[lg policy] CAL Board of Trustees Statement on the National K-12 Foreign Language Survey

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded From: Edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu

Via ILR-INFO [ILR-INFO at FSILIST2.FSI.STATE.GOV]...

***********

CAL Board of Trustees Statement on the National K–12 Foreign Language Survey

November 2010

In the increasingly interconnected world of the 21st century,
Americans must be able to communicate effectively in English and other
world languages. Yet while countries around the world are implementing
language programs that position their students to become multilingual
world citizens, results of a recent national report by the Center for
Applied Linguistics (Rhodes & Pufahl, 2010) reveal that opportunities
for U.S. students to learn a foreign language have declined:

Foreign language education has decreased dramatically at the
elementary and middle school levels over the past decade, erasing
gains made in previous decades.
Public schools are less likely to offer foreign language instruction
than private schools. In addition, rural schools and schools with a
high percentage of low-income students are less likely to offer
foreign languages than urban and suburban schools and schools with
more affluent students. Many schools offer no foreign language
instruction at all.
The vast majority of elementary school foreign language programs do
not have a goal of high-level language proficiency for their students.
Articulation of language programs from one level to the next is
frequently ill-planned or not planned at all.
There is an acute shortage of qualified foreign language teachers.

The Board of Trustees of the Center for Applied Linguistics is alarmed
by these trends and considers foreign language education in the United
States to be in a state of near crisis. Reversing these trends and
meeting the need for a language-competent U.S. citizenry will require
a comprehensive long-term strategy that makes language learning a
national priority. CAL’s Board endorses the report’s recommendations,
urging those responsible for education policy and practice to do the
following:

Emphasize the need for high-quality foreign language education and
make foreign language teaching and learning a priority in the K–12
curriculum.
Ensure equal access to foreign language instruction for all U.S.
students regardless of income, location, or type of school.
Encourage and facilitate the establishment of intensive, long-term
language programs that enable students to reach a high level of
proficiency.
Support foreign language teaching that begins in the early grades and
continues through high school graduation, with instruction being
carefully articulated so that each level builds on learning from the
previous level.
Work with institutions of higher education to increase the number of
certified language teachers and ensure that they are prepared to
provide high-quality instruction.

Our nation’s capacity to maintain national security, promote
international cooperation, compete effectively in a global economy,
and enhance our domestic well-being depends on our ability to
communicate in other languages and across cultures. It is time to heed
the calls for action by countless organizations, business leaders,
government agencies, and individuals to acknowledge the
well-documented individual and societal benefits of foreign language
learning and to incorporate foreign languages into the core curriculum
at every level of education and in every community across the nation.

Rhodes, N. C., & Pufahl, I. (2010). Foreign language teaching in U.S.
schools: Results of a national survey. Washington, DC: Center for
Applied Linguistics.

URL:  http://www.cal.org/about/foreign-language-survey.html
-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list