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IN A fifteen-month period, from March 1996 to June 1997, faculty members in French and German at three of South Dakota's public universities developed cooperative programs in these two languages. The work was both difficult and stressful. Formation of cooperative programs required a significant amount of discussion among faculty members who had very different teaching styles and background. The cooperative programs also necessitated compromise from all parties.
What motivated these two groups of faculty members to embark on such a venture? How did the programs they developed differ from traditional programs? Is cooperation the way to save all struggling foreign language programs threatened with elimination?
Declining enrollment nationwide in once dominant languages, such as French and German, have been well documented. In the Winter 1997 issue of the ADFL Bulletin , Richard Brod and Bettina Huber reported on shifting enrollments over a thirty-five-year period. Table 1, adapted from one that appeared in the Brod and Huber article, shows the percentage of growth in the ten leading modern foreign languages during four periods: 1960–70, 1970–80, 1980–90, and 1990–95.
The 1960s were, at least in recent times, the halcyon days of foreign languages; enrollments in all ten leading modern foreign languages increased during this period. That decade was followed by one in which many less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) continued to grow at a healthy, even spectacular, rate, while enrollments in the big three (French, German, and Spanish) declined. Enrollment shifts gave Spanish the coveted position of number 1 (the language with the highest enrollment) in both 1970 and 1980. During the 1980s, most languages experienced enrollment gains. However, by 1990 the growth in Spanish was such that its enrollments surpassed those of French and German combined.
In the five-year period 1990 to 1995, Spanish enrollments continued to grow at a moderate pace, while French and German enrollments plummeted. Loss of enrollment in any program is always cause for concern. But in an era of shrinking state education budgets and increased accountability, declining enrollments in French and German from 1990 to 1995 were particularly alarming.
The percentage changes from 1960 to 1995 show, to some degree, how enrollments shifted during four chronological periods. However, only by looking at the actual number of students enrolled in the ten leading modern foreign languages can one see how these changes have affected programs. For example, the huge percentage increases in Chinese do not mean that there were more students taking Chinese than French in 1995. Rather, the percentages reflect the fact that in 1960 the total Chinese enrollment was 1,844; in 1995, 26,471 students were enrolled in Chinese. There were 228,813 students taking French in 1960; by 1995 this number had dropped to 205,351 (see table 2, also adapted from Brod and Huber).
The crisis in French and German on many college and university campuses was rarely caused by the relatively large enrollment increases in LCTLs. Instead, it may be attributed, at least in part, to the unprecedented increase in the number of students taking Spanish. In 1960, Spanish trailed French in the number of student enrolled and had only a slight lead over German. However, by 1995 the number of students taking Spanish across the country was more than double the combined figure for students taking French and German.
Professionals in all languages decry these extreme enrollment shifts. The numbers do not reflect a change in programmatic excellence—it is not as if Spanish programs suddenly acquired all the great teachers while French and German lost theirs. The figures point, instead, to changes in perception. And the recent perception is that students must be marketable. The study of Spanish is apparently deemed to make them so.
Important as national patterns are, they rarely explain, at least not fully, shifting enrollments and their consequences at the state system or institutional level. To understand why French and German faculty members in South Dakota chose to create cooperative programs, readers need to know about the South Dakota regental system, the institutions in the system, and the management initiatives that affected foreign languages and other low-enrollment programs.
In territorial days, the entity that would come to be known as South Dakota seemed committed to giving communities of any size some sort of institution, most of them educational. Sioux Falls, the largest city in territorial and contemporary times, was not granted an institution of higher education. It received, instead, the state prison, perceived as having a stronger guarantee of permanence than any college or university could hope to match.
The availability of institutions of higher education around the state was and is laudable. Having a college or university nearby increases the probability that students will continue their education beyond high school. However, the size of South Dakota's six public institutions of higher education and the desire to avoid duplication of programs may have created as many problems as they have solved—at least as far as foreign language programs are concerned. Two of South Dakota's universities—the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and Dakota State University—have special missions that make the presence of strong foreign language programs unlikely. Black Hills State University has always offered a major in Spanish and, occasionally, course work in other languages. The three remaining institutions have all traditionally offered majors in French, German, and Spanish. Each of these three institutions have also attempted to expand its second language offering to include LCTLs—among them, Lakota, a Siouan language.
