The changing culture of language departments.

Abstract

Internationalization and globalization demand that departments of foreign languages and literatures respond to new societal demands by placing an emphasis on marketable skill sets, communicative language skills, and cultural competency. Yet many departments are reluctant to meet this call, thus creating difficult and potentially precarious academic conditions.

Introduction

The global economy and the resulting emphasis on international education are changing both the courses offered and the traditional culture of modern and foreign language departments at the post-secondary level. Indeed, internationalization and globalization [1] are invading the collective conscious of the profession and have dominated literally dozens of departmentally-oriented publications: "Foreign Language Education, Intercultural Communication and the Conditions of Globalization," "Foreign Language Departments as Leaders in the Globalization of the Campus," "Foreign Languages for a Global Age," "Internationalizing the Campus: A National Agenda," "An International Perspective in a Research University," "Languages and the Global University," "Public Policy and International Awareness: Time for a Realistic Assessment," to name only a few.

An initial reaction to the ubiquity of these terms should be a positive and optimistic one. However, it is difficult to reconcile this optimism with the anxiety currently pulsing through the profession; an anxiety that laments the precarious state of foreign languages: our weak position on campus, shrinking resources, and declining enrollments. So, how can this be? The seeming prioritization of international /global education should naturally and automatically extend to foreign languages, should it not? If indeed "there has never been a better time for the globalization of American campuses [and if] today offers unparalleled opportunity for language departments to achieve a more central role" within the university (Santirocco 13), then why all the doom and gloom? The following pages examine this curious disjuncture in light of its effect on the institutional culture of departments of foreign languages and literatures in higher education.

Internationalization and Globalization

For Neathery-Castro and Rousseau, globalization represents the increasingly uniform financial, economic, political, military, cultural, and linguistic behaviors of international economy and society. To be sure, this increasing interdependence among nations has had a profound effect on the goals and directions of higher education. Indeed, "internationalizing the campus is a phrase and concept central to many administrators' visions and discourses" (Johnson 26) and there is renewed importance given to the rhetoric of educating students for a global citizenship (Allen and Balkcum).This influence is not entirely new. For example, languages for specific purposes (LSP) and business-language courses have existed on college campuses since the 1920s (Uber Grosse and Voght). In 1990, Roch Smith declared that "it had been three decades since international education was incontrovertibly on the national agenda" (4) and the 1979 release of the President's Commission on Foreign Languages and International Studies prompted many universities to reexamine general undergraduate curricula.

Certainly, the "numerous national reports from policy groups like the National Governors' Association, the Southern Governors' Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers continue to call for improved international awareness by our colleges and increased international education for our students" (Edwards 19). Perhaps some of the most overt and consistent calls to internationalize higher education have come from the American Council on Education (ACE). In 1988 the ACE Commission on National Challenges in Higher Education recommended that we:

1) strengthen international studies and research;

2) encourage student and faculty exchanges;

3) expand the teaching and study of foreign languages; and

4) assist American colleges and universities in developing educational and research programs with foreign institutions (Smith 5).

In 2000, an ACE Preliminary Status Report, Internationalization of US Higher Education, measured and reported the responsiveness of higher education to what it described as the demands of the "new global order" (5), and found that college and university leaders are emphasizing a commitment to internationalization and its importance on their campuses. Through a series of U.S.-based studies, ACE found that 89% of senior administrators believed international education to be a priority for their institutions, while a Canadian survey found that 94% of senior administrators regarded internationalization as an essential goal (16). The ACE report concludes with a passionate recommendation that higher education "increase student participation in international programs, reshape and internationalize the curriculum, and develop a comprehensive international agenda for undergraduates across the curriculum" (30).

Although the notion of international interdependence and the resulting push for global education many not be entirely new [see Smith 1990 for a discussion of post-Sputnik interest], the current surge is unique in that, in addition to the natural ebb and flow of government support, it is bolstered by profound and pervasive popular support and student and employer demand for skill sets, rather than broad-based knowledge.

