Drawing attention and a crowd: FL Dep't Emerging
Trends and Changing Goals.
(Our thanks to Lisa Frumkes for these notes)
At Trinity College on February 13, 1999, a group of CTW faculty,
administrators and staff gathered with some special guests for our
colloquium entitled "Foreign Language Departments in the
Technological Era: Emerging Trends and Changing Goals." The morning
was divided into two parts: presentations from three invited speakers
followed by a panel discussion among three department chairs from
Wesleyan University, Trinity College and Connecticut College. Dorothy James of Hunter College, spoke to the issues of
emerging trends and changing goals, rather than technology. She began
from the premise that given today's realities, where literature no
longer holds a privileged place in college curricula, language
departments need to rethink their classroom and curricular
approaches. To make her point, she asked the audience to consider
several voices that may be heard in discussions on higher education.
Individuals at Ivy League institutions like Yale are finding that
interest in language learning is coming from sectors that previously
had been silent on the topic. Scholars in the social sciences, as
well as students who want to learn language for reasons of heritage,
are clamoring for language courses that meet their needs, rather than
classes preparing them for the study of literature. For their part,
scholars of English literature are coming to feel that the study of
language is important in teaching people to listen, speak, read and
write, as a part of developing rhetorical abilities. Secondary school
teachers and students are finding that colleges are demanding and
teaching a different set of skills than those taught in high schools,
creating a great deal of frustration for incoming college students
and the professors who teach these incoming students. Finally,
students finishing graduate school and seeking jobs in academia are
finding that the jobs they trained for do not exist.
Dr. James argued that literature teachers need to retool in order to
teach language through literature. Focus on language learning must be
maintained even at the higher levels of language teaching, and
language courses must complement courses outside the language
curriculum, such as business. World languages must receive greater
attention, and students of those languages need to receive training
that will allow them to use this language professionally, at high
levels.
Randall Jones of Brigham Young University, offered a broad
overview of the issues facing not only his institution, but others as
well. He spoke of the need to re-evaluate and gain a better
understanding of what it is we teach and why in order improve our
offerings. He spoke of the ACTFL standards and the "5C's" of language
learning, as well as the need to evaluate student progress with
achievement tests. He discussed the belief that learning language is
important in a broad sense because language study is a part of being
an educated person and aids the learner to think abstractly and
critically. It makes available knowledge and experience that is
otherwise locked away beyond reach. Therefore, language study needs
to be varied, challenging and motivating. One major question is
whether computers can help us to realize these goals. The need to
provide proper pedagogy, implementation, support, integration and
evaluation when using computer-based materials was emphasized, in
order to use technology in a useful manner, not for its own sake or
at the behest of administrators. Finally, Dr. Jones spoke of the need
to evaluate technology in promotion and tenure cases in terms of the
existing divisions of teaching, research and service.
Robert Blake, University of California, Davis reminded us that
Department chairs and senior literature professors have many concerns
regarding technology, including implementation and support. Dr. Blake
introduced a mythology of language learning with technology. The
first myth is that technology is either all good or all bad, when in
reality it is the individual tools and their uses that need to be
scrutinized. Some tools present information, while others provide the
opportunity for interaction between individuals. The second myth
states that technology is a teaching methodology, when in fact
technology has very different applications depending on the
pedagogical approach of the user. Third is the myth that technology
is a static industry. This is false, because technology changes
constantly and for this reason will not save colleges money, although
it is worth the investment. The fourth myth states that technology
will replace teachers, but it fact, it will not; rather, teachers who
use technology will replace those that do not. Technology can provide
learners with authentic materials and offer students opportunities
for learning and interaction that were not previously possible. As
faculty begin to work with the new tools, we need to develop flexible
measures to evaluate and reward their efforts.
A panel discussion followed. The panel comprised Ken
Lloyd-Jones, Chair of Modern Languages, Trinity College,
Krishna Winston, Chair of German, Wesleyan University, Tim
Vance, Chair of Asian Languages, Connecticut College. Nina
Garrett, Director of Language Study at Yale University,
moderated.
Dr. Garrett spoke of the need to define the characteristics of
language programs from kindergarten through graduate school, noting
that the MLA's ranking of departments looks only at the quality of
literature programs, rather than at language teaching.
Ken Lloyd-Jones questioned how the "liberal arts mission" at
colleges like Trinity is interpreted. Perhaps, Dr. Lloyd-Jones
continued, meetings between administrators and faculty need to take
place in order to clarify how materials developed by faculty should
be evaluated in tenure and promotion cases. The MLA guidelines are
too vague and provide no basis for reasoned discussion.
Tim Vance also reminded the group that it takes much more time
to learn Chinese and Japanese than French or Spanish, yet the course
and catalog structures currently in place do not recognize this. All
East Asian courses taught in the target language are really language
courses, since even at the advanced levels, prolonged reading
assignments in the target language are impossible during the first
four years of language study.
Krishna Winston agreed, and added that the more difficult
European languages face some of the same problems. She spoke of the
need to integrate literature with studies from other disciplines and
expressed dismay that the technological tools that we currently have
are harder to use than we would hope. She reminded us that young
faculty have to carefully balance their work with technology and the
rest of their duties, given how much time technology training and
project development work can take away from scholarship. She also
noted that while consortiality has not always worked in the way one
might hope, there is today more contact between the CTW schools than
in the past.
At this point, the discussion was opened to the audience. Several
main topics of discussion were:
• The problem of articulation between levels of language
instruction. Student preparation at one level (high school, lower
division, upper division) does not prepare students adequately for
what the work that is expected of them at the higher levels. This is
one reason why it is so difficult to keep upper-level courses
subscribed. Dorothy James felt that students generally are not
properly prepared for these upper level classes, become frustrated by
them, and eventually drop out. She therefore advocated more emphasis
on language form and structure at the lower levels, by way of
preparation for the upper levels.
• Making connections with other departments, reaching out to
other students. Some departments have attempted to save their
programs by offering English-language courses, but Robert
Blake warned that such efforts are dangerous and a "death knell"
for departments. Nina Garrett pointed out that connections can
be made with other departments, and cited the efforts of the
engineering program at the University of Rhode Island.
• Frustration regarding the general state of education. There is
not enough time in the semester to do anything substantive, with only
twelve full weeks of teaching, said Françoise Weaver.
There is not enough time to address the needs of each student, added
Naogan Ma. There is a lot of pressure put on faculty to
develop technologically based materials, but no training, time, or
recognition for that work. We may have to learn to use software
created by others just as we use textbooks written by others.
• The focus on communicative language learning at the high
school level does not prepare students for the work they are asked to
do in college, and college placement tests don't reveal what students
actually know. Professors have a poor understanding of the learning
styles of today's incoming students and fail to make use of what
students learned in high school. Ana asked how we could use
technology to provide a variety of information and learning
opportunities. Nina Garrett suggested that we try to find ways
to fit teaching of grammar into the communicative framework that
students bring to our classes.
Finally, it was also generally agreed that more language teaching
really should take place before students get to college and that our
problems are compounded by the fact that students do not learn
language at an earlier age.
