30, no. 2 (Winter 1999): 43-45
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Two Exempla of Foreign Language Programs
Jean A. Perkins
ALTHOUGH my active teaching days are over, I continue to maintain a strong interest in foreign language education. I retired in 1990, and a great many things, very few good, have happened since then. I was never called on to meet many of the challenges you face today; I will not review them but will try to give some sense of the various responses that seem to be working in today's ever-changing educational environment.
My sense of the situation today is that attention should be focused on the foreign language departments involved in training future teachers at the K-12 levels. If the college or university departments of foreign languages are alive and well, there is a good chance that they will produce well-prepared and committed teachers at the lower levels. Two very different places seem to me to be thriving and in a position to contribute to a vital and dynamic cadre of primary and secondary school teachers.
Let me turn first to a state institution that has very close contacts with the schools in its area: the University of Delaware. Some 15,000 of its 20,000 students are enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is a vibrant unit comprising 54 full-time teachers, 4 part-time teachers, 20 adjuncts, and 25 TAs. They teach about 7,500 students a year, almost half the undergraduate body, of which 35% continue studying a foreign language after having completed the foreign language requirement. There is a choice of nine modern languages: Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese; Latin and ancient Greek are also offered.
The department engages in what I would term aggressive marketing, in a good sense. At the end of each semester instructors carry on an active dialogue with their classes on the various options available next semester; sheets that are handed out to each student describe higher-level courses and study-abroad choices. Faculty members also engage in activities that bring them into contact with other departments in the university and with schoolteachers throughout the state (Delaware is rather small, after all). An annual newsletter called The Polyglot outlines the department's accomplishments over the past academic year. Now twenty pages long, it is sent to all post-1970 majors and minors, all previous study-abroad students, the persons listed on the campus administrative mailing list, all faculty members in arts and sciences (about 400), all foreign language teachers and school superintendents in Delaware, and a selected group of MLA members. This is truly an innovative way of keeping the work of the department in clear focus for a widespread group of people.
One area in which Delaware excels is its study-abroad program. Taking advantage of Delaware's 4-1-4 calendar, the department has devised seven winter study-abroad sessions—in French, German, Italian, and Spanish—for students at the intermediate level; any student from any department who participates in a winter session and takes two additional courses is granted a foreign language certificate. There are three summer options, in Japanese, Spanish, and French, the French jointly sponsored with the music department. At a more advanced level there are two fall and three spring semester programs, in French, Italian, Spanish, and German; the German one has a summer internship available. Any student completing one of these programs automatically earns a minor in that language. All courses offered abroad satisfy the various university graduation requirements, making it easier for students to include a semester abroad in their plans. All these programs enlist about 300 students a year. In conjunction with these programs, the department has developed an active student and faculty exchange program that enriches both the home campus and the institution abroad.
Delaware is fortunate to have an excellent facility, the Foreign Language Media Center. Installed in 1990, it is now being upgraded with the support of a $200,000 grant. Many faculty members use the center, enhancing both language and culture courses. Faculty members are also pursuing interactions with other departments, especially through area studies programs such as African, East Asian, Jewish, and Spanish. They further reach out to other colleagues by offering a faculty foreign language program, open to all university faculty and staff members and professionals.
In the area of teacher training, about 20 students a yea graduate with foreign language education certificates; almost all of them have participated in the study-abroad program. One interesting feature is that all foreign language pedagogy courses are given within the foreign language department; the students take the other required education courses in the education department. This means that faculty members who are actively engaged in teaching languages themselves are the ones who train the next generation. An MA is available through graduate courses at the university or its Summer Institute, established in 1989 for secondary school teachers in French, German, and Spanish. It draws about 60 teachers each summer, most of them from Delaware (tuition is waived for these students), but there are some enrollments from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. Running from the end of school in June through the middle of August, it is divided into three intensive sessions, two of which are oriented toward literature and culture and one toward pedagogy.
Let me mention two recent programs that are just getting started. A Spanish immersion weekend last summer brought together 18 secondary school teachers for a concentrated investigation of both linguistics and culture. Similar immersion programs may soon occur in other languages. Finally, this semester the French section started a Foreign Language for Youngsters (FLY!) program, teaching French to fifth- and sixth-graders on Saturday mornings. This turned out to be a poor choice of time, conflicting with such other activities as soccer and ballet, so some adjustments will have to be made.