Popular Support

Swelling popular support for international education, including foreign language study, has been documented among both students and the general public. A 2002 Art and Science Group publication StudentPoll reported the results of a survey targeting 500 college-bound high school seniors. The survey found that students enter college with a strong interest in nearly every facet of international education and that the majority of seniors want to continue foreign language study at the post-secondary level. This poll also found that virtually every college-bound student had studied a foreign language in high school (98%), more than half (57%) planned to take a foreign language in college, and nearly half (48%) planned to participate in a study abroad program. Fifty percent of the respondents planned on taking courses that focused on the history or culture of other countries, and 37% planned on taking courses in international studies (4).

Similar reactions were revealed by a 2002 ACE survey of 1,006 Americans aged 18 or older, wherein over 85% of the respondents indicated that knowledge of a foreign language was important. According to Hayward and Siaya, this is a significantly higher percentage than was found in a Gallop Poll conducted some 20 years ago (4). The ACE survey also found that 85% of the respondents believed that knowing a foreign language would help them find a better job, 75% stated that foreign language training should be mandatory for secondary school students, and over 70% of the respondents were in favor of making foreign language study a requirement at the post-secondary level. Summarizing the results of both surveys, Hayward and Siaya conclude that the public "supports requirements for foreign languages and courses that include an international dimension and believes it important that students have access to international study and internship opportunities" (6). Clearly, "students, parents, and the public are looking to higher education to provide strong international and language programs" (6).

Skills versus Knowledge

A second trend supporting the attention given to international global education is that of a public demanding that a university education provide identifiable skills, often at the expense of general knowledge. This attitude is rather succinctly expressed in the repeated question: "What can I do with a foreign language major?" Perhaps most indicative of this trend are the small enrollments in liberal arts majors (languages, history, religion, philosophy) as compared to those in the professional schools. According to Kramsch,

   although college education is in principle still general education,
   over the years the undergraduate major has become more an initiation
   to a discipline or field of graduate studies than an area of major
   interest. Such practice necessarily narrows the epistemological
   options open to undergraduates, who would, instead, be given a sense
   of the unity of knowledge and encouraged to seek new links among
   various areas of learning. (11)

Pietralunga describes a "national trend" wherein students take a foreign language with "the aim of using it for careers in business, government, service, and law, to name a few areas" (18). This focus on the utility of foreign language communication skills, at the expense of knowledge of literary genres, is demonstrated by shifting enrollment patterns (Byrnes; Melton). McConeghy boldly captures the essence of this evolution by calling for a "new paradigm in foreign language education" (37). For McConeghy, as we "move into a new paradigm, our strengths in language and cultural awareness and integrative methodologies constitute the baby we want to save, and for many programs, a consumptive focus on national literatures is the bathwater that must be discarded" (36). The displacement of traditional literary studies as the ultimate goal of an undergraduate foreign language degree implies a more responsive and pragmatic replacement, and a new paradigm "based on the goals of international education" (37) is both timely and viable. Indeed, "traditional programs (those whose curricula were arranged according to century, genre, etc.) may not contribute to the 'cross-fertilization of ideas' that many students need in today's interdependent world" (DiPietro, Lantoff, and LaBraca 371).

The emphasis on marketable skill sets is also evidenced by evolutions in language methodology. Today's need for communicative language skills, as well as cultural competency, has replaced the grammar and pleasure reading foci of the past. For example, while describing the pedagogical effects of our new "global society," the Fall 1989 MLA Newsletter states that

   teachers now present each language as it is used in communication
   and in accordance with the cultural conventions of its native
   speakers. Philosophically and in practice, this view of language is
   fundamentally different from the concepts that governed the reading
   approach of the distant past, and the mimicry-memorization
   orientation of the 1940s and 1950s. (16)

So What's the Problem?

