Feb. 21, 2007

Languages Without Language Faculty

Back in 2001, Drake University did what to many language professors was nothing less than horrific: It announced that foreign language instruction wasn’t working, killed its language departments, and got rid of the instructors, including those with tenure. Drake’s president promised some sort of new approach, based on study abroad and individualized online instruction. Language professors at Drake and elsewhere were outraged and, noting that the university hadn’t figured out what it would put in place, predicted that the university would do terrible harm to language study and the humanities.

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Six years later, Drake still doesn’t have language departments or language professors, but it does have a new approach to language instruction in place. And Drake — the institution language professors couldn’t say enough bad things about — is being hailed in some quarters as a model. Last week the W.M. Keck Foundation and the Council of Independent Colleges announced a new program designed to help small and mid-sized private colleges and universities transform their language programs based on the Drake approach. Interest is not limited to the private sector: Portland State University, in Oregon, is about to start a pilot program using some of the Drake approach in its Spanish classes.

The interest in Drake’s ideas comes at a time of considerable moves to reform foreign language instruction. The Modern Language Association is putting the finishing touches on a report that will call for radical shifts in how undergraduate and graduate programs in foreign languages are taught, with a shift away from a language/literature model to one that places much more emphasis on culture, history, economics, politics and more. Philosophically, there are parts of the Drake program that appear consistent with the MLA push — both approaches argue that traditional teaching methods need to change, and that students need a broad understanding of the cultures whose languages they are studying, not just vocabulary and literature.

But there are key differences as well. Most notably, the MLA views faculty members as not only part of, but crucial to, instruction. Drake, as a university that did away with language departments, takes a different view, with most of the learning taking place in small student groups of four — coached not by a professor, but by a native speaker of the language, typically an international student. Whereas Drake views this as a bold approach that gives students a more intense education on becoming fluent, many others view it as a cop-out and a dangerous sidelining of professors. And it’s in that context that the move to encourage the Drake approach elsewhere is attracting both excitement and great concern.

“The problem with foreign language teaching in a traditional format is that an hour a day every other day just doesn’t get people to the intensity that people need. People get discouraged and they drop out after a few years,” said Richard H. Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges. Drake’s method, he said, “is a winning approach, in which students have greater progress and reach a level of functional competency earlier.”

Even if there is functional literacy, many say that the definition of college-level language instruction is being devalued and that the student experience is being cheapened. “There’s more than just the ability to learn to speak a language, which you could do in Berlitz,” said Ginny Lewis, who lost her job teaching German when Drake eliminated all the language faculty positions.

Lewis, who is now on the faculty at Northern State University, in South Dakota, said that “the students in my classroom have access to me around the clock — not only am I an educator with knowledge that goes beyond that of a 22-year-old native speaker, who doesn’t understand the how or why of language, but I offer students encouragement. I offer students a lot of background knowledge of why they are learning what they are learning.”

Lewis defends an idea that some at Drake consider old-fashioned: “Regardless of what a college student is studying, that student deserves an expert professor in the classroom.”

Of course Jan Marston, the head of Drake’s language program, in explaining its approach, happened to say: “You need to let go of the idea that it all happens in class.”

More Languages Than Before

The program Marston leads is called the Drake University Language Acquisition Program and goes by its acronym, DULAP. Students who want to study a language take a two-semester course, in English, on language acquisition skills — this course mixes students studying a range of tongues and does not focus on any particular language. The actual language instruction takes place in four-student sections for which the curriculum is organized by DULAP coordinators and the discussions are led by native speakers, typically international students at Drake. These four-student sections range from beginning to advanced and also can be grouped around student interests. Currently, Drake is offering these sections in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Hindi, Japanese, Russian and Spanish — compared to just French, German and Spanish when the university eliminated departments.

The coordinators are educators with knowledge of various languages, and outsiders work remotely with the section leaders when Drake’s staff lacks background in a given language — Russian is led by a professor in Texas, for example. Blogs are a key way for these staffers to interact with students and the section leaders. The coordinators have been considered academic staff, but Drake is currently looking for ways to convert their slots to faculty. Marston said she expected the conversions to be done during the next year, but did not expect the positions to be tenure track. It is these coordinators who also set up outside reviews of student work — through electronic portfolios the students create, showing their progress at speaking the languages and studying the cultures.

Christen Bain, a junior at Drake who is majoring in international relations and marketing, has taken both French and Spanish at the university, and raves about the way the small sections work — with the e-portfolio tapes of conversations showing growth. “You really see how much you’ve improved. I’m amazed at what I’ve learned,” she said.

David Maxwell, Drake’s president, said that meeting student goals is the whole point. “The primary philosophy is that the learning experience for each student is tailored to the individual student’s learning goals,” he said, so we find out “what are their goals for the language?” (While some of the anti-Drake comments over the years have assumed that the place must be run by widget counters who just don’t get foreign languages, Maxwell is a Russian studies scholar who previously directed the National Foreign Language Center.)

A key part of that philosophy, Marston said, is admitting what language students do not want to be: professors. “Most traditional language departments are language and literature departments, and most of what they were doing is focused around their desire to prepare other people — their best students — to do as they were doing,” she said. As a result, she added “many enrollments are declining.” The Drake program is based on the idea that “students don’t want to become language professors — they want to go out in the world, so they have to be able to communicate.”

Marston, who spent much of her career as more traditional French professor before coming to Drake, said that she understood that some people would view this approach as a threat to faculty jobs. But she said faculty jobs were already changing — and not necessarily the way professors want — as retiring language professors are replaced by adjuncts on many campuses. Spanish departments can’t fill positions fast enough while many other professors lack enough students, Marston said, so uncertainty in the profession shouldn’t be blamed on the Drake approach. (The most recent job data from the MLA actually show a stable market, with improvements in languages besides Spanish.)

“The traditional jobs are facing a shift — we’re having some kind of a monumental shift,” she said.

Ekman of the Council of Independent Colleges agreed, and he said some of the blame rests with language faculty members. He said that had Drake done nothing six years ago, language professors still might have lost their jobs — due to declining enrollments. Like most colleges, Drake does not require foreign languages (although some majors have a requirement). “If you take the long-term view with this, the initial view to eliminate foreign-language requirements came from foreign-language faculty who couldn’t be bothered to teach the basics to short-term conscripts,” Ekman said. “They would have been well served by teaching those courses and building a base of people” committed to learning languages, he added.

Drake foreign languages went through “a rough period,” but Ekman predicted that the revived program would eventually attract enough interest to generate positions for more traditional faculty slots, including those teaching literature. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, adding that other language programs might go through similar difficult periods, followed by revivals.