The size of all South Dakota institutions of higher education makes it difficult to maintain strong majors in foreign or second languages. The problem is, quite simply, one of critical mass. Although an institution with two thousand to six thousand students can easily offer the core courses, the relatively to offer a full program in a purely elective subject, such as a foreign language. Classes in foreign languages—particularly at the upper-division level—will almost be always be quite small. And departments with only one or two faculty members will find it difficult to meet the needs of all the students who wish to pursue a major.
Traditionally, foreign language programs have not had to concern themselves with the number of students or majors in their area. Foreign language faculty members at small institutions are accustomed to offering quality programs to a limited number of students—often at the expense of their own research. Recently, however, in many institutions—both private and public—financial accountability has become a reality that small, excellent programs must face.
Those who have dedicated themselves to these small, and sometimes threatened, programs may feel that financial accountability has little, if anything, to do with quality. Even if the faculty members do not accept this connection, they must see that, in a public system of higher education, accountability is intended to ensure the fairest distribution of resources. When a governing body—such as the South Dakota Board of Regents—decides that all programs in the system must have a minimum of twenty majors, it may seem, especially to the faculty and students in “at risk” programs, that the regents have ignored the possibility of a smaller program with high standards. Nevertheless, the governing body must use the state's resources to best advantage to serve the students and the citizens of the state.
Although faculty members may object to this approach to program justification and delivery, they ought to be aware of the external pressures on their governing body. In recent years, legislators have pushed governing boards and similar bodies to justify the programs offered at public institutions. Lawmakers are dealing with resource issues; when they seek ways to save money in higher education, they inevitably look at small university programs that cannot be defended according to any given formula.
When accountability measures that require minimal enrollment in courses or a minimum number of majors are handled well, faculty members understand that they have been given a limited period of time (for example, three years) to meet certain standards or to face the elimination of their major—if not of their entire program. However, when a decision to redirect resources is made, institutions may not always be afforded time for planning.
Curriculum management had been a fact of life for many years when, in 1992, the French major at South Dakota State University was eliminated. The elimination of the SDSU French major occurred because of dwindling enrollments that had not been adequately addressed. All institutions had been required to justify low-enrollment courses for some time. But there was significant institutional discretion, and a course could be justified simply by indicating that it was required for the major or minor in a specific program. When a Board of Regents policy was established, enrollments that had been recommended became required.
A similar situation led three South Dakota public universities to begin a collaborative effort to offer majors in French and German. In the fall of 1995, the South Dakota Board of Regents introduced its Redirection through Efficiencies initiative. This initiative was designed to provide resources for curriculum revision, instructional technologies, and articulation with K-12 programs by eliminating low-enrollment majors or tracks (BA or BS).
In the 1995–96 Redirection through Efficiencies initiative, French and German programs at three South Dakota universities were negatively affected. At Northern State University, the administration decided to place both the French and the German majors on inactive status rather than cancel them. At South Dakota State University, which had eliminated the French major in 1992, the German major was preserved and targeted for development (which meant that its enrollment numbers were not as strong as they needed to be). At the University of South Dakota, the French major was eliminated and the German major was placed on inactive status. (Although placing a program on inactive status may seem preferable to eliminating it, the program, for all intents and purposes, faces a slow death, since degree programs on inactive status cannot accept any new majors.)
By late June 1997, the South Dakota Board of Regents had approved a Cooperative French Studies Program and a Cooperative German Program, with each program containing a major and a minor sequence. These two programs were developed under different circumstances and had different outcomes. Although either of the two models might be useful to other institutions seeking to offer programs cooperatively, cooperative programs are unique. Each depends on the personalities and experiences of the faculty and on the character of the system encouraging cooperation.
In March 1996 faculties in French from Northern State University, South Dakota State University, and the University of South Dakota started to work toward a cooperative degree. The process of cooperation began with some challenges. There was resistance to the idea of cooperating; some faculty members erroneously believed that a refusal to cooperate might encourage the regents to restore French majors on some—if not all—of the three campuses.
