The Government's Role in Foreign Language Education

The federal government invests immense amounts of money in language instruction for government employees and members of the military. The technology level of most government language teaching schools is considerably higher than in the formal education sector. Most federal funding in the development of fresh teaching material and research occurs within, or for, the government's own language schools. It is a pity that there is little spillover into the private sector of these improvements.

The Foreign Language Assistance Act, which provides grants to states based upon the size of their school age populations, is an example of the federal government's hit-and-miss attitudes towards foreign language education. States were to submit project proposals to the U.S. Department of Education which, once accepted, would be funded. One of the limitations of the program was that no one could be sure how long these funds would continue into the future. Also, given the federal government's desire for new projects, any long term cost of these changes and programs would be put onto the local governments. This is all too common today. Once federal funding for these programs is gone, there is almost no trace that they were around at all.

The longest running federal support program for foreign language education is Title VI of the Higher Education Act, but today it has lost more of its central purposes. Created in 1958, to make sure we didn't get surprised like we did when the Russians launched Sputnik without our knowledge, the lesser taught languages were being focused on. Soon after though, this broadened into area studies and other nonlinguistic studies. It now supports international business education, undergraduate international studies, research and materials preparation, and overseas teacher training and conferencing.

In general, the federal government's intervention in foreign language education is in the form of project grants. These tend to give only short-term funds that are meant to seed and grow into larger programs. This is not an answer to a long-term problem.

There are a number of positive trends occurring though:

1) The amount of foreign language instruction in the last decade had increased by nearly ten percent in the elementary level and has stayed relatively stable in at the secondary level.

2) The teaching of less commonly taught languages has increased at the elementary level.

3) Computer-based instructional materials are much more commonplace than they were in the past.

4) Staff development has increased in the past decade in both elementary and secondary levels.

5) Over half of schools changed the curriculum due to a heightened awareness of national or state standards by those teaching language classes.

But despite these positive trends, there is still cause for concern. Funding shortages, inadequate in-service training, poor sequencing from elementary into secondary schools, lack of quality materials, and poor academic counseling still remain problem areas. The bottom line is that what is lacking is a fundamental national commitment to foreign language training and education. There is little coordination between federal agencies that take the initiative to train their departments and the public education system. In line with this lack of coordination are the upgrade college and university programs. Because of increased financial restraints, these upper level education institutions are forced to prioritize, which again, leaves foreign language education by the side of the road.

International studies programs do not involve enough students. The percentage of undergraduates enrolling in these fields is still too low. This causes academic international studies programs to be slow to the national changes needed.

The United States is showing signs of de-emphasizing internationalism in higher education as the rest of the world's universities are becoming more international. Approximately 43,000 Japanese students study in the U.S., while less than 2,000 Americans study in Japan. We will lose our competitive edge in the global marketplace if this trend continues. Other nations recognize that they operate in a global economy and that understanding other cultures and languages is valuable and necessary.

We can follow the idea that English is sufficient enough to get by in dealing with military, diplomatic, and economic challenges that are arising, or we can follow other nations and mobilize our nation to promote competence in foreign languages. Now more than ever, the need for Americans to be able to compete on the national stage is of great importance. If we are willing to take strong actions and demand that all schools teach foreign language at every level, and that it be a cumulative learning experience, America will continue to be the world leader we strive to be.