Italian language course: Parlez vous Mandarin?

By PETER SIMON
News Staff Reporter
6/10/2006


The world is changing dramatically, but foreign language instruction in local schools isn't.
The economic clout of the Pacific Rim, the threat of foreign terrorism and the global economy have convinced educators that teaching more languages is crucial not only to the future of individual students, but for the country's security and well-being.

Yet foreign language instruction is stuck in a decades-old, European-based model.

Spanish and French remain by far the predominant languages taught here, along with a smattering of German, Latin and Italian.

Instruction in "emerging languages" - including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Hindi - is nearly nonexistent.

"We still have our heads in the sand," said Donald J. Jacobs, director of the University at Buffalo's Center for Applied Technologies in Education. "Many people still think the competition is between Cheektowaga and Tonawanda, rather than global."

But interest is beginning to build.

North Tonawanda High School has offered Japanese since the late 1970s, when a Japanese intern launched the program.

Grand Island, Williamsville and the private Park School of Buffalo are exploring offering Chinese beginning in September 2007, and the Lackawanna schools are seeking to establish classes in Arabic.

In Buffalo, Superintendent James A. Williams hopes to boost a shrinking foreign language program by beginning instruction in both Chinese and Japanese.

Earlier this year, President Bush launched a National Security Language Initiative, designed to greatly increase instruction in "critical need" languages.

"We need intelligence officers who, when somebody says something in Arabic or Farsi or Urdu, know what they're talking about," he said.

North Tonawanda students who study Japanese for four years become conversant in the language and familiar with Japanese culture, said Jason Goulah, the teacher. In the last five years, five North Tonawanda students won full scholarships to study in Japan for a year.

"The Japanese program gives students an avenue into understanding Asia," Goulah said. "They begin to see things from an eastern perspective."

Meanwhile, other students interested in nontraditional languages take classes outside their high school classrooms, in mosques, temples or community centers.

Melany Piech, a Park School senior, goes right from school to Buffalo State College twice a week to study Chinese.

"I really enjoy foreign languages," she said. "I kind of wanted a new challenge."

Andrea Filozof, the Alden High School valedictorian, will pursue her studies of Chinese or Arabic from scratch next year at the U.S. Military Academy because classes were not available here.

Educators said students should not only have more languages to choose from, but should be encouraged to tackle them.

"There is a call for it and a need for it," said John D. Carlino, a German teacher at Kenmore West High School and executive director of the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers. "But change is going to come slowly."

Here's why:

• Expanding foreign language instruction is costly. Grand Island initially planned to offer Mandarin Chinese next school year, but the Board of Education decided to hold off for budgetary reasons. Now the district is seeking a federal grant to begin the program in 2007, said Karen Karmazin, assistant superintendent.

• Certified teachers are hard to find. Local districts advertise nationally for German teachers. Lackawanna is having difficulty finding a certified Arabic teacher. And Williams, the Buffalo superintendent, said, "We might have to hook up with people in China to teach Chinese."

• The federal No Child Left Behind Act places far more emphasis on English, math, science and social studies than it does on foreign languages, prompting some school districts to reduce language programs to free up funds for so-called "core subjects."

• Students don't necessarily have the time or desire to tackle new languages. Williamsville offered Japanese for more than eight years, but dropped it when enrollment dipped to as few as three students.

"The bottom line is that students have to sign up," said Linda Cimusz, assistant superintendent for instruction. "We absolutely could not sustain it."

• American attitudes toward foreign language are notoriously self-centered.

"People here think: "Why do we have to learn their language? They can learn ours,' " said Charles E.M. Kolb, president of the national Committee for Economic Development. "That's an insular and arrogant attitude that has to change."

The United States is one of the few industrialized nations in the world where large numbers of students leave high school conversant only in their native language, said Martha Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

"That's pathetic," she said.

New York State requires students to take at least two years of a foreign language by the end of ninth grade and to pass either a Regents exam or a less demanding competency test. It is one of just 16 states with foreign language graduation requirements, and has a relatively high level of language study.

Sixty-three percent of New York's high school students studied a foreign language in the year 2000, compared with the national average of 43.8 percent, according to a study by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Only Nevada and Pennsylvania had higher percentages than New York.

However, 88 percent of the New York students who studied a foreign language took either Spanish or French.

Without being critical of Spanish and French, educators say there simply is not enough choice or diversity.

"Why aren't we teaching Asian languages?" said Jacobs of the Center for Applied Technologies in Education. "In the context of language, we haven't tapped the potential - it's not even close."

Demand from the public is beginning to come into play.

Representatives of the Chinese-American community recently presented petitions to the Williamsville Board of Education urging instruction in Chinese.

The push for Chinese on Grand Island was initiated by a districtwide task force.

Economic and political realities will drive a more comprehensive approach to language studies, said Lackawanna Superintendent Paul Hashem.

"Because of what's happening globally, things are going to have to change," he said. "Foreign languages are going to become as necessary as math and science."


e-mail: psimon@buffnews.com