However, the Board of Regents made it clear that it expected the faculty in French to devise a program that would provide a national model in three areas: cooperation, curriculum, and the creative use of technology. When the faculty members finished their work, they had added a fourth feature: contact with the target culture. An appreciation of the requirements of the new degree depends on an understanding of why the Board of Regents stressed these three areas.
The Board of Regents was concerned with cooperation because it believed that South Dakota institutions had to conserve resources and build new strengths. No one at these three regental institutions had ever considered that the salvation of their small foreign language programs might lie in working with other institutions around the state. Instead, departments had argued valiantly to prove that their program—because of its excellence or its enrollments—should be preserved and that programs at other regental institutions might or should be eliminated. That this sort of restructuring would cause students on other campuses to be underserved in French or German did not seem to be an issue at any of the campuses.
Regarding curriculum, the regents' primary concern was that the three institutions that had recently offered a major in French genuinely cooperate and build on their strengths and not use the enterprise as a means to revive programs that had not worked in the past. Although the regents did not charge the French faculty with developing the cooperative major along any specific lines, they ask that the product show originality and an ability to attract students that previous programs had lacked.
Creative use of technology in the new French program was a concern, for obvious reasons. First, the three institutions are too far apart to permit cooperation by other than electronic means. Neither faculty members nor students could travel in order to teach or take classes on the other campuses. Second, the regents wanted to preserve the integrity and quality of instruction. To do so, the three institutions would have to use the best technology available to deliver their program.
In response to the first challenge, cooperation, the faculties in French from the three participating schools decided to offer the entire upper-division curriculum collaboratively. Each campus, to the extent that it was able, would teach the introductory (100-level) and intermediate (200-level) sequence of courses on its own campus. The upper-division courses (300- and 400-level)—four each semester—would be taught by the four faculty members at the three cooperating institutions. The faculties believed that, in the interests of the students, all four instructors should be involved each semester. In this way, students at the three institutions would have the opportunity to know all the faculty members well.
French faculty members responded to the second challenge, curriculum, by eliminating all the courses currently listed in the catalogs of the three institutions. This approach allowed them to design a curriculum that would be both unique to and appropriate for the Cooperative French Studies Program major. The traditional elementary sequence was preserved—a two-semester sequence of four-hour courses. However, the intermediate sequence was changed somewhat; the two-semester sequence of three-hour courses was increased to a two-semester sequence of four-hour courses.
At the upper-division level, the French faculty designed a sequence of courses, to be delivered annually, that would prepare students for a career in teaching at the secondary school level, for graduate school, or for a position in business that required a knowledge of French. Because of the relatively small number of students throughout South Dakota who might be expected to take French beyond the intermediate level, the sequence of course offerings was very tight. A more liberal, or looser, sequence might have resulted in classes that, even if offered cooperatively, would have been underenrolled. (See appendix A for additional information on the South Dakota Cooperative French Studies Program, its options, courses, and delivery schedule.)
The upper-division curriculum in French was designed to offer students a selection of courses that was carefully balanced between knowledge and skills. Faculty members recognized that students in the cooperative program would have to attain a certain knowledge base, but the instructors also recognized that the acquisition of information and ideas would be useless without the skills necessary to function in the “real” francophone world. To meet students' need for knowledge, faculty members developed courses in the traditional areas of culture and literature, as well as in business French and in translation.
To ensure that the students would be able to function in the target culture—the francophone world—the faculty decided to set exit proficiency levels for the program at Intermediate-High for productive skills (speaking and writing) and Advanced for receptive skills (aural comprehension and reading). These proficiency levels were considered as minimum requirements. The faculty hoped—indeed expected—that the students who participated in the program would achieve higher levels of proficiency. (See appendix B for a description of the proficiency levels required of students in the program.)
The faculty members gave serious thought to the regents' third challenge, technology. If the medium is truly the message, the choice of delivery mechanisms for the Cooperative French Studies Program was and is very important. There are highly successful programs in many disciplines that rely solely on the use of a virtual classroom—that is, the students and the instructor are connected by e-mail and the Internet. The South Dakota faculty in French believed that, at least at the outset, the students and instructors at the various sites should see and hear each other.