Since Ekman’s council and the Keck Foundation announced the grant program to help other colleges apply the Drake approach, the calls from institutions “suggest that this is pretty popular” with colleges, Ekman said.

A ‘Counterintuitive’ Approach

Should it be? Many foreign language observers say that there are parts of the Drake program that impress them a great deal — and other parts that worry them just as much. Robert Sanders, assistant professor of Spanish and coordinator of first-year courses at Portland State, said he was excited about adding the small group sessions on to more traditional language instruction. He said he viewed this approach as consistent with the “culture and languages across the curriculum” in which foreign language is not viewed through literature alone, but as part of a broader educational experience.

“The literature degrees have their place,” he said, but programs all over the country suffer because of “this institutional creep in which everyone is trying to copy the Ivy League and reproduce specialists in literature,” rather than focusing on globalization or culture or any number of other topics. “We need to break out of the fetish of literature,” he said.

Where he was troubled — and wouldn’t advocate that his university follow — is with the elimination of departments and positions.

Many educators are pushing for more expertise about different cultures to be woven into the curriculum, and that requires professors who have expertise, and that they work together in departments, Sanders said. “By eliminating the department, they gutted the program — and this is counterintuitive,” he said.

For MLA leaders as well, the question is one of balancing enthusiasm over some of the innovation at Drake while preserving faculty roles. The MLA’s president, Michael Holquist, a professor of comparative literature and of Slavic language and literature at Yale University, said he was “always pleased” when foundations back foreign language education. But he said it was important to recognize that “language is not merely the exchange of existing information — it is the means by which cultures think and dream.”

The MLA is committed to the idea that departments need to consider new approaches, he said, but academic programs should rely on professors, he said. “I believe language professors are the logical key players in formulating any new model of instruction. It is they who have in-depth knowledge not only of words but the contexts that give those words meaning,” he said. “We advocate experiments that incorporate many of the goals DULAP has set, yet we do so within a structure that honors the intellectual contexts as well as the communicative competence.”

Rosemary G. Feal, the MLA’s executive director and a former Spanish professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said she viewed language education and the staffing of language education as both being “on a continuum.” The small student groups at Drake could be viewed as a great way to enhance traditional language instruction, especially at certain stages in a student’s education. “The first step in studying a language is acquiring basic fluency,” she said, and the Drake approach is well suited.

But as students advance, it’s time to ask questions like: Are there courses offered in the literature of Latin America? Feal noted that she could find plenty of English courses at Drake teaching foreign authors in translation, but wondered where the other courses were. And she stressed that this extends beyond literature.

“The question is: What comes next? After the foundational experiences, colleges and universities need to offer the opportunity to delve into academic content — in history, economics, popular culture, film,” Feal said, questioning how much of this could be taught without professors. She added that “professors with advanced degrees in languages are uniquely qualified” to offer such instruction.

Maxwell, Drake’s president, said that he hoped people would not judge the ideas about languages coming out of his university based only on the elimination of traditional faculty slots. “This started out as a solution to a set of Drake-specific problems,” he said. But he quickly added that the university’s model — the basis for the Keck program to help other colleges — “does have significant advantages to other institutions” and that many of the Drake-specific issues he mentioned “may be shared” by other colleges.

He said he hoped the Keck grants and the experimentation they would support at other colleges would answer the question of “what parts are adaptable” from Drake to other campuses.

Lewis, the former Drake professor, hopes the answer to that question is fairly limited. She said that being forced out of a job was “quite devastating,” and not only because she had to job hunt. “I personally felt a sense of professional failure because I had not done my job as a young professor in communicating the urgent need to offer this kind of high-quality language education,” she said.

Six years later, Lewis remains stunned that it is somehow acceptable to suggest that language professors can be replaced with new systems, and she wondered what would happen if colleges started to say that historians or biologists could be replaced. “Why would you not want your language students to have the same chance as the history students — to work with professors,” she said. “Why are languages different?”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

Let’s get rid of them all...

Since everyone at an American University is assumed to be a native, or near-native speaker of English, why doesn’t Drake cut the English department as well? It would be really easy to send government students to Washington DC, or to the state senate to watch, so you could cut the Political Science department also. Students could watch the History Channel, so there’s a way to get rid of the History department. Students can work at Wal-Mart, so there’s no need for them to sit in a business classroom. Student can go play in a sandbox instead of attending a number of science classes. Shall I go on...?

Jennifer, Associate Professor, at 12:05 pm EDT on October 24, 2007

Crass Ploy

Of course Drake administrators insist this move was intended to revitalize language education. It sounds better than the truth: that teenagers from whom little has been expected, and who are accustomed to rarely if ever being challenged by educators, now get to decide what shape our universities will take. If language education had really been important to Drake, it would have been a general education requirement. That instruction is, in some instances, being handed over to the students themselves is the best illustration of the contempt in which Drake holds language education.

This is the logical conclusion of making “the market” a ruling principle in higher education: if your students become “customers,” your job as an educator is now not to bring them out of their comfort zones but to flatter their vanity. Of course language courses weren’t attracting many students. It’s not because of the emphasis on literature. It’s because they’re hard.

The final question posed in this essay is an important one. If teenagers now determine what subjects are worthy of study and support, where does this end, and at what point does the service we provide no longer deserve to be called education?

Alfred, at 8:35 am EST on February 21, 2007

Hoist on own petard?

My own observation of the teaching of “bonjour” and “au revoir” is that it is rarely done by faculty anyway (at least outside of small colleges). Faculty in modern languages have generally foisted the grunt work of teaching languages to grad students and non-tenured instructors at America’s big state and private universities. That makes it difficult, it seems to me, for them to claim that language teaching inherently requires a Ph.D and a faculty line.

Dave S., Assoc Prof at Land Grant U, at 9:31 am EST on February 21, 2007

MLA or ACTFL?

Why does everyone seem to think the MLA is the best source of information on current non-native language learning and teaching? The American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is much more active, and provides a much larger number of services for both learners and teachers of non-native languages. My experience with the MLA is that it is way behind the curve. I haven’t been a member for many years now (I am a language teacher). I have been a member of ACTFL for over 20 years. Most language teaching at the university level these days is heavily communicative, and assessments of cultural knowledge, speaking, listening, reading, and writing are proficiency-based.

If you want to know what is truly going on in the world of language learning, Look at ACTFL.

Valery Prill, Dean of Arts & Humanities at Lipscomb University, at 9:31 am EST on February 21, 2007

Silly Professor, Learning is for Students!

Of course some professors are going to rally against Drake’s program. The most typical and tired reaction is that Drake is now “bowing to the market.”

