NOTE: This article is also cited on ACTFL page The Year of Languages
http://actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3670
The Burlington Free Press
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Parents push for foreign language classes
By Molly Walsh
Free Press Staff Writer
Every Friday, the students at Brewster-Pierce Memorial school in Huntington have a special treat: class with French teacher Evelyn Germain.
Although the sessions take place only once a week, that's more foreign language instruction than most public elementary school students receive in Chittenden County. Small, rural Brewster Pierce is one of few grade schools in the area to offer such instruction to children as young as kindergarten. Most public schools in the region don't give students a chance to try French or Spanish or other languages until middle school.
As research mounts to extol the benefits of foreign language study, especially starting at a young age, some parents are asking school administrators to consider giving children an earlier start. In Jericho, parents are lobbying the Jericho Elementary school to incorporate foreign language starting in fall 2006.
Karen Glitman, a consultant and Jericho mother of two, is leading the push. The diplomat's daughter attended grade school in Paris and grew up speaking French and English. Her experience convinced her that language study offers tremendous academic and social benefits. These beliefs grew stronger as she delved into research on the advantages of language study.
"It's more than just sort of a gut reaction. There's a lot of science behind it," she said.
Proponents of foreign language instruction say it can help children become better students and sharpen native language skills. Learning a second language also opens a window onto international cultures and careers, and in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. government officials are pushing language study as a way to improve U.S. intelligence and security. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution earlier this year declaring 2005 to be the Year of Foreign Language Study.
In Jericho, Glitman and like-minded parents designed a survey to see what fellow taxpayers might think about bringing foreign language into the grade school. They circulated copies in local stores and other public places. Seventy-four percent of the 172 survey respondents said they supported adding foreign language in the elementary grades and 70 percent said they would support an increase in the school budget to offer it.
"I was surprised at the depth and breadth of support for having foreign language in our elementary school," Glitman said. "I really think a lot of it is people's understanding of the world. Our children need to be able to compete in a global economy."
The survey also showed about 19 percent of the respondents spoke a language other than English. These included Norwegian, Korean, Hungarian, Danish, Swedish and Hebrew. "What was really neat was to see the diversity that we have right here in our little community," Glitman said.
Around Vermont, foreign language instruction at the grade school level is uncommon. Only about 30 public schools and a half-dozen private schools offer it to a total of 4,237 children, according to a 2003-2004 survey conducted by the Vermont Foreign Language Association.
The numbers jump to 10,000 students in grades six through eight and increase still more at the high school level. Despite the association's efforts to expand instruction to younger grades, language is often one of the first things to go at grade schools when money is tight.
In Chittenden County, Shelburne and South Burlington axed language classes for primary grade students a few years ago in an effort to control rapidly rising school taxes. Neither district has restored the program for younger students, although both continue to offer language classes for middle-schoolers.
"It comes up during the course of our budget conversations, 'Do we want to bring it back into the lower grades?'" said John Bossange, middle-grades principal at Shelburne Community School. "We look at it every year and we've decided for the past two years, no."
It's a difficult decision because the research on early instruction is compelling, he added. "Most people know that if you begin foreign languages sooner the kids become more proficient," Bossange said.
At Charlotte Central school, parents urged for several years for an earlier start to the current program in which French is taught in sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
"I would say we've had longstanding interest in beginning foreign language in kindergarten and there's a lot of support, parental and administrative," said Monica Smith, Charlotte principal.
Despite this support, however, funds for an expanded program didn't make into the budget that went before voters this year. "It didn't make it to the top of the list," Smith said.
Michael Martin, president of the Vermont Foreign Language Association and a French teacher at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, preaches that study of language should be an essential, even in grade school.
"Why should it even be on the chopping block?" he said. "Why do we go to languages to cut first when we know that students who learn another language have higher SAT scores, higher graduation rates, and they learn their own language better because they are learning language mechanics?"
One way to persuade taxpayers to support funding is to teach children well, and design effective curriculum, Martin added. Convincing parents that language instruction can succeed is sometimes difficult given that some adults didn't learn much in their own foreign language classes. Martin says at parent-teacher conferences some parents deliver comments along the lines of: "I took French for eight years -- can't speak a word."
Inconsistent instruction -- a half hour a week in third grade, and an hour a week in eighth grade -- is not likely to deliver results. Sustained, sequenced instruction with a heavy emphasis on speaking and communication proficiency, not just conjugating verbs, is the way to go, according to research, Martin said. "What they've found is that learning a language just requires a lot of contact hours. That's the single biggest thing."
Districts that make a commitment to instruction from the kindergarten to 12th-grade level are most likely to see results, he believes. In Jericho, parents will take survey results to the local School Board this month and try to get funding into the school budget that goes before voters in 2006. It's unclear how much the program would cost.