South Dakota universities have been offering interactive classes at several sites on the Rural Development Telecommunications Network (RDTN) since 1992. Indeed, a federally funded program in Russian, which originated at SDSU in 1993, received three national awards for this outstanding distributed educational program. However, RDTN is very expensive if used in classes with limited numbers of students. (The Russian program succeeded, in part, because it was funded by the Foreign Language Assistance Program—FLAP. As a result, quality instruction could be offered regardless of student enrollments.)
Because of the high cost of using RDTN, members of the French faculty sought another technology that would provide the benefits of RDTN without the expense. The device they chose is Picture Tel, an ISDN-delivered audio-and-video system that uses telephone lines to link several sites. In addition to Picture Tel, the French studies program will use videotaped lectures, e-mail, and fax.
As the French faculty members developed their curriculum and modes of delivery, their work was made somewhat easier by the decision to install a state-of-the-art classroom (known as the “governor's classroom” because of special funding) at each of the six regental institutions and to use these classrooms for cooperative programs (including French, German, and Physics). The governor's classrooms were an outgrowth of the “smart classrooms” that were installed at regental institutions beginning in 1995.
Each smart classroom was equipped with a liquid crystal display projector, a laser disc projector, and an Elmo (a device for projecting the instructor's writing, a graphic, or a three-dimensional object onto a screen), as well as a VCR and a monitor; the governor's classroom on each campus contained all this equipment and more. All the governor's classrooms were connected to the RDTN, all had a SwiftSite Picture Tel unit, and all had eight networked computers for the twenty-four students in each class to use.
The implications of such classrooms for a cooperative program enterprise such as the French Studies Program are enormous. After the necessary preparation of faculty members and students, an instructor at one site could display a cultural artifact to three different campuses; have students; working in groups, write a short composition and then have students at all sites critique the composition of one of the groups; show films that would be received by all sites; have students at various sites work collaboratively on a project; have students use the Internet capability of their computers to engage in dialogue with students in another country. Obviously, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the instructors in the program.
Before considering the question of whether shared endeavors are the answer to threatened programs in foreign languages, let us look briefly at how the German faculty members chose to design their cooperative program. The German faculty, totaling five members at the same three institutions participating in the Cooperative French Studies Program, did not begin its work until December 1996. This delay was the result of a perception that the Cooperative French Studies Program needed to be well along in the regental approval process before the German faculty could start its task.
Although several models were suggested for changing the German programs drastically on all three participating campuses, the faculty in German chose to be somewhat more conservative in its alteration of existing curricula. In fact, in some cases the course offering were changed very little. In terms of delivery of the course, the German faculty was also more conservative than the French.
Instead of beginning immediately to offer three or four upper-division courses cooperatively, the German faculty decided to schedule only one upper-division course per semester during the 1997–98 academic year. The rationale was that, in the interests of the students, it made better sense to start gradually than to plunge in with a number of cooperative courses. There was a further problem in German. Although all campuses had agreed that cooperation would begin beyond the 311–312 (German Composition and Conversation) sequence, one of the campuses expressed concern about its ability to offer this sequence with adequate enrollment. The problem was solved when another campus, which had scheduled two sections of German 311 for the fall 1997 semester, offered to share its course electronically. (See appendix C for an outline of the South Dakota Cooperative German Program.)
The reader trained in rhetoric will recognize the heading as a trick question; nothing is the answer to any problem. In addition, many circumstances could preclude the use of cooperative programs. However, cooperative programs can offer students and faculty members definite advantages. Small departments, with one or two faculty members in a given language, can use cooperative programs to expose students to a wider range of knowledge and teaching styles. A professor conducting a small program alone no longer has to be all things to all students.
Furthermore, in the age of technology, students may enjoy the challenge of participating in a program that does something different. Students at South Dakota State University who have taken computer-assisted courses have reported a feeling of empowerment as they mastered the technologies used in these courses. When faculty members take care to address the students' concerns with a new delivery system, the frustrations that attend such courses are more than compensated for by the students' excitement over learning how to learn in a new way.
