Abstract
In this chapter, it is suggested that foreign language education in the US can provide us with valuable insights about the way in which the ideology of linguistic legitimacy operates. There are three broad issues explored in the chapter: the large-scale failure of foreign language education programs to produce individuals with reasonable levels of competence in languages other than English, the extremely small number of foreign languages that are available for study by the vast majority of US students, and finally, the case that can be made for why US students should study of foreign languages.
When my son was in middle school, one evening early in the school year I asked him how his classes were going. He replied that he was doing well in English, social studies, and science, and very well in math. I asked him about French—which was the first foreign language that he had studied at school. With a certain degree of irritation, he replied, “I’m doing fine in French, but it isn’t a real class.” Puzzled, I asked him what he meant, and he replied, “Look, in the real classes we get letter grades—As, Bs, Cs, and so on. But in French, we only get Pass and Fail.” I am sure that the decision to make foreign language classes Pass/Fail at his school was well-intentioned; it was probably an effort to reduce student anxiety and make the study of foreign languages less threatening. The unintended consequence, though, was to draw attention to foreign language classes as somehow different—and less valuable or ‘real’—than other classes.
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Notes
- 1.
The term ‘foreign’ as it is used in the US context is extremely problematic since it suggests that ‘foreign languages’ are in some sense alien to the country (which they are not), and reinforces false assumptions about ‘Otherness’. Recent efforts to change nomenclature, utilizing the phrase ‘world languages’ in place of ‘foreign languages’ to some extent addresses such concerns, but only at the level of what might be termed articulated bias. Regardless of what they are called, in US schools languages other than English are perceived by both adults and students as profoundly foreign. This perception is only strengthened, really, by encouraging the use of what is seen as a politically correct label (i.e., ‘world languages’). The risk with such word games, as Michael Apple has noted, is that “historically outmoded, and socially and politically conservative (and often educationally disastrous) practices are not only continued, but are made to sound as if they were actually more enlightened and ethically responsive ways of dealing with children” (1979, p. 144).
- 2.
It is important to note that the focus here is on foreign language education programs, and specifically excludes the use of LCTLs in bilingual education programs. The case with respect to bilingual education programs is quite different. This difference is perhaps best seen in terms of the kind of language proficiency that is the articulated goal of bilingual education programs, in contrast with that of foreign language education programs. In the literature on contemporary US bilingual education, a common distinction is made between what are called ‘basic interpersonal communicative skills’ (BICS) and ‘cognitive academic language proficiency’ (CALP) (see Baker, 1993, p. 11; Spener, 1991, p. 440). The former refers to the language skills needed for casual conversational use of the L2, while the latter refers to the degree and kind of proficiency needed to intellectual and academic purposes. Students achieve BICS more quickly than they do CALP, and this makes necessary extended transitional programs for non-English-speaking students in the US context. Although the distinction between BICS and CALP has been questioned (see Martin-Jones & Romaine, 1986; Spolsky, 1989), it is an interesting one for discussion purposes here, since the kinds of language proficiency included in BICS probably more than exceed typical expectations for students functioning in the target language in foreign language education programs.
- 3.
The exception, once again, is bilingual education programs—an exception that, if anything, indicates some of the underlying ideological assumptions related to language in the public schools.
- 4.
This is remarkably close to Adolph Hitler’s observations about the value of foreign language learning. In Mein Kampf, Hitler argued that, “One can, for instance, not see why millions of people, in the course of the years, have to learn two or three foreign languages which thereafter only a fraction of which they can use and which therefore the majority of them forget again completely, for out of a hundred thousand pupils who, for instance, learn French, hardly two thousand will later on be able to use it actually, while ninety-eight thousand, throughout their entire future course of life, will no longer be in a situation where they can make use of what they have learned. During their youth, therefore, they have devoted thousands of hours to a matter which later is of no value or significance to them … Thus for the sake of two thousand people for whom the knowledge of this language is of use, actually ninety-eight thousand have to be tortured in vain and sacrifice valuable time” (1940, p. 627). I am not suggesting that Caplan is in any way comparable to Hitler, but I do find the underlying rejection of the values of liberal education in general, and of foreign language study in particular, disturbing.
- 5.
The growth in enrollments in Chinese in recent years has been very impressive, and as indicated in Table 9.1, the number of students studying Chinese is rapidly approaching that of those studying German. In spite of this growth, however, Chinese is still widely classified as a LCTL, and will be treated as such in the remainder of this chapter.
- 6.
Although this defense for the study of critical languages is both common and understandable, it is also at least potentially problematic, especially for non-heritage language learners, since it can be seen to promote the learning of a language as learning the ‘language of the enemy’—hardly an ideal motivation for the study of any foreign language (see Geisherik, 2004; Husseinali, 2009; Kuntz, 1996).
- 7.
Foreign Language Exploration/Experience (see Lubiner, 1996).
- 8.
It is interesting to note that of the three commonly taught languages (French, German and Spanish), two are in Group I (French and Spanish), and one is in Group II (German).
- 9.
In this context, we are talking about Modern, rather than Classical, Greek.
- 10.
Although the Amerind languages are included here, they constitute an important exception in some ways, especially where language revitalization efforts are underway. Thus, among the languages in which there are foreign language programs of some sort (often immersion bilingual education programs) in the US are Hawai’ian, Ojibwe, Diné, Yupik, Chhinook, Dakota, Inupiaq, and Salish. Such programs nevertheless commonly face challenges with respect to finding qualified teachers, curricular materials and texts, and so on.
- 11.
An additional factor which does not appear to be especially relevant in the contemporary US context, but which has been important historically and remains so in some other settings, is that of ideology (whether religious or political in nature). It is this factor which provides powerful explanatory and heuristic insight into the anti-German language hysteria in the United States during the First World War, the role of the development of critical language training in the US during the Cold War, and, more recently, the concerns among secularists in Turkey to the increased offering of courses in Ottoman Turkish, which is sometimes seen to be symbolically linked to the rise of religious fundamentalism.
- 12.
Along the same lines have been changes in the pedagogy of Latin in recent years. The challenge here has been that the most common approach to the teaching of ancient and classical languages has tended to be, and, with the possible exceptions of Latin and perhaps Classical Greek in some limited instances, continues to be essentially that of grammar-translation.
- 13.
I am treating all immersion programs together here, but there are at least three distinct types of such programs, serving somewhat different populations: one-way programs, two-way programs, and indigenous immersion programs. One-way immersion programs typically target native speakers of English, and their goal is fluency in the target L2. Two-way immersion programs involve mixing native speakers of English and native speakers of the selected L2 (who are typically not speakers of English), creating a context in which both groups are exposed to peer native speakers of the target language. Finally, indigenous immersion programs are concerned largely with language revitalization, as in the case of programs in Hawai’ian and other native American languages (see Fortune & Tedick, 2008a).
- 14.
Although there is a clear connection between language and thought, it is very easy (and extremely common) to overemphasize this connection. As McWhorter has noted, “a connection between language and thought does exist. The problem is how that connection has percolated into public discussion … most [linguists] would consider it a fair assessment that … language’s effect on thought is distinctly subtle and, overall, minor” (2014, p. xiv).
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Reagan, T. (2019). Foreign Language Education in the US: ‘But French isn’t a real class!’. In: Linguistic Legitimacy and Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10967-7_10
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