Never mind the fact that the Drake plan was not implemented on student demand, but college initiative and was always based on learning (a subject many professors know surprinsgly little about), not cowtowing to the market. In fact, students did not demand this change at all.

What the change was based on was the fact that there is absolutely no — none, zip, zero, nada — evidence that sitting in a classroom 3-5 times a week for 50 minutes is the best method for learning a foreign language or culture. But Drake has clearly demonstrated that students can learn a foreign language using learning methods that work. Even better, they just don’t learn a language; they take a holistic view, learning about the culture and how it relates to the rest of the world. There is no evidence that traditional foriegn language classes do this. If student learning, not professor convenience, the ultimate goal, why would anyone be against this? And if Drake can demonstrate this, and traditional foreign language professors cannot, then shouldn’t we demand that the method where student learning is enhanced be used?

Some (not all) professors, however, have a different view. They believe that by just sitting in a room and listenting them drone on for 50-90 minutes at a time, students are somehow learning, despite the fact that they will resist showing evidence of this at all costs and on assumptions about how people learn that are hundreds of years old, despite the existence of better models. These people resist change at any moment, often claiming that colleges are giving into the market, listening to much to students, or that administrators are trying to cut costs.

Alfred said it best by stating that Drake holds contempt for “foreign language education.” Drake should be proud of that fact. They have chosen to focus on student learning, not teaching. Sorry, but colleges exist to meet the learning needs of students, not the teaching needs of professors. This change clearly shows that Drake put the learning needs of students over the needs of some professors (usually limited to parking, health care, and retirement benefits, but rarely students).

PS, at 10:17 am EST on February 21, 2007

Languages

As someone who has studied a number of languages, both classical and modern, and former Engilish as a foreign language instructor, I find the Drake approach shortsighted to say the very least. Students cannot hope to learn proper grammar from the average native speaker in a foreign language, and without proper grammar too many terrible habits get introduced and practiced at an early date. Think about how little most Americans understand about grammar! On the other hand too many American universities have shifted to the immersion approach, that insists upon instructors never speaking to students in English. This also means that students in these classrooms can never learn grammar and will barely go beyond the “me am hungry” stage of fluency. One cannot be “immersed” in a language through three hours of class room work a week. Foreign language instruction is vital, but the way in which it is done needs to be given a great deal of thought, and I certainly advocate a model based upon integrating the study of the history and culture related to the language studied.

Scott Hendrix, at 10:42 am EST on February 21, 2007

No Grammar — The Horror!

To Scott Hendrix: I love grammar, too, but is it really the be all end all of language learning? Isn’t it more important that students learn to communicate, learn about who they are communicating with, and why? Grammatical structure isn’t inherent to language; it’s an ever-shifting convention imposed upon human communication (and if you object to the shifting, I’ll gladly communicate with you in Chaucerian Middle English or Shakespearean Early Modern English). Knowledge of grammar—in English and in foreign languages—can surely enhance the nuances of the communication being made, and at times is, yes, essential to understanding what is being said. But it’s the icing on the cake—it’s not a true structural foundation for language. Teach grammar, yes, but we all need to start thinking of grammatical structure as an advanced part of linguistic discipline, not a basic foundation.

SRK, Attorney, at 11:07 am EST on February 21, 2007

Neo-dark ages

Drake has redefined the role of the language department by limiting it strictly to the acquisition of language. It not only stripped culture, history, politics, philosophy, music and plastic arts, but even literature. In this way, languages and their acquisition are merely a function of applied linguistics, and they use international students as living specimens for the american students to learn what they should have picked up in grade school.

No, I’m not upset at Drake’s devaluation of this discipline. To the contrary, why stop at languages? Let us answer the perennial question emanating from C- and D-average students across our nation who ask “will I ever use this in real life?” with a resounding “NO!” Let’s reduce phylosophy and psychology to self-help books, math to the use of the calculator and the spreadsheet, literature to Cosmopolitan magazine, music to Rap, and wrap architecture, physics and engineering into vast wealth of knowledge in fix-it books from Home Depot and AutoZone. Let us dispense with the tedium of the pursuit of knowledge and give the masses only the “practical” stuff they will actually use. Once we have liberated america’s youth from the bondage of outmoded antiquarians who only wish to secure their extravagant income, our higher educational system will become what it was always meant to be: an incubator of elite professionals for the NFL, NBA, NHL and MTV.

Paul R., Associate Prof at at small college, at 11:36 am EST on February 21, 2007

PS is right. Of course no one wants to lose a job! Especially one that took so long to prepare for and to find. Of course traditional language professors are going to rise up in high dudgeon about the necessity to transmit the whole culture (read: their favourite literature) along with a language, which only they can do. They are understandably prejudiced in favour of the present norm: “language” professors, with research specialties in abstruse areas of literature or linguistics, hired on tenure stream and rising through the ranks with their cohort, the professors in other disciplines (history, philosophy, English literature, sociology, economics, &c) – as if language (as opposed to linguistics) is a scholarly “discipline” instead of a simple skill or tool. Departments of “Romance Languages” or “Slavic Languages” or whatever are by definition institutionalized, ossified in a 30-year or more commitment. A hard-pressed university administrator, his or her eye on the red at the bottom line, would like to ask the professor of Russian language please to offer Chinese the next year, since 25 or 30 students want the latter and only 4 or 5 the former. A dilemma. What to do? It hurts everyone – professors, students, the institution – to do nothing and hope the problem will go away, and when it doesn’t to allow the drip-drip-drip of attrition to work its sorry poison. Teaching institutions must respect their previous contracts, but they also have to be lean and mean simply to survive, much less prosper. That means being flexible above all, particularly in language instruction in a fast-paced world. Yesterday Russian, today Spanish, tomorrow Chinese and Hindi – then back to Russian, once Vladimir Putin makes his country civilized and investor-friendly. So it is refreshing to hear that Drake University under David Maxwell’s leadership has looked beyond supporters of the status quo to the actual quality and efficiency of language learning (as opposed to language teaching). I’ve studied a few languages myself, to varying degrees of fluency (Russian, French, Dutch, German, and Georgian, not to mention high-school Latin), and taught some ESL too. At least I’ve learned what is and what is not useful. I’ve learned that if I can just master the pronunciation and a basic vocabulary of 500 words quickly, I can manage to get myself to the country where it’s spoken and learn for myself its “culture” – and it is usually not literature (and practically never linguistics) but mostly how those people see themselves and the world, so that I can learn to fit in and gain their trust. I cannot master those basic tools at a university intent on teaching me a language as determined by tenured professors with an undying (if understandable) determination to prove their worth, and as only one part of a splendid panoply of a particular society and culture. I am much better off to purchase a Rosetta Stone CD and listen to it on my own time, or download a podcast of basic language instruction that I can listen to as I drive to and from school. Or go to a Drake-style tiny language group, led (horrors) by un-degreed foreign-speakers (“informants” I believe they’re called in the trade) who are happy to pick up a few bucks to talk to excited students in the evenings.