Cooperative programs create an entirely new paradigm with regard to institutional integrity. In a sparsely populated state such as South Dakota (fewer than 750,000 inhabitants), institutional rivalries are a reality. In a cooperative program between two or more institutions in the same system, these conflicts must be overcome. instructors and students alike must learn to create an educational community that transcends traditional institutional rivalries. When students “buy into” this new paradigm, their ability to make friends on other campuses and to learn from and with them can be the key that opens up exciting new experience for them.
Cooperative programs are challenging and full of possibilities. However, no institution should consider such endeavors without being aware of real or potential pitfalls.
Why are faculty members a potential problem in cooperative programs? Let us take the example of a hypothetical professor, Dr. A. Dr. A joined the faculty of X University in 1975 as an assistant professor. During his tenure at X, he has been active in both service and scholarship. However, his main goal has been to build the program in language Y. He has been extensively involved in the student club for his language. He has conducted a successful film series in language Y; he even has a language table that meets twice a week.
Dr. A's goal of publishing at least three articles a year has not been fulfilled; he does well to publish one a year. He would like to cut back on his university committee assignments, but he fears that a diminution of campus service may cost him the contacts he needs in order to ensure the survival of his program.
Despite all his personal and professional sacrifice, Dr. A's program is scheduled to be eliminated. He is angry and bewildered. “What more could I have done?” he asks. To save his program, he is asked to work with faculty members at two other institutions to form a cooperative enterprise. He loves his students, and his students, although few in number, love him. He doesn't really know the faculties at the other institutions; however, he has heard some negative comments that may or may not be true about the way they treat students or teach their subject matter.
Dr. A agrees, without any great enthusiasm, to participate in the cooperative program. His first concern is for his students. Will they have, in this new programs, the kind of quality learning experience he would have given them? His second concern may be for himself. How well will he be able to function in the new setting? Or, perhaps, his concern is about the faculty members with whom he has been forced to work. How will they treat his students? What will their expectations of his students be?
Although Dr. A will participate in a cooperative project for the good of his students, he will do so reluctantly. He may constantly ask if this program is indeed in the best interests of his students. He may also engage in extensive “what if” behavior—asking himself whether he could have done anything to prevent the formation of the collaborative endeavor.
Faculty members—their feelings and their legitimate concerns about their students and their programs in a new setting—represent one issue that must be considered in developing a cooperative program. There is no simplistic answer to this problem. The faculty members who have been asked to work in an entirely new setting are human beings. It would be nice to assume that they will enthusiastically accept any change that will allow them to continue to offer their program. However, this may not be the case.
Technology is the second issue that those who wish to establish a cooperative foreign language program must address. What technologies will be used and how reliable are they? J. David Edwards, executive director of the Joint National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS), in remarks made recently to the Advisory Council of the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, warned foreign language educators to beware of administrators who offer technology as the cure for all the enrollment ills in foreign languages. In his view, many administrators believe, often mistakenly, that using technology in courses and programs will save money. And, being more concerned with economy than with programmatic excellence, or even with viability, administrators may force faculty members to use inappropriate equipment.
Installing the technologies that will foster good foreign language education among several sites is not cheap. Failure to install the best technology inevitably results in a great deal of frustration for both instructors and students; the frustration may lead to a decline in enrollments—the very thing that cooperative programs are often designed to avoid. Before initiating a cooperative program that will rely on technology, faculty members and administrators must ensure that they have examined issues like these.
The final concern in “going cooperative” is with faculty and technology. Although this may seem redundant, it is not. Consider that you have won the faculty over to working in a cooperative mode with other institutions. Your administration has supported your efforts by installing the best computer systems available. However, unless your faculty knows how to use the equipment, you have challenge ahead of you. The amount of time necessary for faculty members to learn to operate the new equipment, particularly if they have difficulty using an overhead projector, is overwhelming. Too many institutions establish a cooperative plan, invest in hardware and software, and assume that the problem has been solved. Only those institutions that also invest in training their faculty to use the technology have successfully grasped the whole picture.
