Keep foreign language classes intact.

Byline: Sally Hood Cisar For The Register-Guard

Two by two, the high school students come to the corner of the classroom to sit on the couch facing a video camera. They are smiling. Speaking in French, they greet each other playing the roles of a sales clerk and a customer. The French teacher listens while taking notes, encouraging them when they hesitate. When they finish, the teacher talks with them about their performance.

This is probably not how many of us remember our foreign language classes. If your experiences were like mine, language classes included repeating unrelated words and sentences, word by word translation and memorization of rules. We learned about the language, but could speak hardly a word of it.

In the 21st century, learning to communicate in other languages is critical for U.S. citizens seeking to improve global relationships, pursue global business and reach global understandings.

Communication implies being able to use the language at an advanced level and developing deep cultural understandings of the people who speak it. It takes five to seven years of language study to be able to communicate well, which means we need to start learning it early. And communication - or knowing how, when and why to say what to whom - means that speaking practice must happen from the very beginning and be the focus of classroom instruction.

Learning another language has far-reaching benefits for everyone. Research tells us that students proficient in another language score higher on standardized tests, have better job prospects, possess higher critical thinking skills, have higher academic achievements, develop more positive understandings and attitudes toward other cultural groups, and learn more about their own language and culture.

And all students, not just the college-bound, can learn another language and should be given that opportunity. Examples of this can be found in rural Oregon, where some students are reaping the benefits of studying a foreign language.

At Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, more than 70 students choose to study Latin each term. All 251 students in Dufer's school take Spanish beginning in the first grade! In Sheridan, the Japanese School requires all 75 students to take nine years of Japanese beginning in the fourth grade. And at Armand Larive Middle School in Hermiston, all 400 students must take at least one year of Spanish. Foreign language programs in other rural areas, such as Spray, Madras, Klamath Falls, Cave Junction and McMinnville, are also exemplary.

Local foreign language programs are also strong. In addition to the French, Japanese and Spanish elementary immersion schools, all students at Parker Elementary School take Spanish beginning in kindergarten. A survey conducted three years ago showed that about 60 percent of middle school students and 75 percent of high school students enroll in foreign language classes in the Eugene School District.

High enrollments are partly connected to the Oregon University System's entrance requirements, which include two years of foreign language study or demonstration of good communication skills.

Recent scores from the CIM oral proficiency test show that students in the community are gaining in their ability to communicate in a foreign language. This is mostly likely due to ongoing professional development activities (sponsored by grants) that have inspired foreign language teachers to work on developing strategies that promote communication in the classroom.

Unfortunately, the future of foreign language programs throughout Oregon is dim. The current lack of school funding and the attitude toward education in Oregon is very disheartening. While countries around the world step up investments in education, the U.S. has decided education is not a priority.

Many foreign language teachers around Oregon may be losing their jobs next year because foreign language programs are being cut or scaled back. Advocacy for the maintenance of foreign language programs and finding ways to fund them is necessary to promote international literacy throughout Oregon and the United States.

People can show their support for keeping French in the Springfield School District at the Springfield School Board meeting at 6 p.m. today at Agnes Stewart Middle School, 900 S. 32nd St. The public input segment of the meeting is from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Sally Hood Cisar is director of research and development at the Center for Applied Second Language Studies at the University of Oregon's Foreign Language Resource Center.