Tony R, at 12:02 pm EST on February 21, 2007

it’s the money

Educational justifications are the fig leaf. Eliminating a large number of faculty positions including tenured faculty lines (with higher salaries) was a large cost saving to the university.

Fine. But cutting the quality of the faculty, and numbers of faculty, that does not make me any more inclined to send my charity dollars the way of the institution.

drake alum, at 12:15 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Absolutely frightening...

“[Lewis] wondered what would happen if colleges started to say that historians or biologists could be replaced.”

That hits the nail right on the head. What will happen if the bean-counting administrators at Drake decides to slit the throat of another program? I couldn’t be happier to not be working at Drake, I will now never apply to Drake, and had I been working at Drake, I would have hit the job market ASAP.

Asst. Prof of math, at 1:05 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Drake’s decision is embedded with the difference between teaching and learning and asks “what is more important?” in the academe. Are faculty there to get paid or are the students there to learn? While Drake’s approach clearly has some holes, it is appealing to students and it is helping them learn and should be validated. It is an alternative, not a replacement, to traditional teaching methods.

Keith, at 1:25 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Own-Language Instruction

This discussion raises all sorts of interesting questions for the big money-maker on most campuses: the Composition Department of the English Department. What’s going on with own-language instruction there? “PS” mentions the nugatory results of the 3-hour course, the 50-minute hours three times a week, in foreign language instruction. It’s a fair question whether three of these a week, or the 75-minute version twice a week, suffices for any subject, but I think we’re all agreed that it’s failing to produce results in own-language literacy, from Harvard to Hasboro CC. The emphasis on speaking another language is nothing new, and flatters human vanity, not student vanity: that’s what most of us do most of the time: talk. The Comp people may call it “discussion,” but such talk among students doesn’t result in better talk among students, let alone better writing, and the last thing students want to do is talk like their professors talk—about anything at all. I wonder if the Drake foreign language programmers talked with their colleagues in the Composition program, to whom this “shift” would appear indecently rear-guard, from the adjuncting of instruction to the little chat groups. And to students with cell phones, MySpace pages, and jobs, all of it must seem, if they only knew the word, “incompetent.” I hear the mincing footsteps of the assessors behind all of it.

Mark Scott, College of Saint Mary, at 1:25 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Scary things afoot

What many people seem to miss when discussing topics of this nature is that there are multiple disciplines and pedagogical specialties involved here. There are language instructors, literature instructors, linguistics instructors, cultural studies instructors and more. Just as the largest burden of the teaching of languages (the German I-IV’s, for instance) fall on graduate students and adjunct faculty at larger schools, so too, the lower-level math courses are taught by graduate students and adjuncts. As are the English Composition courses, and the Physics I classes. It doesn’t make economic sense to hire 15 tenure-track professors to teach Intro to Psychology or Ancient Philosophers. Likewise it doesn’t make logical sense to say, based on what I just pointed out, “Let’s eliminate Math, Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology, Physics and English professors.” The lower-levels of just about any disciplines may be taught by someone with a Masters degree. But how does a program maintain its continuity if those who run it are only there for a couple of years and then move on? Or perhaps there is no one “running” the program (I read the article quickly (apologies), I may have missed that). There needs to be someone who truly is a subject-expert to ensure continuity between and among levels, oversee pedagogical practices and testing/assessment methodologies, continually assess whether the lower-level courses are providing enough of a foundation for success of those students going on to the major...a graduate student does not have this experience, much less does an undergraduate native-speaker of a language. Speaking of majors, the true point of Foreign Language Departments is rarely “to teach the language.” The teaching of the language is done (usually) in a four-five course sequence, and, often, by a language-teaching specialist. The purpose of most Foreign Language Departments tends to be much more specific: Literature, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, for instance. As a heritage speaker of Spanish, I never took a Spanish Language course, in the major courses, it was simply assumed that you spoke the language. The professors who taught me were not language professors, they were Literature experts: I was pursuing a major in Spanish Literature. Similarly, most English departments are not dedicated to teaching people how to speak English, that’s what the ESL or EFL professors do.

As a 34 year-old tenured assistant professor who happens speaks English at the Superior level, I do not think myself qualified to teach English (neither as a second language, nor in a Composition classroom, nor in an Intro to English Lit. setting). That’s simply not my field. At smaller schools, many professors are required to be a lower-level, intermediate-level and upper-level (major-specific) instructor at the same time: a generalist, if you will. For instance, in any given year, I will teach Spanish I, II, III, IV, Intro to Lit., Spanish for the Military and Law Enforcement and Intro to Political Science and Interational Relations in Spanish. I’m not sure that this variety would be available if not for my varied background, training and experiences. If we assume that we’d like our students to only take “Intro. to X” type courses, then we can certainly save the coffers of higher education much money by eliminating tenure-track permanent faculty in every discipline. But, if we’d like our students to engage more profoundly in a particular subject-area (that is, if we’d like to continue to have majors in particular academic disciplines), then I don’t see a choice but to continue to hire educators with Ph.D.’s. If we can move beyond majors and just have undergrads sample a little of everything, than this is elimination of tenure is an outstanding avenue to pursue.

My argument, however, would be the complete opposite: we need MORE tenure-track professors. We need tenure-track professors who specialize solely in language teaching and learning, we need tenure-track professors in linguistics (perhaps in langauge acquisition specifically) and we need tenure track professors in literature and cultural studies.

Alex, Assistant Professor at U.S.C.G.A., at 1:25 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Mere Retailers Of Knowledge

Professors at accredited universities don’t just teach, they contribute to the knowledge of their discipline.

It’s fine if Drake wants to do this, but they really should change their name from Drake ‘University’ to ‘Community College.’

Chicagoland Librarian, at 2:00 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Money — of course

After reading this, then how much in debt the U.S. has —

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-20-pensions-cover_x.htm

one wonders how the U.S. is going to avoid bankruptcy.

At least Drake is attempting something positive — its critics are free to try their own solution. It is still a free country (at this point).

C. Bigsby, at 3:50 pm EST on February 21, 2007

What’s The Big Deal

Look, we couldn’t expect women to have meaningful learning experiences regarding literature, history, government, philosophy, and the arts – especially not in competitive environments that include men – so we invented women’s studies programs.

By the same token, we couldn’t expect Blacks to have meaningful learning experiences about literature, history, government, philosophy, religion, and the arts – especially in competitive environments that included Caucasians – so we invented African-American studies programs.