Obviously, running a department engaged in so many different activities requires a department chair who is truly dedicated, open to new ideas and suggestions, supportive of the department's faculty, and caring about what goes on in every nook and cranny of the department.
I now turn to a completely different set of circumstances: the consortium of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges. All these mostly undergraduate colleges are small (under 2,000), highly selective, and intellectually challenging. None of them has teacher training as a major part of their mission, but they all do produce a few foreign language teachers each year. Bryn Mawr offers an MA in French and in second language acquisition. Students may take courses at any one of the three institutions, giving them a choice of ten modern languages: Chinese, French, German, and Spanish at all three; Russian at Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore; Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, and Swahili at Bryn Mawr; Japanese at Haverford. Students enrolled in these language, literature, and culture courses range from about 70% of the student body at Swarthmore to an astonishing 99% at Haverford. All three colleges stress study abroad, and their faculties are active in the various area studies programs, such as Asian, francophone, Latin American, German, comparative literature, and medieval studies. Swarthmore is currently developing a foreign-language-across-the-curriculum program, starting with German in collaboration with history, political science, music, philosophy, and religion.
The consortium has recently received a large grant (over $1 million) from the Mellon Foundation, in the words of their proposal, to “integrate new technologies into the teaching of foreign languages and cultures in the tri-college community” and to “encourage a new level of cooperation among the three institutions.” The latter goal is already being accomplished as the three colleges coordinate their advanced offerings in each language. The grant is divided almost evenly among three areas: equipment (giving Bryn Mawr a new state-of-the-art media center, allowing Haverford to place media equipment in some classrooms and enabling Swarthmore to install a satellite disk), technical support (two staff members), and, most important, faculty development (time off to work on projects, summer stipends, workshops, replacement faculty). Having seen some of the programs already completed, I would say that this initiative has the possibility of completely transforming the way languages and their cultures are taught. Authentic up-to-date material is available in all languages. Students are being exposed to the foreign culture in ways never before available. The future use of technology in language teaching is exciting to contemplate.
The teacher-training programs at the three colleges are similar. Bryn Mawr and Haverford have a joint education program; there are at most three students graduating with a foreign language certificate each year. These students major in one language and complete their education requirements in the education program; they are strongly urged to enroll in the study-abroad program for at least one semester and to participate in the training classes given for the apprentice teachers who help out in the beginning language courses. An exciting new development is just starting under the auspices of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation that will enable the director of the education program to enlist a cadre of master teachers from neighboring school districts to visit the campus at least four times a semester to hold intensive discussions with these aspiring teachers. This should ensure a better understanding of what goes on on both sides of the grade-12 barrier and encourage even closer cooperation between the schools and the colleges.
At Swarthmore, students seeking a teaching certificate in foreign languages must take the equivalent of a major in that subject including study abroad for at least one semester and take at least one course in linguistics plus the required courses in education. They are assessed at the beginning and end of their course work for proficiency in all areas, the assessment being done by an ACTFL certied examiner. Since it is very hard to fit in all the requirements in a regular four-year program, Swarthmore offers an optional ninth semester in which students do their student teaching and participate in a methodology seminar. Only a handful of students graduate with a foreign language certificate, two in 1997 and three in 1998.
There you have it: a veritable cornucopia of ways in which different institutions have responded to the crisis in foreign language education. The department that refuses to consider at least some of these ideas will not survive into the twenty-first century. The need for foreign language teachers in the schools appears to be growing as various states mandate new requirements for graduation from high school. In November 1997 the New York Board of Regents twice stunned the state by first adding and then quickly rescinding three years of a foreign language to its requirements for a high school diploma. The chancellor of the New York City school district expressed concern about the need to hire “1,000 additional foreign language teachers at a time when teachers are already in short supply” (Pérez-Peña). In Pennsylvania the governor has proposed that all schoolteachers must have majored in the subject they will be teaching rather than in education. The College Preparatory Curriculum in Georgia now requires two years of a foreign language. As foreign language educators responsible for training all these newly needed schoolteachers, we must take on this challenge. Schools and universities have reciprocal needs; we need schools as much as schools need us. Working together we surely can ensure the future of foreign language education.
The author is Susan W. Lippincott Professor of French, Emerita, at Swarthmore College. This article is based on her presentation at the 1997 MLA convention in Toronto, Ontario.
Work Cited
Pérez-Peña, Richard. “New York High School Diploma to Require Three Years of Language.” New York Times 15 Nov. 1997: A1.
© 1999 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 30, no. 2 (Winter 1999): 43-45 |
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