27, no. 2 (Winter 1996): Back Matter
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Back Matter Winter 1996
First Working Meeting of the MLA Teacher Education Project
The first of two working conferences sponsored by the MLA Teacher Education Project, which seeks to encourage changes in the curricula of the participating departments and focus attention within the field on the preparation of secondary school teachers, was held on 14–17 September 1995 in Houston, Texas. Participant teams from twelve institutions (six teams represent departments of English, six represent departments of foreign languages) shared their experiences in evaluating their departments' teacher-preparation programs and discussed the education reform movement, national standards, state frameworks, professional teaching standards, and the implications of standards for the college curriculum.
Each of the foreign language teams is composed of four faculty members from university language departments, one faculty member from a school or department of education, and one secondary school teacher. The teams, selected from a large pool of applicant institutions, represent the department of languages and literature at Arizona State University; the department of Romance languages, German, and Russian at California State University, Long Beach; the department of Romance languages at the University of Georgia; the division of languages and linguistics at the University of South Florida; the departments of Romance languages and of German and Russian at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; and the departments of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, of classics, and of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Virginia.
The teams will meet again in March 1996 to report on their work and to plan a collective volume on the disciplines of English and foreign languages and teacher education. Team representatives will also discuss their projects at the ADFL and ADE Summer Seminars in June and July.
Major Threats to Foreign Language Education in the United States
The Joint National Committee for Language (JNCL) recently published a list of common threats to the status of language programs in the United States, prepared by Julie E. Inman. Excerpts from the list follow.
At the federal level, threats to foreign language programs include:
- Budgetary constraints. Domestic discretionary spending is being reduced significantly to lower the federal debt.
- The possibility of further minimizing the federal role in education. Specifically, there are efforts to abolish some of the major federal funding agencies responsible for funding and administering international and educational exchange programs, including the United States Information Agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Department of Education.
- Reversing the accomplishments of educational reform efforts of the 103rd Congress, including the implementation of Goals 2000 and Improving America's Schools. Foreign languages were included among the core subjects as defined by these programs. Efforts toward standards development, equity, professional development, and testing and assessment could be halted in their tracks.
- The isolationist attitude pervading Congress. Isolationism affects all programs that are international in scope. Immigration reform and movements to make English the “official language of government” and to repeal bilingual education programs are indicative of this insular tendency.
American education has a long history of minimal federal involvement: the federal share of spending on education amounts to only eight percent of the total funding for education. As such, the major threats loom at state and local levels. These threats include the following:
- The same budgetary constraints faced at the federal level. State legislatures are looking for places to cut funding, and the mood of the electorate makes it politically infeasible to raise taxes for pass levies to fund education programs.
- Persistent downsizing of state departments of education and the growth of interest in “site-based management” and the resultant use of education generalists instead of curriculum specialists. A recent JNCL survey shows that only twelve states currently have specialists in foreign languages; another twelve have eliminated foreign language supervisors altogether. The remaining twenty-six states have multidisciplinary curriculum supervisors or education generalists.
- Teacher shortages. The shortage of qualified foreign language teachers in at least thirty-five states provides a rationale for state and local administrators to cut existing programs or to refrain from establishing new ones.
- Exclusion from core curricula. While foreign languages are included as one of the “core subjects” in the National Education Goals, only twenty-seven states have embraced languages as a part of their core curricula. This exclusion may be due to funding shortages, the lower priority afforded world languages by some, or the competition for time during the school day that foreign languages face from other subjects.
- Abuse of technology. While technology has revolutionized education in many ways, it is still improperly used in some locales. Technology should be used to supplement the current curriculum, but it is increasingly used to supplant teachers or to cut costs.
- Elitism. While equity has always been a tenet of education policy in the United States, the trend toward serving only the educationally gifted may influence the study of foreign languages in this country. Language study has long been considered by some to be “elitist” or a “frill” elective; today, ten states require language study only for college-bound students or advanced-diploma candidates.
- Shortsightedness. Lack of foresight and failure to understand the important role that languages will play in the twenty-first century threaten the status of foreign languages in the curriculum. Communicative ability will be highly valued and necessary for success in the coming century. Vocational and service-industry education and global-communications management require foreign language study.
© 1996 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 27, no. 2 (Winter 1996): Back Matter |
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