Clearly, internationalization, globalization and foreign languages are the "talk of the day" (Kramsch, 1989) and offer "opportunities for entrepreneurial language departments to support and even shape larger institutional goals, acquire more resources, and achieve greater centrality in their intellectual communities" (Santirocco 16). Still, most foreign language departments are not yet in the "strong position" (Ryding) that supposedly awaits them. Even worse, many languages and entire departments are struggling to survive. In fact, despite being such a "hot topic" (Rivers 25), a smaller aggregate percentage of students study foreign languages at the postsecondary level today than in the 1960s and 1970s (USDE)[2]. And, despite the enthusiasm demonstrated by the StudentPoll and ACE surveys--which indicated that nearly 60% of incoming college freshmen plan to continue language study and nearly 50% plan to study abroad--only 7% of college students enroll in foreign language courses at any given time, and only 3% ever study abroad.

This discrepancy between what students and the general public deem important and what students ultimately do is troubling, yet not difficult to understand. Although students want to study foreign languages, a relative few want to major in a foreign language, and as undergraduate majors become increasingly narrow and professional in scope (Kramsch 1993), there is less room in the four-year sequence for languages and study abroad. But what about the countless international education initiatives? According to the ACE 2000 Preliminary Status Report, "with few notable exceptions, efforts to internationalize have been more symbolic than real" (5). And, for those that do exist, languages are often accorded an "auxiliary status" (Spencer 31). For example, few international business programs demand advanced language proficiency[3] and it "is a truism that international studies programs do not necessarily promote language study" (Santirocco 13). As for the numerous other untapped opportunities (Rivers; Smith), departments of language and literature appear to he sabotaging themselves by refusing to consider the interdisciplinary offers made by other disciplines and by adopting a naive, isolationist attitude. This folly is very poignantly articulated by McConeghy when he states that the question we should be asking is "not only whether something is 'broke," but whether it is still relevant ... kerosene lanterns never really broke ... they simply were replaced by something more reliable, more efficient, and less dangerous: electric lights" (37). For McConeghy and other "luminaries" our rigid literary focused past is the lantern, and interdisciplinary globally-oriented partnerships are the electric lights.

Conclusion

The emphasis on international education has happened in spite of foreign language and literature departments, not because of them. Language departments have rarely demonstrated the need for global education to the rest of the campus. It is more common that other departments recognize a need to internationalize their curricula and then solicit the aid or input of a relatively insular language and literature faculty (Bernhardt; Byrnes; Johnson; Kecht; Kramsch 1989; Pietralunga; Santirocco). For example, there are "constituencies outside language departments [who] want to see graduates who can demonstrate cross-cultural competency and linguistic proficiency adequate to meet increasingly rigorous professional requirements" (Kecht 18), and colleagues across campuses in "business, engineering, and other professional fields have begun to recognize that we now live in a global community (Melton 23). Still, it is disturbing that this realization has taken place more quickly and more profoundly in disciplines who have historically had little or no international orientation, than it has in departments of foreign language and literature. The hubris of our departments is ill-founded when in fact we need global education more than it needs us, and we are the ones who need to partner with other disciplines in order to survive.

In essence, language and literature departments want to be appreciated and respected by other disciplines (Spencer 30), but few appear willing to reciprocate. When modifications to courses within the foreign language and literature curriculum are suggested they are often met with "foot-dragging and even hostility" (McConeghy 37) and although many resist change in the name of academic standards, the real issue is "not so much about compromising instructional integrity as [it is] about recognizing the different goals that students have" (Santirocco 11) and responding to them. It is ironic that it is the department full of faculty members who have passionately devoted their professional lives to the understanding of others through literature, language, and culture who are most fearful of others on our own campus. So, why are we suffering during what should be an era "awash with opportunity?" (Rivers 26). I believe it is simply because we refuse opportunities that originate outside our department walls and are even suspicious of those from within. Nonetheless, the writing is on the wall: "if language and literature departments were not service departments, they would have little left to do as Americans Universities evolve and respond to new challenges and constituencies" (Bernhardt 16). The profession has successfully heralded the call to change in other capacities, such as our methodological growth from a focus on grammar translation to audio-lingualism to communicative techniques. It now appears time for the content and culture of the language department to evolve as well.

