New York: Learning Another Language

Fri Apr 10 15:34:09 UTC 2009

Learning Another Language
by Sharmeen Gangat
April 2009

President Barack Obama has admitted he feels chagrined that he can't
speak another language. "It's embarrassing when Europeans come over
here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German.
And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup,
right?" Obama said at a town hall meeting last July. While campaigning
for president, Obama said he thought all American students should
learn another language. Now that he has taken office, though, his push
for foreign language instruction has faded.  "His [Obama's] failure to
include language learning in his education policy statement is
regrettable," said Bret Lovejoy, executive director of the executive
director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Foreign language education is particularly important in New York City,
Lovejoy said, because of the city's role in commerce, finance, culture
and entertainment.

Unilingual Nation

Judging from the numbers, foreign language education is hardly a
priority in the country as a whole or in New York. One study found
only 44 percent of U.S. high school students take a foreign language
class. As a result, only 9 percent of Americans -- as opposed to about
half of all Europeans -- speak one or more foreign languages. A 2003
report found a continuing decline in enrollments in foreign language
classes across the country.

New York State calls for the learning of foreign language for both
middle and high school students. They "are required two years of
seat-time and one high school [language] credit before the end of
ninth grade," John Carlino, executive director of New York State
Association of Foreign Language Teachers, said in an email message.
This means middle school students must take two years of the language
-- accounting for at least one high school language credit -- before
the end of ninth grade.

Learning a foreign language, however, is not a prerequisite for a
standard Regents high school diploma in New York State, although
students who want to earn an Advanced Regents Diploma are supposed to
take one Regents examination in a language other than English.

At the high school-level, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin and
Cantonese), French, German, Greek (Classic and Modern), Haitian
Creole, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Polish, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish, Urdu, Yiddish are offered somewhere in the school
system, and after a decline in the teaching of Latin, reports cite a
renewed interest in that language.

While the city's public schools as a whole offer an array of language
choices, options at individual schools are far more limited. Last
year, based on a survey of the city's high school directory, City
Limits found that more than 180 city high schools only offer Spanish
(in addition to English). This presents a quandary for tens of
thousands of high school students who already speak Spanish fluently.

This situation exists throughout the country. Partly as a result of
the limited language offerings in American schools, "only 44 percent
of students study any foreign language and ... 70 percent of those
learn [only] Spanish," said Barry Lowenkron, then an assistant U.S.
secretary of state, in 2006.

The issue of foreign language instruction is different from bilingual
education, through which most subjects are taught using two different
languages. While bilingual education started as a way to teach
English, an increasing number of programs include both English
speakers and English language learners. The English speakers learn a
foreign language, and the foreign language speakers improve their
English language skills. According to a spokesperson for the New York
City Department of Education, such programs "may begin as early as
kindergarten, and the number of these programs has expanded from 52 in
2004-05 to 81 programs in 2008-09."

Popular Languages
Some of the impetus for foreign language education in New York City
schools comes from ethnic groups who want to ensure their language
plays a role in the city's education. Italian American leaders, for
example, have promoted the use of Italian and in July 2008,
established the Italian Language Foundation. Schools serving large
Russian communities, such as Edward R. Murrow in Brooklyn, are more
likely to offer Russian classes. The handful of city schools teaching
Arabic tend to have substantial numbers of Arab students.

This trend has been fueled by the city's charter schools, schools that
are publicly funded but privately run. Next fall, for example, a
charter school offering Hebrew instruction, will open in the Mill
Basin section of Brooklyn. The city already has a charter school
providing classes in Greek.

Besides the support for specific languages by community leaders,
government policies also play a crucial role in determining language
priorities. The Bush administration focused on security-related
language learning after Sept. 11, 2001, and expanded programs for
teaching Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. In 2007, $8.7 million were given out
in grants to school districts in 20 states, including New York, for
foreign language instruction in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and
Farsi.

Competing Demands
Whatever the interest in foreign language education, obstacles exist
to making it a more integral part of the school program.

One is a shortage of certified teachers, particularly in languages
less frequently taught than French and Spanish. In order to be
accredited, a language teacher has to have a total of 30 college
credits in the language they will teach. Fluency is not enough.

Preference for specific languages widens the gap between the need and
the availability of teachers in those languages as is seen in the case
of Chinese. In recent years, the demand for Chinese language teachers
has surged because "the number of Chinese programs, in preschool
through high school, has grown by almost 200 percent since 2004," the
Asia Society has reported.

Foreign languages also have been affected by other city educational
priorities. For instance, the Department of Education has replaced
many large schools with small ones that, because of their size, cannot
present the range of course offering the huge schools did.

And, particularly at the middle-school level, as schools increasingly
focus on English and math, they have less time for other classes.
"There are only eight periods in the day," Barry Johnson, a bilingual
social studies teacher, at IS 302 in Cypress Hills told City Limits.
His school used to teach French, Italian and Russian, as well as
Spanish. Today, he said, it offers no foreign language classes at all.

Then there are budget cuts. Language education might bear some of the
burden of repeated, multimillion-dollar reductions. Carlino, for one,
hopes not.

"Cuts to any aspect of education that would impact future generations'
ability to make a life for themselves in the world would be
short-sighted," said Carlino of the language teachers' association.
"This could be detrimental to our nation's security."

http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/education/20090410/6/2879

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