At the November 1996 meeting of the National Council of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages, Tom Welch, a former state foreign languages supervisor from Kentucky, noted that there is a difference between distance teaching and distance learning. Administrators who assume that they can put professors in front of a camera or at a computer keyboard and allow them to teach the way they always have are missing the point. When a systems or a group on unrelated institutions decides to offer a program cooperatively, it has chosen to make a major paradigm shift. At that point, everything—with the possible exception of the knowledge base of faculty members and students—must be negotiated from scratch.
Do the potential problems in offering cooperative programs outweigh the benefits? For some campuses or systems, the answer is yes. If the costs involved in acquiring new technologies and in training faculty members, and the stresses on both faculty members and students, are excessive, another solutions should be sought, However, the elimination of small foreign language programs because of budgetary pressures is apt to be a fact of life for years, if not decades, to come. If cooperation and all that it implies is the price that must be paid in order to offer strong foreign language programs to as many students as possible, the decision is easy; we will learn to cooperate.
Certainly in the case of South Dakota universities, co-operation is the only way to ensure quality programs to as many students as possible. At this time we are preparing to offer two programs—French studies and German—co-operatively among three of the six institutions under the control of the South Dakota Board of Regents. If the faculty and administrators at these three institutions have the fortitude to weather what will undoubtedly be a difficult period of initiation, then this approach could be expanded. Expansion would allow introductory and intermediate sequences in French studies, German, and Spanish (and, possibly, Russian, Lakota, and other languages) to be offered to institutions too small to support such courses on their own. Given the current concern with developing ties between South Dakota universities and K-12 instruction, faculty members might be able to use their expertise to help public and private secondary or even elementary school foreign language programs expand as well.
The possibilities for cooperative foreign language programs are endless; however, such programs are not a quick fix to the problem of low-enrollment courses and programs. A great deal of thoughts should go into a decision to offer any program cooperatively. And once that decision is made, if the programs are to be successful, faculty members, students, and administrators must adopt a positive, can-do attitude. With a problem-solving attitude prevalent among all parties, these programs will work and will achieve a learning and teaching experience far superior to what any single campus could hope to offer.
The author is Head of the Department of Foreign Languages at South Dakota State University. This article is based on her presentation at ADFL Summer Seminar West, 26–28 June 1997, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Lower-Division Courses in French
Upper-Division Courses in French
The Cooperative French Studies major is intended to be a highly focused program with specific goals for all participating students. However, students will be encouraged to identify career goals as soon as they declare a French studies major and to gear their course selections to either a general or a business option. The faculty or administration at each institution will be responsible for ensuring that each student who chooses the French studies major will be able to take all necessary courses to complete the program in a reasonable period of time.
The Business Option will require
The General Option will require
The following courses will be offered as electives:
A set sequence of courses in the Cooperative French Studies Program major will be offered on an annual basis. 1 The proposed schedule of courses and instructions 2 is listed below:
1 The established schedule should be flexible enough to accommodate student demand. Trailer sections, e.g., 102 and/or 202 in the fall semester and 101 and/or 201 in the spring semester, should be introduced on participating campuses as demand warrants.
2 Although it is important to ensure that instructors teach in the areas of their greatest strengths, it is also important that instructors' assignments be varied so that instructors continue to be stimulated. It is suggested that the specific schedule for each campus—including number of sections necessary and faculty assignments—be determined on an annual basis.
In 1986 the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), funded by grants from the United States Department of Education, developed proficiency guidelines. The council was motivated to do so by the foreign language teaching profession's need to have what Protase Woodford called “a common yardstick” for measuring student performance”(qtd. in Hadley 11.)
According to Gerard Ervin, in Realizing the Potential of Foreign Language Instruction , “The guidelines identify stages of proficiency, as opposed to achievement. They are not intended to measure what an individual has achieved through specific classroom instruction but rather to allow assessment of what an individual can or cannot do, regardless of where, when, or how the language has been learned or acquired” (123).
The 1986 guidelines are based on the 1982 provisional guidelines, which in turn were based on the guidelines developed for the Foreign Service Institute by the Interagency Language Roundtable Testing Committee. The Foreign Service Institute estimates that 720 hours of intensive instruction in French are necessary for one of its students to achieve an Advanced-Plus proficiency rating.