Oh yes, we couldn’t expect social science and business students to understand and appreciate mathematics, statistics, logic, and rhetoric – especially in courses taught by real scholars – so we invented “critical thinking” courses taught primarily by individuals who were just so brilliant they were not required to study in the aforementioned disciplines either.

Oh, by the way, it is completely outrageous to expect business, medical, law (you name the professional program) students to have a sense of the ethical behavior that is part and parcel of a liberal arts education – especially if it necessitated their entry-level students actually having an education that included, at the very least, history, government, logic, philosophy, and religion – so we ALL decided to teach our own in-house ethics courses, taught by individuals who just naturally knew absolutely everything there is to know about the works of Aristotle, Buber, Crick, Descartes, Hammurabi, Hegel, Heidegger, Kant, Kierkegaard, Marx, Mill, Nietzsche, Russell, Socrates, Tillich, and Hugh Hefner.

I almost forgot mathematics – omigod, mathematics is waaay too difficult for ANYONE, let alone mathematicians – so we dumbed it down, mushed it up, and taught that stuff in-house. And if we didn’t get it completely right in the process, well it’s still a lot better than exposing our students to those nutty professors who don’t know anything but numbers.

And you won’t be surprised to learn that I’m still singing the praises of those intellectual giants whose research interests include Assessment, Experiential Learning, Institutional Distinctiveness, Accreditation, Professional Development, and Teacher Education Policy who have but a minuscule space in their university’s curricula for philosophy and physics. I mean philosophy and physics ... what kind of obtuse stuff is that?

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/07/programs

So join the club Drake ... you’re right out there at the cutting edge of higher education curricular reform. I’m sure P.D. Eastman was thinking about your innovative approach to foreign language education when he penned “Go, Dog, Go!!!!!”

Frizbane Manley, at 5:50 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Comments on comments

SRK—OMG—are you for real? What on earth do you mean that language learning doesn’t require grammar? Do you mean it doesn’t require a cognitive approach to studying grammar, perhaps? As an attorney you certainly would appreciate the need for English-speakers (or speakers of any language) who can provide articulate and thoughtful arguments. Who on earth can do that without a fundamental understanding of syntax and grammar? Are you serious when you say that “grammatical structure isn’t inherent to language?” I think you made the point that languages change, and I get that, but in any given historical reality/moment, we have to agree to some basic syntactical principles if we are to communicate with each other, right?

PS—there are so many unfounded generalizations and assumptions in your. . .comments. . .that it is honestly difficult to know how to engage with what you say. I can only assure you that there are indeed FL classes that look nothing like those evil, demonized ones you outline in your. . .comments. I would be interested to know what sort of. . .. data. .. you might have to back up your claim that students aren’t learnig in FL courses——?? Y’know, one of the benefits of spending lots of time immersed in the study of one area—no matter what area/discipline it is—is that the student is humbled as a member of a larger community of thinkers/experts, and is loathe to march around making unfounded generalizations. You can join in on the professor-bashing, humanities-hating, anti-intellectual wave that characterizes contemporary American culture, but your. . . comments. .. .are not very convincing to those of us who value intellectual debate and critical discussion.

Tony R: You say “I’ve learned that if I can just master the pronunciation and a basic vocabulary of 500 words quickly, I can manage to get myself to the country where it’s spoken and learn for myself its “culture” – and it is usually not literature (and practically never linguistics) but mostly how those people see themselves and the world, so that I can learn to fit in and gain their trust.” I would argue that the way people “see themselves” is irrevocably linked with literary and cultural traditions, and every speaker you interact with is counting on the principles of linguistics when they invite you to a party or order a beer at the bar. I do admire your initiative to do self-guided study abroad, but I don’t think it eclipses the benefits of studying abroad after/during a series of academic courses on language, culture, and literature in the area.

Violet, Midwestern Private U, at 7:41 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Go, dog

” .. I’m sure P.D. Eastman was thinking about your innovative approach to foreign language education when he penned “Go, Dog, Go!!!!!”

My 2-year-old nephew wants “Go, Dog” read to him 24x7. He wants action — now. At the signpost ahead — insanity.

Fritz — what actions are you planning to take to make education more affordable?

Thanks for your brilliance.

C. Bigsby, at 7:41 pm EST on February 21, 2007

First of all, to the Chicagoland Librarian, who seems to think that a “community college” is different from and qualitatively inferior to a “university,” I take great offense. I teach German at a community college and I have an Ivy League degree. I am fully qualified to teach both language and literature.

It is just a plain fact that first- and second-year language courses are the bread and butter of many language as well as literature professors. The latest trend in language pedagogy is more of an integrated approach anyway with the majority of textbooks incorporating lots of cultural notes, videos, as well as music and other media-aided material. Why not encourage more of that in the first two years of language classes?

It is, however, essential that third and fourth year classes need to have literature emphasis for those who want to study the literature. If we do not have this option, pretty soon all of America’s foreign language and literature departments will be populated by foreign students and professors who may not understand American culture as well as we want American students to understand theirs.

YS, at 7:41 pm EST on February 21, 2007

but there is one here among us...

Alfred began the discourse of insightful comments with his insight into the fundamental attitudes that make blunders such as Drake’s possible—perhaps inevitable. Following shortly after Alfred, however, there pops up a bizarrely misinformed apologetic in a loud angry voice: “Drake,” asserts PS, “has clearly demonstrated that students can learn a foreign language using learning methods that work” (unlike a language class). Now tell us, PS: what “demonstration” is there, exactly? Are we to accept Drake’s word for it? Or does you “know” something we don’t, speaking as the Drake insider?

PS’s strawmen/strawprofessors believe “that by just sitting in a room and listenting (sic) them drone on for 50-90 minutes at a time, students are somehow learning…” PS, do you seriously imagine a language class as a lecture? A good college class is all about students producing/exercising the language in a high-energy atmosphere of skillfully-coached interaction between professor and students. Try it. Burn your strawman to purge yourself of whatever old wounds you suffered at the hands of Prof. Whoever, and then, freed of your anger, enrol in a good language course. It may open you to the world in ways you’ve never imagined.

aitatxua, at 7:41 pm EST on February 21, 2007

Poor professor...will you ever learn?

Oh poor aitatxua. If you are a professor, I feel so sorry for your students. All they get is a grade, a few exams that will be thrown in a way the minute the class ends, a grade of “C” through minimal effort, and a good luck wish. At Drake, they measure evidence of learning and all students leave with a portfolio. There is also a clear evaluation plan. I encourage you to go to the Drake DULAP website for more information.

