26, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 26-27
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Response to Christine Brown
Nancy Rhodes, Center for Applied Linguistics
CHRISTINE Brown makes a strong case that we should be concerned for the future of quality K-12 language programs in the context of the current education reform movement. She talks about how many of the current reform efforts appear contradictory: for example, the calls for innovative “break-the-mold schools” are being made at the same time that national standards and assessments are being established.
One of her most important points concerning the effects of the reform movement deals with the so-called restructuring of schools. As she so clearly points out, the desire for innovation has often been used as an excuse for restructuring, but educators in public schools know better. What they see is that positions for foreign language supervisors in local districts and state agencies are being eliminated. As a Joint National Committee for Languages study confirms, school districts have moved away from hiring content-area specialists to empowering the principal with the authority to work with teachers in collaborative decision making. Unfortunately, in the foreign language education field, more so than other fields, the elimination of the specialist has a detrimental effect on programs. It is hard to imagine how new state or national standards can be implemented without language specialists.
Brown describes the disaster waiting to happen with site-based management, especially at elementary schools, in quite realistic terms. Languages are subject to the whim of a principal or of a team that usually includes parents. These people, who lack updated information on how languages are taught and may not see the importance of a well-articulated program, may make quick, uninformed decisions. Our current challenges with articulation will be exacerbated tenfold as schools start making decisions on a site-by-site basis. Brown suggests that “site-based management is potentially the greatest obstacle to coherent reform in foreign language education.”
I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations for implementation of reform, including increased professional development, encouraging the role of parents and businesses, strengthening the role of assessment, and encouraging students to enter careers in teaching. I would like to add three recommendations.
The first deals with the need to increase collaboration among foreign language educators and ESL and bilingual educators . I make this recommendation because there is so much language education going on already in the schools (though it is not necessarily called “foreign” language education) that we could benefit from.
For example, among the most promising developments we've seen in the last decade are two-way language-immersion programs. These programs are attracting attention as an effective way of meeting the needs of language-minority students who are learning English while providing a vehicle for English-speaking students to learn another language. Classes are composed of native speakers of English and native speakers of another language (most often Spanish, but sometimes less commonly taught languages). The students from both backgrounds are integrated for subject-matter instruction so that they can serve as resources for one another in both language and content.
These programs are similar to traditional immersion programs but have the added advantage of including native speakers in the class. Regular immersion programs have increased gradually in the last twenty-five years to 140 schools in 55 districts. In contrast, two-way immersion programs, relatively new to the educational scene, have increased rapidly in the last ten years to 176 schools in 99 districts. It is certainly in everyone's best interest to collaborate on these types of programs.
A real benefit of these programs is that some involve languages not traditionally taught in elementary or secondary schools. Currently, eight languages are being taught in two-way programs: Spanish (160 programs), Cantonese (4), Korean (3), Russian (2), Navajo (2), Japanese (2), French (1), and Portuguese (1).
Ironically, the neglect of foreign language education by the initial version of Goals 2000 had the remarkable results of bringing foreign and second language educators closer together. Recent initiatives, spearheaded by Denise McKeon from the American Educational Research Association have encouraged greatly needed cooperation among the various language teaching associations: the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Representatives of the groups have been meeting to discuss mutual concerns such as pedagogical issues, professional certification and training, development, and educational policy goals. These organizations identified two-way language-immersion programs as a point of interest for all language educators and a jumping-off place for collaboration. By having their members present sessions on this topic at all their national conferences during 1992–93, they demonstrated the advantages of working together on common projects.
My second recommendation is to encourage educators to look at foreign language programs as long sequences , not just as elementary, middle school, high school, or university programs. I think many of us who have been pushing for an early start to language teaching are guilty of focusing too much on the elementary level and not looking at the entire kindergarten-through-college-level sequence. Many recent efforts—Project 2017 of the National Foreign Language Center and ACTFL (a joint effort to promote early-starting, long-sequence programs) and the national standards project, among others—have pushed for a long sequence of study, and I think that is the direction we all need to take. It is interesting to note that the most successful programs in K-12 articulation thus far have been immersion programs. Students who have had this experience are “fluent” to one degree or another after elementary school and can continue on in content courses taught in the foreign language in middle school and high school. Of the few longstanding, long-sequence (nonimmersion) elementary through high school programs, Glastonbury, Connecticut's and Ferndale, Michigan's, are two successful examples.
My final recommendation, built on Brown's vision, is that we need to strengthen the services of all the organizations that focus on early start/long sequence , including ACTFL, the National Network for Early Language Learning, Advocates for Language Learning, various language teaching organizations, and others. As Brown explained, because of the new site-based management, we need to educate parents and administrators about foreign language to a much greater extent than before, and we won't be able to depend on state and local foreign language resource people, because many of them have been moved out of their jobs. Our professional organizations will need to change their roles to take on more public relations efforts and address a much wider audience.
© 1995 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 26, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 26-27 |
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