional meetings, foreign language enrollments, relevant publications, and other resources. In selecting speakers and panelists, the steering committee has drawn heavily on seminar participants. Rarely has there been a star performer. Different languages and different levels have been regularly represented. The dinner at the end of each session has provided both a social outlet and a forum for reinforcing the topics presented at the seminar. It is the only expense the participants encounter.
Throughout the years, diverse seminar topics have been chosen to fulfill the needs of the various instructional levels: language and literature teaching, the use of technology in the classroom, the teaching of culture, the introduction of business classes, and so on. The following are a few of the specific subjects addressed:
Other topics included Language and Literature, Proficiency-Based Instruction in Reading, The Teaching of Poetry, The Application of New Technologies to the Foreign Language Classroom, Language and Culture, Foreign Language Immersion Programs, and The Teaching of Fairy Tales.
Finally we come to the question of evaluating the accomplishments of the last five years. By any measure the project has been a success. Basic objectives were met: fifty faculty members from all academic levels now know one another as professionals, all now acknowledge that they face common problems, and all now realize that their resources as a group are immeasurably richer than those they had as individuals. Among the major results are (1) the realization that there is a continuity of teaching from one level to another, a view that can only benefit students; (2) the understanding that teachers themselves must take the lead if language education is to be improved; and (3), by no means least important, the respect that university teachers developed for secondary and elementary school teachers on learning of the difficult circumstances of teaching at the lower levels. Another accomplishment of the collaborative effort was the establishment of an oral-proficiency training program at Stanford. In short, the most striking features of seminars are the variety of topics covered and the depth of inquiry achieved, given the diversity of the participants' backgrounds. The key elements were learning and sharing. When literature specialists and pedagogues came out of the meetings intellectually alive and discussing topics, it was clear that collaboration was working at its highest potential.
The popularity of the seminars is attested to by the increased demand for attendance. The mailing list now contains close to two hundred names. It seems imperative, however, if the collegiality of meetings is to be preserved, not to let the number of participants grow much beyond fifty. Undoubtedly the program was successful in part because it was sponsored at Stanford under the auspices of the Bay Area Global Educational Program, which works to improve the international and cross-cultural dimensions of elementary and secondary education in a variety of collaborative efforts. Another contributing factor was a four-day regional meeting, organized by Gaudiani and held in Santa Cruz in January 1984, that exposed foreign language specialists and administrators to key issues in their profession. 2
The efforts of the collaborative were further complemented by the establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for Foreign Language Teachers in the High Schools. This fellowship provides $4,500 for summer study and travel aimed at enhancing the recipient's knowledge of the country and culture of interest. 3 The seminar's steering committee has been disseminating and reviewing fellowship applications, again with the goal of improving articulation. One unexpected benefit has developed from this undertaking: those awarded fellowships have become speakers at the collaborative's meetings, thus sharing the results of their travel and study.
Let us now turn to a few important issues and resolutions that arose in the day-to-day functioning of the seminar:
Finally, a number of new ideas are under scrutiny. One involves finding ways of helping prospective teachers. For example, as Obregon points out, the collaborative could function as a job-referral service. Perhaps it could also foster a realistic perception of the problems and rewards of the profession by permitting student teachers to attend seminar meetings (40). Another idea under consideration springs from efforts to achieve even more interaction between faculty members from all levels of the profession. The MLA strongly advocated such collaboration in its 1982 Report of the Commission on the Future of the Profession, but as Murray Sachs noted in 1984, referring to the hopeful beginnings of the NCTFL and the ACTFL, “A simple observation tells the story: the foreign language professionals who attend the annual meeting of the MLA are, by and large, not the same people who attend the annual meeting of ACTFL or of the Northeast Conference. The old split between the literary scholars and the language teachers gradually reasserted itself in the very organizations that had been designed to make it vanish” (33). This split is the single most dangerous pitfall for the collaborative. While it has so far been avoided, thanks to the choice of topics and the active participation of all involved, the threat is ever present, and the steering committee must be eternally vigilant. To this end, it will try a new tact next year: a seminar or two devoted to teaching a well-known literary text in translation, led by a specialist. 4 Along these lines, Carol Herron claims that literature specialists have much to teach their colleagues about how to approach and understand such works. Conversely, she goes on to argue, language teachers are ideally qualified to guide literature specialists in judging the level of literature appropriate for students learning the fundamentals of a language (13). The point of these seminars is to help teachers investigate as a team how students, by discussing a literary work, can simultaneously develop skill in expressing themselves in the target language.
In summary, this report indicates a healthy state of affairs—lots of enthusiasm, little complacency, and a continuing search for answers. It has been an exciting five years in foreign language instruction, a period pointing out the continued need for more cooperation among teachers at all academic levels. What is at stake, after all, is our professional pride and the contribution we make to the quality and functioning of society. The newsletter Collaborare, edited by Ellen Silber, is keeping members informed about what is happening in other parts of the nation. I hope these notes on the Santa Clara—San Mateo Collaborative will be a useful reference and a source of inspiration for other groups in the process of formation or evaluation.
The author is Lecturer in French at Santa Clara University.
1 This local group of scholars and teachers was modeled on the original conception of the county medical society and county bar association and was expected to meet monthly. As Guadiani points out in “Academic Alliances,” “Medical and bar associations were designed to bring colleagues in the same local area together on a regular basis. In each local group, colleagues help keep each other up-to-date in their fields and take collective responsibility for the quality of the practice of the profession in their area” (605).
2 All the workshops and talks were videotaped to permit later dissemination.
3 In recognition of the role foreign language teachers have played in internationalizing education, the Rockefeller Foundation has awarded fellowships to outstanding foreign language teachers in American junior and senior high schools. The fellowship program, now in its fifth year, is administered by the Academic Alliances office at Connecticut College. The first year, thirty-five applications (from nine countries) were received, a panel of seminar participants selected twelve as finalists, and two fellowships were awarded. The second year, fifteen to seventeen applications (from five counties) were received, and one fellowship was awarded.
4 For example, the Spanish text could be either Carlos Fuentes's Gringo Viejo or Federico Garcia Lorca's Bodas de Sangre; the French text could be Voltaire's Candide or Sartre's Huis Clos.
Fairchild, Sharon L. “Getting Acquainted: Who Teaches French across the Street?” ADFL Bulletin 16.2 (1985): 37–39. [Show Article]
Guadiani, Claire. “Academic Alliances: School/College Faculty Collaboratives.” Foreign Language Annals 17 (Dec. 1984): 605–09.
Herron, Carol. “Collaboration between Teachers of Foreign Languages and Literature.” French Review 59 (1985): 11–15.
Obregon, Merle R. “The Holston Language Association: Advantages and Benefits of a Rural Collaborative.” ADFL Bulletin 16.2 (1985): 40–41. [Show Article]
“Report of the Commission on the Future of the Profession.” PMLA 99 (1982): 940–56.
Sachs, Murray. “Collaboration's End: ‘Live in Fragments No Longer.’” ADFL Bulletin 16.2 (1985): 32–34. [Show Article]
Silber, Ellen S. “Foreign Language Faculty Collaboration across Academic Sectors: A Case Study.” ADFL Bulletin 16.2 (1985): 46–48. [Show Article]
Swaffar, Janet K. “Language Collaboratives and Academic Options.” ADFL Bulletin 16.2 (1985): 35–36. [Show Article]
© 1989 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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