Notes

(1.) See McConeghy for a discussion of the often-ignored subtleties of each term.

(2.) According to the USDE's Digest of Education Statistics, foreign languages accounted for 16% of total post-secondary enrollments in 1960, whereas they accounted for just under 8% in 1998.

(3.) See the international business programs offered through San Diego State University and its CIBER for notable exceptions.

Works Cited

Allen, Eugene, and Al Balkcum. "Strengthening Study Abroad for a New Millennium." Proposal to the Bush Foundation (2000): 1-23.

American Council on Education (ACE). Internationalization of US Higher Education. Preliminary Status Report 2000. 5-35.

Art and Science Group. StudentPoll 2001. 1-12.

Bernhardt, Elizabeth. "Victim Narratives or Victimizing Narratives? Discussions of the Reinvention of Language Dept and Language Programs." ADFL Bulletin 29 (1997): 13-19.

Byrnes, Heidi. "Foreign Language Departments and the Cultural Component of an International-Studies Program." ADFL Bulletin 20 (1990): 11-15.

DiPietro, Robert, James Lantolf, and Angela LaBraca. "The Graduate Foreign Language Curriculum." Modern Language Journal 67 (1983): 365-73.

Hayward, Fred, and Laura Siaya. "Public Experience, Attitudes, and Knowledge: A Report on Two National Surveys About International Education." ACE Executive Summary (2001): 1-7.

Johnson, Roberta. "Foreign Language Departments as Leaders in the Globalization of the Campus." ADFL Bulletin 29 (1997): 26-27.

Kecht, Maria-Regina. "Integrated Learning and Internationalized Education through Languages Across the Curriculum." ADFL Bulletin 30 (1999): 17-21.

Kramsch, Claire. "New Directions in the Study of Foreign Languages." ADFL Bulletin 20 (1989): 4-6.

--. "Foreign Languages for a Global Age." ADFL Bulletin 25 (1993): 5-12.

McConeghy, Patrick. "The New Paradigm and International Education: Of Babies and Bathwater." ADFL Bulletin 23 (1992): 34-41.

Melton, Judith. "Foreign Language Interdisciplinary Programs and Alliances: Some Observations." ADFL Bulletin 26 (1994): 19-24.

Modern Language Association. "Language Study in the United States: A Draft Statement." MLA Newsletter Fall 1989. 16.

Neathery-Castro, Jody, and Mark Rousseau. "Does French Matter in the Age of Globalization: France, Francophonie and the World Trade Organization." French Review: in press.

--. Implementing Institutional Effectiveness in Educational Programs. [Workshop and Handouts given at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, February 25, 1999.]

O'Neil, Robert. "An International Perspective in a Research University." ADFL Bulletin 20 (1988): 26-28.

Pietralunga, Mark. "Looking for the Right Balance: It's a Question of Perspective." ADFL Bulletin 31 (2000): 16-20.

Rivers, Wilga. "Developing International Competence for a Centripetal Centrifugal World." ADFL Bulletin 26 (1994): 25-33.

Ryding, Karen. "Foreign Language Departments as Leaders." ADFL Bulletin 29 (1997): 28-29.

Santirocco, Matthew. "Languages and the Global University." ADFL Bulletin 30 (1999): 13-16.

Sinnigen, John. "Foreign Language Education, Intercultural Communication, and the Conditions of Globalization." ADFL Bulletin 31 (2000): 21-26.

Smith, Roch. "Internationalizing the Campus: A National Agenda." ADFL Bulletin 22 (1990): 4-11.

Spencer, Catherine. "Studies in Globe-Trotting: Internationalization at Connecticut College." ADFL Bulletin 34 (2003): 28-32.

Uber Grosse, Christine, and Geoffrey Voght. "Foreign Languages for Business and the Professions at US Colleges and Universities." Modern Language Journal 74 (1990): 36-46.

USDE National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of Education Statistics. 1999.

Carolyn Gascoigne, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Gascoigne, PhD is Associate Professor and Chair of Foreign Languages.