Now, how many traditional foreign language classes and programs put their evaluation of student learning plans on-line? How many are public about how much their students learn? How many utilize portfolios over grades (which measure a variety of things; things rarely related to learning). The answer is very few. If they were, they would have no problem being public about it. If they can’t articulate what or even if their students are learning, how can anyone reasonably assume any different?

Personally, I had 24 hours of foreign language from 6 different instructors at a very selective institution in my undergraduate curriculum (note I did not say ‘learning experience’). I never received a grade lower than a “B” with minimal effort and little to show for it in the end. I now see the subtle treaty in place — the students do not put too much pressure on the faculty to challenge them unreasonably, leaving them alone to work Monday through Thursday with their day ending at 3pm, and in exchange the students all get at least C’s, but mostly B’s and A’s.

Professors are well-intentioned and work hard and know a lot about their discipline, but little about learning. They can only respond in terms of how things affect them, not the students. That is why their concerns rarely go beyond parking, health care, and retirement benefits. It should come as no surprise, then, that if you go to the AAUP website and look up their major “issues,” you will not see the word learning (isn’t that what professors are supposed to do?), but you will see things like compensation, workload, and promotions listed as a “major issue.” Learning isn’t even on their radar screen. How sad.

PS, at 10:26 am EST on February 22, 2007

PS and a few others seem basically to be asking, “Why are professors necessary? What can students really be expected to learn from a person who has devoted decadesof his or her life to the mastery of a given subject? Can’t the job be done just as well by another student?”

It is proof of the degradation of our era that such questions have to be seriously entertained since they are shaping university curricula. PS, you may have attended college, but I think you really have no sense of what higher education is (and your description of a typical college classroom bears no resemblance to anything I’m acquainted with). In fact, I doubt that you believe most of what you’re saying, but I’ll play along. Yes, it is true that no traditional college coursework is necessary to acquire a slapdash knowledge of a foreign language. However, real mastery of a language involves knowledge of its grammatical structure and its history. I would suggest that such knowledge is unlikely to come from exchange students, though I’ll agree that letting them facilitate tutoring groups is cheaper than having courses taught by certified experts, in much the same way that it was cheaper to let barbers perform minor surgery in the Middle Ages.

The proposed model of language education (sorry, PS, I didn’t know that “education” was now an antiquated and unacceptable term), should it be widely adopted, also would pretty much finish off the teaching of languagessuch as Latin and Ancient Greek or earlier forms of French and Spanish. But I suppose that these too should be casualties of the market: If hordes of TV-addled students don’t immediately understand their importance, what good are they? PS, your faith that teenagers know what they “need” better than trained educators is touching.

If the Drake model is widely adopted, we will be well on the way to creating an academic community in which centuries of important knowledge about language will be incomprehensible to most educated people, and in which no further contributions to that knowledge will be made—all to bloat administrators’ salaries with money that would be dedicated to tenure lines. If you can be proud of this, then your problem is not intellectual but moral.

Alfred, at 1:56 pm EST on February 22, 2007

Curious...

In reference to PS’s most recent comments. PS, I’m not sure when the last time you took a Foreign Language course, but I’ve been teaching both language and content (History, Literature...) courses in Spanish for 13 years or so and in that time there has always been a strong emphasis at every institution on communicative learning that incorporates cultural material at every level. The cultural component is broad-based at the lower levels and gets more refined as the students progress through the program. But the communicative philosophy is the driving force: that means that students do not simply take X number of exams for a grade, they meet and interview native speakers, they do group projects, group and individual presentations, they take exams and quizzes, they do pronunciation recordings, they take oral exams, have one-on-one and two- (or three-) on-one interviews, they write papers and journals, watch and discuss movies, take in music from various cultural traditions within the language group. In short, they are assessed on and introduced to just about all of the components that make up linguistic and cultural fluency. Further, in daily classes, students do nearly all of the talking, the prof. is there to guide and give gentle corrective feedback. The grammar rules and vocab lists (not to mention drill-type work) is done as part of the homework: there’s no sense gathering 15 persons to conjugate verbs. Rather, classtime is utilized for communicative practice to reinforce what students learned on their own.

I’m not sure from where your bitterness stems, but I believe that you need to take a closer look at how languages are currently being taught. A lot of what is discussed as being wrong with language education seems to be directed at pre-1980 pedagogy. (I refer not only to PS’s comments, but to others’ as well)

Take a look at the the ACTFL proficiency guidelines if you get a chance, they tend to reflect how modern language courses assess these days: students are assessed on what they can do, not based on whether they can do X. In other words, it’s more common to task students with things like, “Find out what a classmate did yesterday and then tell the class.” rather than, “Conjugate these ten verbs in a past tense.” In that way, you can see where communication is breaking down and make corrections rather than marking big red “X"’s on incorrect spellings or verb paradigms and calling it teaching. Students engage one another in paris, small or large groups for much of the class. I’m not in a minority in this either, in my experience (including undergraduate courses in German) languages are almost always taught this way now.

Also, as I mentioned in my earlier missive, the language courses represent only a small part of what foreign language programs do. They tend to hit the most number of students b/c they’re the ones that are generally required, but a langauge department tends to focus on a specific discipline (linguistics, literary studies, history...). Similar to a Math department: Calc I and II might be the most common courses, but they hardly represent the whole of what a Math department does or purports to do. Those courses merely introduce students to the tools needed to do higher-order tasks, which only minors or majors do for the most part. English is another good point of comparison. Composition, Rhetoric and the survey-type courses are the most commonly taught courses (again, b/c they’re required more often than not), but their introduction to reading and writing critically merely provide a foundation for the upper-level courses focused on particular periods, authors, genres national literatures... A very small percentage of students take those courses; almost always it is only the students who major or minor in English take anything byond what’s required (as in Math, or Spanish or Psych for that matter)

cheers,Alex

Alex, Associate Professor at U.S.C.G.A., at 3:50 pm EST on February 22, 2007

As a member of the program being considered here, I have been following the discussion with great interest. I really intended simply to read the comments and learn from them, but I feel compelled to respond, primarily due the number of posts based on incorrect information. I could probably ramble on quite a while here, but I will try to be relatively brief.

First, the discussion of grammar is a red herring. At the beginning of each semester, our students receive a very detailed syllabus averaging, perhaps, 25 pages. The syllabi are written without exception by language educators with advanced degrees. The syllabi spell out exactly which aspects of the grammar students are to practice in advance of each of the three weekly sessions with native speakers. The native speakers write lesson plans based on the assumption that the students have done their grammar study; the native speakers then design communicative exercises/activities that incorporate the structures, vocabulary, etc., that students have prepared.

Should students have questions about the grammar they are learning, they consult with the language coordinators and language examiners, each of whom again has an advanced degree in the language under consideration. The electronic portfolios discussed in previous posts are assessed, in part, on grammatical accuracy.

