one way French enrollments were brought up

[Devin P Browne]

The following is an action plan taken by French teachers who realized that
numbers in their program were suddenly starting to decline.  There are
great suggestions that I've seen in other research I've done as well on
this subject.  Anyone in a high school Russian classroom could benefit
from this action plan, so I thought that I would share it.  A bit of
modification could probably make it applicable to the higher ed level as
well.

Please keep in mind this is a *forwarded* message.  If you'd like to
contact this person, please do not just hit the REPLY key because I'm just
forwarding this on from another group.

:-)

Devin

Devin P Browne
dpbrowne+ at pitt.edu

FORWARDED MESSAGE:
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Date:    Sat, 17 May 1997 22:57:51 CDT
From:    Evelyn Erven <ederven at peapod.com>
Subject: French Enrollment Up!

Our French enrollment is up and climbing!  And, we are doing it without
exchange
programs, trips to France, or even a French club!

My colleague and I had always smuggly patted each other on the back
because our
enrollment had remained more or less the same since we each began teaching
in
the district over 25 years ago.  We had heard of the national trend in
declining
French enrollments but thought we were somehow immune.  Our wake-up call
came
two years ago when our 1st year enrollment dropped to one section.  We
usually
have 2-3 sections.  So, we charted out a plan that required minimal work
outside
of school, not wanting to take away from our class prep time (or our
lives!).
This year we jumped to 4 sections of first year French and have retained
the
numbers (some move-ins) into 2nd year.  We also have 4 sections of first
year
signed up for next year, and they are larger classes than we had this
year.
Here is what we did:

1. (This is the most important!!!!)  We recruit from our own department!
I
don't mean that we fight the Spanish, German, and Latin teachers for
students.
We all work together encouraging students to take a 2nd (or 3rd) foreign
language.  Instead of losing students their senior year to another
department
for their "fun" electives, many are now taking 1st year of another foreign
language along with 4th/5th year of their first foreign language.  And,
they
are
having fun learning colors, numbers, etc. again.  They are getting "A's"
without
much effort because of their previous experience in a foreign language.
We
teachers love having these older students mixed in with the freshman
because it
has really raised the academic level of the classes.  Some students did
drop
their first FL when they signed up for the 2nd FL, but these were students
we feel would have dropped anyway and would have taken an art class or
other
elective in another department.  Our entire department has increased
enrollment.

2. To "sell" the students on the idea, we emphasize all year how easy and
fun
the 2nd FL will be.  Most students are unaware of how the 1st FL helps in
learning the 2nd FL.

3. We give a lot of attention  all year to the students taking 2 FL's,
asking
them questions in class about how their 1st FL compares to what we are
learning.
 We remind the other students how they may want to sign up for another FL
when
they are juniors or seniors.  We tell them how much better it looks on
their
transcripts to have 2 FL's instead of some other electives.  Hey, how many
Americans take two FL's?

I'm surprised how well this seems to work.  I have a lot of freshmen
telling me
they are going to take a 2nd FL when they are juniors or seniors.

4.  We have a recruitment day shortly before they register for the
following
year.  We select 3-4 students who have 2 FL's (best to select "cool" kids
for
this) and have them go into every foreign language class to tell how great
their
experience has been.  We let the students work out what they were going to
do.
This year they did a little skit in all the languages together.  They also
passed out candy to students in class who answered their questions
"correctly"
(Do you think you might want to take a second FL someday?, etc)

5. Whenever one of my students comes into my classroom outside of class
with a
friend who is not in French, I always ask him if he is thinking about a
2nd FL
(French, we hope!).

6. Our school has an 8th grade parents' night where 8th graders and their
parents come to the school to learn about class selections for their
freshman
year.  We give out homework coupons to our currect students if they "send
us an
8th grader".  The 8th grader has to tell us the name of the student, and
then
we
have the opportunity to tell him how much we would like to have him join
us
next
year.  We have a brightly colored hand-out with our selling points.  One
selling
point that seems to make an impression on parents is the fact that since
"everyone" takes Spanish, there is a need in the business community for
someone
who knows a different FL.  We also hand out a comparison of vocabulary
words in
the four languages, so the students will see that French looks more like
English
than the other FL's.

8. This year we sent letters home (and a large France sticker) to the 8th
graders who are younger brothers and sisters of our current students
inviting
them to join our "French Family".

9. We don't have a French club (clubs were almost entirely wiped out as a
budget
cut a few years ago).  So, we include one French club type activity per
month,
usually during the school day.  And, we give it a lot of publicity so the
Spanish, German, and Latin students will hear what we are doing.  Sometime
I'll
post what we do, if anyone is interested.

10. For next year, I am working on some type of "reward" for the
tri-lingual
students.

Hope these ideas will help some of the rest of you francophones!