The proponents of the French Studies Program, realizing that students in the program will have only 555 (37 × 15) hours of exposure to the language, set a goal of Intermediate-High proficiency in the productive skills (speaking and writing) and Advanced proficiency in the receptive skills (listening and reading) for those students who receive a major in French studies. Students receiving a minor in French studies are expected to attain a proficiency level of Intermediate-Low in productive skills and a proficiency level of Intermediate-Mid in receptive skills. To someone who is not part of the language-teaching community, these skill levels may seems rather modest. However, teachers of a foreign language are aware of the amount of time required for students to reach these levels of proficiency.
The Cooperative French Studies Program describe the exit proficiency levels expected of its students as follows:
Speaking (Intermediate-High) Students will be able to handle successfully most uncomplicated communicative tasks and social situations. They can initiate, sustain, and close a general conversation with a number of strategies appropriate to a range of circumstances and topics. However, errors will be evident. The students' limited vocabulary will still necessitate hesitation and may bring about slightly unexpected circumlocution. There is emerging evidence of connected discourse, particularly for simple narration and/or description. The Intermediate-High speaker can generally be understood even by interlocutors not accustomed to dealing with speakers at this level, but repetition still be required (“ACTFL” 16–17).
Listening (Advanced) Students will be able to understand main ideas and most details of connected discourse on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. Comprehension may be uneven due to a variety of linguistics and extralinguistic factors, among which topic familiarity is very prominent. These texts frequently involve description and narration in different time frames or aspects. Texts may include interviews, short lectures on familiar topics, and news items and reports primarily dealing with factual information. The listener is aware of cohesive devices but may not be able to use them to follow the sequence of thought in an oral text (19).
Reading (Advanced) Students will be able to read somewhat longer prose, of several paragraphs in length, particularly if presented with a clear underlying structure. The prose is predominantly in familiar sentence patterns. The reader gets the main ideas and facts but misses some details. Comprehension derives not only from situational and subject-matter knowledge but also from increasing control of the language. Texts at this level include descriptions and narrations such as simple short stories, news items, bibliographical information, social notices, personal correspondence, routine business letters, and simple technical material written for the general reader (21).
Writing (Intermediate-High) Students are able to meet most practical writing needs and limited social demands. They can take notes in some detail on familiar topics and can respond in writing to personal questions. Students can write simple letters, brief synopses and paraphrases, summaries of biographical data, work and school experience. The verb forms used by the student are produced consistently but not always accurately. An ability to describe and narrate in paragraphs is emerging. Students rarely use basic cohesive elements, such as pronominal substitutions or synonyms in written discourse. Writing, though faulty, is generally comprehensible to natives used to the writing of nonnatives (23).
Speaking (Intermediate-Low) Students will be able to handle successfully a limited number of interactive, task-oriented, and social situations. They can ask and answer questions, initiate and respond to simple statements, and maintain face-to-face conversation, although in a highly restricted manner and with much linguistics inaccuracy. Within these limitations, the students can perform such tasks as introducing themselves, ordering a meal, asking directions, and making purchases. The students' vocabulary is adequate to express only the most elementary needs. Strong interference from the students' native language may occur. Misunderstanding frequently arise, but with repetition, the Intermediate-Low speaker can generally be understood by sympathetic interlocutors (16).
Listening (Intermediate-Mid) Students are able to understand sentence-length utterances that consist of recombinations of learned utterances on a variety of topics. Content continues to refer primarily to basic personal background and needs, social conventions, and somewhat more complex tasks, such as lodging, transportation, and shopping. Additional content areas include some personal interests and activities, and a greater diversity of instructions and directions. Listening tasks pertain not only to spontaneous face-to-face conversations but also to short routine telephone conversations and some deliberate speech, such as simple announcements and media reports. Understanding continues to be uneven (18–19).
Reading (Intermediate-Mid) Students are able to read consistently, with increased understanding, simple connected texts dealing with a variety of basic and social needs. Such texts are still linguistically uncomplicated and have a clear internal structure. They impart basic information about which the reader has to make minimal suppositions and to which the reader brings personal interest and/or knowledge. Examples may include short, straightforward descriptions of persons, places, and things written for a wide audience (21).