I would like to add that this particular model is not suitable for every college or university. Language professors are not going to begin rapidly losing their jobs. There are several reasons for this, foremost being the fact that each class has four or fewer students, so the number of native speakers that would be required for larger programs would quickly become unmanageable. This program might, however, allow existing programs to offer less-commonly-taught languages in addition to their current offerings.

I would urge those of you drawing rather sweeping conclusions about what we are doing at Drake to be sure those conclusions are based on accurate information. If you do have questions, feel free to contact me at marc.cadd@drake.edu.

Marc Cadd, Drake University, at 4:25 pm EST on February 22, 2007

Question

Marc, what does the typical Drake student do in/with the language after the language sequence? I mean, what is offered in French, German, Chinese... after the 4th or 5th semester of language? Can students take a history of China in Chinese? Or, Italian architecture in Italian? If so, who teaches these courses and to what department do they belong?

thanks,Alex

Alex, Associate Professor at U.S.C.G.A, at 8:25 pm EST on February 22, 2007

Alex, the program here is in its fifth year. Drake does not have a language requirement and there are only three or four majors that require language study. A student cannot currently major or minor in a language. Perhaps for these reasons we have not had too many students persist in their studies into the advanced levels.

We do offer literature courses in French, German, and Spanish, as well as film courses for advanced students in those languages. We have never had students in other languages reach those advanced levels. If we did have a heritage speaker in Chinese, say, who was qualified to take a literature course, we would create it for her. Our Ph.D. in Chinese would research and write a syllabus appropriate for the course. We would then find a native speaker, usually a student, with a knowledge of Chinese literature. The professor and native speaker would discuss and plan the course for several weeks before it would be offered. Once the course had begun, the professor and native speaker would carefully monitor the progress of the student(s); the professor, of course, would be in close contact with the student(s) throughout.

Regarding your questions about specific courses (Chinese history in Chinese or Italian architecture in Italian), whether or not we offered them would depend upon the expertise of the Ph.D. designing the course. I am not aware of too many institutions with 4,000 students at which this type of course would be offered, though. We are actively investigating culture-and-language-across-the-curriculum approaches on campus. The Keck grant will also give us and the participating institutions access to a much greater bank of professional expertise, possibly allowing us to expand our course offerings.

Marc Cadd, Drake University, at 11:10 am EST on February 23, 2007

two Community College professors’ respond

As members of the Board of Directors of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL) who also happen to be community college educators, we were surprised by the disparaging remark about community colleges made by the “Chicagoland Librarian.” S/he might want get updated information on community colleges, since currently more than half the nation’s first year students attend one.

Community college faculty are at the forefront of proficiency-oriented language pedagogy with comprehensive programs that include rigorous academic standards and rich cultural content. And while Dave S. bemoans the fact that language classes are taught primarily by TA’s at large universities, in community colleges, many of those same classes are taught by full professors with years of experience in the successful teaching and learning of foreign languages.

In the Washington area, where Laura teaches, the language instructors who teach for her college frequently also teach at such venues as the Foreign Service Institute and the World Bank. They are well aware of what it takes to bring a language student to the professional level required for effectiveness in the workplace. After all, they train our nation’s diplomats.

Some of our students intend to use their heritage languages and cultural expertise to become the next generation of language teachers. Others will apply their language skills directly as first responders, having mastered the requisite Spanish for Law Enforcement or Health Professionals. Still others come to us with plans to transfer to four-year liberal arts programs where they arrive well-prepared.

Finally, regarding the controversy over Drake’s language program, we wonder why the university abandoned classroom learning rather than reforming it? Was such change too threatening to attempt the paradigm shift to proficiency-based teaching and performance-based assessment? Furthermore, if the four-on-one sessions with a native speaker are so effective, imagine what it could be like to combine that with sound pedagogy in classroom learning. If they want to improve instruction and if it’s not all about money, why would they not do both and really see the results?

Prof. Charlotte Gifford, Greenfield Community CollegeProf. Laura Franklin, Northern Virginia Community College

Charlotte Gifford, Prof. at Greenfield Community College, at 12:11 pm EST on February 23, 2007

When Drake fires its science faculty and replaces them with lab techs and its social science faculty and replaces them with real world number crunchers from banks and corporations, I’ll believe that this is a move motivated by a pedagocial desire to teach students ‘where they live.’ Until then, I’ll believe this is a move motivated by a desire to save money at the expense of faculty (humanists) whom the culture and the academy presently value lightly.

Pudentilla, Bates College, at 2:16 pm EST on February 23, 2007

Drake University still has a language faculty consisting of five members, four with an advanced degree in a particular language and one who specializes in technology.

Marc Cadd, Drake University, at 12:10 pm EST on February 25, 2007

Five Language Professors

Marc,

How many professors were there before the change in format?

Thanks,

Alex

Alex, Associate Professor at U.S.C.G.A., at 7:50 pm EST on February 25, 2007

WHO WOULD HAVE THUNKT?

Now that (Man)Drake university has come up with this ingenious way of teaching language through chats with untrained native speakers, I think I can come up to the world and announce my even more revolutionary idea: since I eat at a Chinese restaurant every now and then, I CAN TEACH CHINESE! I can describe the ingredients, talk about them, wax poetic, etc. Then, since I �ve already had three surgeries, I CAN TEACH SURGERY. Granted, I was asleep most of the time, but by golly I can describe the pain, show the cuts, tell how the stitches were removed. Come to think of it, since I ride elevators, buses, trains, planes, I CAN TEACH ALL THESE SUBJECTS. It is not like I have not experienced them, so, I have as much knowledge about them as the untrained “native speaker” that MANDRAKE university hires to away with their undergraduates. PLEASE, LET �S WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROTTING POTATOES IN THE FIELD.

Eva, just a speaker and eater, at 7:51 am EST on February 26, 2007

I am happy to see that there are institutions who are using creative solutions for language instruction.

As a speaker of English, Chinese, and Spanish (to varying degrees of proficiency),and an ESL instructor, I am tired of seeing the traditional classroom method teaching language being touted as “the only way". From my experience, it seems that there are many academics in language departments who are afraid of change, and unwilling to examine their long held teaching philosophies.

We are in a new century and we need to embrace new ideas and ways of teaching language (not that they haven’t been around for a years). It’s so funny that many academics seem to be afraid of change.

Has anyone done a study on the language skills of the students in this program? It would be better to base criticism on facts before launching into all the ways that this system doesn’t work.

