It's all Greek to Me: Critical Issues in Foreign Language Instruction

More college and university students are studying foreign languages than ever before. The number taking foreign language courses is growing twice as fast as undergraduate enrollment. Yet in some ways these figures are misleading. The proportion of college students enrolled in foreign language courses fell by half between 1960 and 2002, from 16 percent to 8 percent. Just 10,000 college students are currently studying Arabic and only 40,000, Chinese.

Foreign Languages in the United States

Despite this country's ethnic diversity, Americans still place little emphasis on learning foreign languages. The overwhelming majority of Americans are monolingual.

Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of Americans speak a language other than English at home. Today, the figure is about one in five. In California, the figure is two in five. In most large states, over a quarter of households speak a language other than English. The states with the fewest foreign language speakers are concentrated in the South. In West Virginia, just 2.7 percent of the population consists of non-English speakers; in Mississippi, the figure is 3.6 percent.

Trends in the Study of Foreign Language

Spanish constitutes 53 percent of college foreign language enrollment, followed by French (14.4 percent), German (7.1 percent), Italian (4.5 percent), and American Sign Language (4.3 percent). French is holding steady, while German, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese have grown. The fastest increases are in American Sign Language, Arabic, and Biblical Hebrew. Interest in Italian and Hebrew is greatest in the Northeast. Asian languages are most popular in the West.

A long-term perspective, covering the past three decades, shows an actual decline in the proportion of college students taking foreign languages other than Spanish. The steepest long-term declines have been in French (which lost 48 percent of its enrollment between 1968 and the early 2000s) and in German (in which enrollment fell by 57.9 percent). Enrollment in Japanese, in contrast, increased 8-fold over that span, and in Chinese 5.5-fold.

In the past, college students took foreign languages primarily to fulfill distribution requirements. Today, many students say that the reason is pragmatic: Because a language will be useful in their professional life. Another striking trend is the increase in heritage speakers enrolled in language courses.

Challenges

The challenges facing language departments are multiple. Within colleges and universities, the status of language programs is highly uneven. Spanish is experiencing record enrollment increases. But graduate programs in some other languages are struggling to survive, while demand for still other languages, such as Arabic, is failing to keep pace with student demand.

In addition, there is sometimes a condescending attitude toward language instruction as opposed to the study of literature and culture and linguistics. At many colleges and universities, language skills courses are marginalized and language instruction is treated as a service activity.

Other challenges involve the students. The United States is largely unique in its belief that a language can be acquired through four semester-long college courses. Less than a third of elementary schools offer any instruction in a foreign language. And while about half of high school students take a foreign language, very few schools offer conversation classes in a foreign language, and most devote relatively few hours to language study. Thus, the overwhelming majority of students arrive at college lacking any foreign language proficiency.

The importance of foreign language instruction

In the wake of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks and the increasing interconnections within the global economy, no one doubts the importance of improving Americans' language skills and cultural awareness.

But language acquisition is also an important area of scholarship in its own right. This is a subject with significant socio-linguistic, cognitive, and psychological dimensions. We have much more to learn about the mechanisms through which individual acquire a second language, the differences in language learning between children and adults, and the most effective pedagogies. Other key issues involve:

• The most successful ways to teach heritage speakers;
• Training, mentoring, and ladders of advancement for TAs;
• Communicative versus grammatical approaches to language teaching;
• The most reliable and valid methods of assessment; and
• Study abroad and technology-mediated learning.

Key Questions:

• What is the current state of foreign language instruction at the university level?
  
• What pedagogies are being used?
  
• Why is it so difficult for many students to learn a foreign language?
  
• What competencies and level of proficiency do we expect students to acquire?
  
• How successful are foreign language programs in teaching the languages to students?
  
• How much of the foreign language is retained and for how long?
  
• What's the future of foreign language instruction in the United States?
  

What do we know?

1. Most students want to achieve a level of oral proficiency, with many fewer interested in developing reading skills. But speaking is actually the most difficult proficiency to acquire. In short, many students bring unrealistic expectations to the classroom.

2. Student goals are utilitarian or commercial. Many want to fulfill a requirement and broaden their cultural background, but increasingly many believe a language will be useful in their careers.

3. Just as many college students suffer from math anxiety, many experience language phobia, and their negative expectations too often prove to be self-fulfilling. Many students are convinced that language learning mainly involves the study of grammar, believe that only very young children are capable of learning a foreign language. Unrealistic expectations combine with negative attitudes to convince many students that they cannot learn a foreign language.

4. Student success in acquiring a second language rests largely on the instructor's preparation, commitment, and enthusiasm

5. The dominant approach to language instruction is eclectic. Yet certain trends are apparent:

• Drills are giving way to language use in real communicative contexts
  
• Instructors are humanizing classes (with more emphasis on culture and audio-visual materials) and personalizing instruction
  
• There is a growing recognition of diversity in learning styles

How can these insights inform and enhance our teaching?

In recent years, instructors have moved away from an IRE approach, involving initiation of topics by the instructor, response by the students, and evaluation or assessment by the instructor. They seek to give students feelings of confidence and competence.

• Instructors are bringing multiple texts into the language classroom, including art, movies, and music.
  
• Instructors are placing greater emphasis on student engagement and participation, including, small group activities, conversation, and written and oral presentations.
  
• "Real world" activities have assumed greater importance, demonstrating not only how people speak, but how they interact.
  
• Instructional strategies increasingly emphasize the diversity of student learners, who bring to the class different learning styles, different strengths, interests, and skill, different experiential, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds.
  
• Assessment takes multiple forms. There are formative assessments that provide insights into what students are learning, and offer opportunities to modify pedagogical techniques. In addition to quizzes and exams, there are other kinds of performance reviews, including one-on-one conversations.