Writing (Intermediate-Low) Students are able to meet limited practical writing needs. They can write short messages and postcards and can take down simple notes, such as telephone messages. They can create statements or questions within the scope of limited language experience. Material produced generally consists of a recombination of learned vocabulary and structures into simple sentences on familiar topics. The students' language is inadequate to express in writing anything but elementary needs. There are frequent errors in grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling, and in the formation of nonalphabetic symbols, but the students' writing can be understood by natives to the writing of nonnatives (23).
The cooperative model being proposed in German is similar to the one that the recently approved Cooperative French Studies major and minor will use. That is, in almost all cases, the three institutions will offer the introductory and intermediate sequences (German 101–102 and German 201–202) on their own campuses. If possible, they will also offer the first courses in the advanced-level curriculum (German 311–312) on their campuses.
If a given campus needs to partner with another institution—for example, in the offering of German 311–312 at Northern State University—these arrangements will be made as they become necessary. The important consideration is the quality and the viability of instruction on all three campuses in the early phases of the program. Quality of instruction should not be sacrificed by having the 311–312 sequence shared among all three campuses if this would result in classes of 30–40 students. The 311–312 sequence requires intensive work that can be conducted only with a limited number of students (optimally, no more than 15). However, all three institutions will work together so that courses can be offered in a predictable way to ensure the viability of the program on all three campuses.
As with the Cooperative French Studies Program, the faculty members in German have agreed on an upper-division sequence that provides both variety and continuity. But they have chosen to use existing courses within the system and to make changes only as necessary. The upper-division sequence that the German faculty has chosen is the following:
“ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 1986.” Defining and Developing Proficiency: Guidelines, Implementations, and Concepts. Ed. Heidi Byrnes and Michael Canale. Lincolnwood: Natl. Textbook, 1987. 15–24.
Brod, Richard, and Bettina J. Huber. “Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 1995.” ADFL Bulletin 28.2 (1997): 55–61. [Show Article]
Edwards, J. David. Remarks. Advisory Council of the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Louisville. 28 March 1996.
Ervin, Gerard. Realizing the Potential of Foreign Language Instruction. Lincolnwood: Natl. Textbook, 1990.
Hadley, Alice Omaggio. Teaching Language in Context. 2nd ed. Boston: Heinle, 1993.
Welch, Tom. Remarks. National Council of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages. Philadelphia. 20 Nov. 1996.
| Percentage of Change between Surveys | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960–70 | 1970–80 | 1980–90 | 1990–95 | |
| Arabic | +146.4 | +160.0 | +0.3 | +27.9 |
| Chinese | +238.3 | +82.2 | +71.5 | +35.8 |
| French | +57.0 | -30.9 | +9.7 | -24.6 |
| German | +38.6 | -37.3 | +5.1 | -27.8 |
| Hebrew | +332.1 | +17.3 | -33.1 | +1.0 |
| Italian | +207.3 | +1.6 | +42.9 | -11.9 |
| Japanese | +279.2 | +73.8 | +297.3 | -2.2 |
| Portuguese | +390.3 | -3.4 | +26.9 | +5.2 |
| Russian | +18.4 | -33.7 | +86.0 | -44.6 |
| Spanish | +117.8 | -2.5 | +40.7 | +13.5 |
| Total | +75.0 | -18.3 | +29.8 | -4.5 |
|
Registrations in the Ten Leading
Modern Foreign Languages, 1960–95 |
||
|---|---|---|
| 1960 | 1995 | |
| Arabic | 541 | 4,444 |
| Chinese | 1,844 | 26,471 |
| French | 228,813 | 205,351 |
| German | 146,116 | 96,263 |
| Hebrew | 3,834 | 13,127 |
| Italian | 11,142 | 43,760 |
| Japanese | 1,746 | 44,723 |
| Portuguese | 1,033 | 6,531 |
| Russian | 30,570 | 24,729 |
| Spanish | 178,689 | 606,286 |
| Total | 604,328 | 1,071,685 |
© 1998 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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