Julie H, at 11:15 am EST on February 26, 2007

I’d like to respond to the comment about the usefulness of having tenured professors teaching because they are there around the clock for their students: What I find fantastic about the program is that the native speakers become a resource outside the classroom as well. I see my language partner (native speaker) outside of the classroom at the basketball game or at the orchestra concert and can use that opportunity to learn new things. New vocab about whatever event we are at, but also the cultural view of such an event. We have the opportunity to meld culture into the study of language both in and outside the classroom. The college level courses in language that I had before Drake did not have that opportunity at all. I could go see the professor during office hours, but there was not this spontaneity to learning. For those of us that are enthusiastic about second language learning, this is one of the greatest benefits.I’d also like to say something about the faculty members that are part of the program. As Dr. Cadd said before, they are there for us when we have questions about grammar or need guidance. They are just as present as I think you are saying “traditional” faculty are.

Student in DULAP, Drake University, at 11:20 pm EST on February 26, 2007

Drake Language Program

I received a link to this article from my daughter. I am quite amazed at all the hysteria over the DULAP program. In response to Julie H. I would like to say that my daughter, a junior at Drake has acquired wonderful language skills through the DULAP program. As an employee of a major French corporation I have numerous well educated colleagues from France. Several of these have met my daughter and commented on how good her French speaking skills are as well as her knowledge of the culture. Her semester of study abroad (also through Drake) contributed to her skills as well. I understand this is not an official study of the education gained through the DULAP program however I believe it reflects highly on either the program, her efforts or both. Based on the positive comments she makes regarding the faculty associated with the program there must still be multiple professors (including Jan Marston) who are contributing greatly to her education without a standard classroom setting.

Mary B, Polymer Chemist, at 11:20 pm EST on February 26, 2007

From the way Marc Cadd is describing the program at Drake, it seems that what they have achieved is they have transformed their program following the methodologies of language programs in the best universities. As some other commenters have pointed out, the way language is taught nowadays is roughly the way it is taught at Drake: students are exposed to a variety of language experiences, they take responsibility of their learning and prepare in advance, they are led in their communicative interactions entirely in the target language... However, I don’t know why Drake has obsessed that this is necessarily done by unexperienced, untrained language teachers who have to be trained “on the spot” by coordinators. Why can’t this be done, philosophically, by experienced language teachers? The only reason that transpires is money. It’s cheaper to do with native speakers unskilled in the area of language teaching rather than with experts. If Drake thought teachers can’t or don’t do that job, and better, their program was subpar, but the way they have chosen to improve it weird. You don’t eliminate your kitchen because it’s outdated... If you think you’d cook, that is, as opposed to ordering out every day. No self-respecting university in the country today teachers a language by rote learning of verb conjugations, lectures or forcing students to read literature as the only valuable venue in which language is applied.

Drake’s program can exist the way it does only because language is not a requirement for students there and they don’t offer majors in any language. If a student decides to take a language by herself/himself, then she is personally compelled to take a language to achieve basic competency, of course he or she will be motivated to learn it by investing considerable effort on her/his own. THis always helps. But does it mean that at Drake students only take courses they feel like taking, no matter what their major? If this is the case, we are asking Drake the wrong questions. If students who major in science, for example, can decide if they should take math or not, then we can expect those who do take it to master it on their own (with the help of accountants available to lead small groups, for example). And then eliminate the math major. Does that sound good enough to Drake for physics majors? Because that’s the equivalent of their language program “translated” into math. If that’s what they want to have as an educational model, then that’s that (and it should be stated in the university’s mission).

It’s funny that, as Marc says, few students advance enough or sustain their interest enough to continue with the language beyond the intemediate level. This does not speak well for a language program, ever.

A Language Professor, Drake’s program sans teachers? at A public university, at 11:15 am EST on February 28, 2007

More interesting comments. Drake is not unlike any university or college that does not have a language requirement. There are some majors with language requirements, and those students are with us for minimally four semesters. Comparing what we are doing with allowing students to major in science without taking math is an analogy that is completely baffling to me.

As to students not persisting beyond the intermediate levels, that is the case with some of the LCTLs because students don’t come in with much background. By the junior or senior year, many students do not have time due to the demands of the major. This is not the case in more traditional languages. In Spanish and French, for example, students are currently taking literature courses.

Our native speakers are not untrained. They engage in an intensive pre-semester orientation and then take a semester-long course that meets once a week. The course is taught by me (my degree is in German/Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education from the University of IL-UC). This is more than the average teaching assistant undergoes.

Alex asked how many professors were at Drake before this program. I don’t know since I wasn’t here, but I’ll try to find out. One other relevant addition to this discussion: the former language department was not fired by some nebulous “they” or administrators with an agenda; the department was disbanded by a vote of the Faculty Senate, the colleagues of those who lost their jobs.

Marc Cadd, Drake University, at 8:21 pm EST on March 1, 2007

English And Foreign Languages

I am a first generation American, with an European background. I am fully bilingual in English an a Romance language, and I have an intermediate knowledge of two more European languages. I have a B.A. and an M.A. in linguistics, pursuing a Ph.D. in language education, and I teach English and an introduction to Linguistics at a community college.I regret to say, but most of the English instructors I have met so far struggle with their English. Their language skills are almost at the level of the freshmen I am teaching. They know very little or no grammar of their native language, English because they were never taught more that very elements of the English grammar, even if they have an M.A. or Ph.D. in English.Those who are native speakers of French, German, Spanish, Italian, or other European languages know that it is impossible to have a good knowledge of those languages without knowing their grammar. Who can imagine speaking good French or German without knowing the parts of spech, the declension the conjugation, and the sentence structure? I studied the grammar of my native language from the first to the 12th grade, every year, every month, and every week of my K-12 education, and I lived in that social and cultural context for more than 20 years. Who should be more qualified to teach my native language: someone like me, or someone who took 40 semester units in my my language, with little or no immersion in the culture of my country? It is sad to say, but just a few students who take foreign languages in college can speak those languages. Shouldn’t this fact alarm us? Shouldn’t we try to find out what is wrong with the foreign language programs in our institutions of higher education? Should we rather continue to “teach” in the same way we have taught foreign languages so far, without any concern about their lack of effectiveness and success? Why are we so angry and demeaning when some college or university is trying to bring meaning to its language courses, and make sure that its students truly benefit from those classes?

Eduard

Eduard, at 8:35 pm EDT on April 22, 2007

Consider the average L1 speaker of English sitting in your undergraduate classes. Do you really believe that s/he is capable of teaching English systematically and effectively to someone from Spain or Lebanon or Thailand, just like that, without training or preparation?

No, I didn’t think so.

Geoff Wilkes, Dr at University of Queensland, Brisbane (Australia), at 9:40 am EDT on April 23, 2007

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