Keeping Up With Styles

As educational spending budgets are squeezed, the return on investment in educational technology is also coming under increased scrutiny. We cut such spending at our peril. Of course, we must invest in books and teachers but technology offers students more opportunity to learn according to their own style. Since the earliest language labs with reel-to-reel tape recorders, technology has been an integral part of language education.

For good reason. Language, both first and second, acquisition in particular is accelerated by the multimedia channels made available through new technology. Now, we are also starting to appreciate the opportunities it offers for differentiated instruction to cater not only to multi-level classes but also to individual learning styles.In his 1983 book Frames of Mind, Harvard professor Howard Gardner originally identified seven intelligences (or learning styles) that we all possess, to which three new intelligences have recently been added. Because our understanding of the brain and human behavior is constantly evolving, the number of intelligences is expanding. Gardner claims that we all have all the intelligences, but that no two people are exactly alike and by understanding a student’s strengths and weaknesses in each intelligence, we can help students become more successful. He adds that integrating multiple intelligences into the classroom requires addressing individual differences and providing a range of activities and experiences to facilitate learning. Technology can be used to facilitate learning in each intelligence area. The key is to provide the most suitable learning environment for students according to their particular  balance of intelligences or styles.

A couple of years ago, Gardner clarified his position on technology’s effect on literacy, “At the start of the 21st century, there’s a dizzying set of literacies available — written languages, graphic displays and notations. And there’s an even broader array of media — analog, digital, electronic, hand-held, tangible and virtual — from which to pick and choose… I don’t worry for a nanosecond that reading and writing will disappear. Even in the new digital media, it’s essential to be able to read and write fluently… I also question the predicted disappearance of the material book… The convenience and portability of the book aren’t easily replaced.” (“The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading” printed in the Washington Post, February 17, 2008.)

Investing in technology does not preclude support for more traditional means of education like books, libraries, and librarians. Gardner’s position and research by other pioneers like Dr. Rita Dunn shows us that the wider the range of teaching methods and materials available the more likely students are to find the methodology that suits their particular style or intelligence. To best serve the array of learners in our schools we must retain the tools which work while embracing and experimenting with new teaching formats that reflect our society’s development.

As John Dewey, the 20th century philosopher and educational reformer said “If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

IN THIS ISSUE:

Insuring Adventure

Harnessing Technology
Lance Knowles recommends educators train to use technology to improve language learning efficacy

Weaving Culture into the Web
Fred Dervin explores how teachers can use the Living Web (Web 2.0) for intercultural education in language learning and teaching

Video Gaming: The New Free Voluntary Reading?
Kenneth S. Horowitz finds a parallel between the use of video games and Krashen’s theories of Free Voluntary Reading and Free Voluntary Surfing

Experimenting with Technology
Language Magazine Product Review of Language Labs

Pura Vida Española

Last Writes
Richard Lederer has a dictionary for teachers

Plus all the latest news in language learning technology, book reviews, and source information on language funding

Cutting to the Core

When lawmakers dictate curricula, the natural reaction from educators is to reject this top down approach which seeks to homogenize the lives of children without possibly taking into account the individual gifts and foibles that teachers recognize as indicators of learning style. When a nationwide blueprint for educational standards is unveiled, reaction within the states of our union is likely to be hostile as it can only be seen as further erosion of state constitutional power. However, the publication of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English and Mathematics has been met with surprisingly little hostility.

Although the Obama administration is strongly encouraging the standards, they are not a federal initiative. Sponsors are the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. States which opt to implement the standards will be better positioned to win grant money in the Race to the Top Program, which awards its second round of federal funds in September. An open letter supporting adoption of the standards was signed by over 50 superintendents and school chancellors from diverse cities such as Anchorage, Memphis and Omaha. In the missive, city leaders underscored the importance of a framework to which all states will be held accountable; “These standards will give us, for once, a common definition of what academic proficiency means and what it doesn’t mean, rather than having 50 different definitions,” they wrote.

Within the standards are relatively detailed guidelines (see News, page 10) on their application to English language learners (ELLs) which recognize from the outset that “ELLs are a heterogeneous group with differences in ethnic background, first language, socioeconomic status, quality of prior schooling, and levels of English language proficiency.” It is such recognition of the diversity of our schoolchildren that prevents the CCSS from being objectionable. As long as they are used as a structure and do not become a law of their own, they are a very useful tool for states to adapt.
But, we cannot expect these standards to suddenly improve our schools. Without equal distribution of resources to ensure that teachers are paid and trained sufficiently to be able to make a difference to the children who need it most, and schools that have equal resources to make sure that underprivileged kids have the environment and resources required to succeed, common standards have little bearing.

Per pupil funding varies enormously not only from state to state, but from school to school, and this problem is being made worse by the Race to the Top initiative. Deep budget crises in many states are threatening thousands of teachers’ jobs and creating problems for schools and their students that no standards can hope to overcome.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Insuring Adventure

Not According to the Script
Mira Teymurova questions the benefits of scripts in listening comprehension

Preparing Teachers for the Modern World
Lorraine D’Ambruoso and Duarte Silva argue that we need to transform our World Language teacher supply system and infuse it with 21st century innovation

Guatemala A Spanish Immersion Adventure
Daniel Ward is struck by the natural beauty and Mayan culture of the country of Eternal Spring

Le Français au Canada
Gonzalo Peralta explains how Languages Canada is making the country an even more attractive destination for French immersion

Bel Voyage
Kate Sommers-Dawes suggests some of France’s most alluring French immersion destinations

Reinforcing French in the Americas

Last Writes
Richard Lederer on facts about teachers

Plus all the latest news in language learning technology, book reviews, and source information on language funding

Assistant Editor Kate Sommers-Dawes continues her reports from Spain:

Had the most thrilling day today (my first day alone, as the journalist group left this morning). I awoke with no plan except to find a hostel to stay in the city center for tomorrow night and ended up with all kinds of new friends and plans for tomorrow – this may be the best city I’ve ever been in as a solo traveler…
On the bus into the city center, I ran into the director of the school where I will be going tomorrow night to watch the world cup game who gave me all kinds of tips on places to eat, parks to sit in, and even pointed me toward a place to buy a Real Madrid t-shirt for my brother. He will also be teaching me to make his world famous sangria tomorrow evening. After parting ways and procuring a delicious falafel sandwich and smoothie, I wandered into a store full of Moroccan wares and struck up a conversation with the man behind the counter, who happened to be from Baghdad, had been in Granada only five years, and spoke very good English. Naturally, we began to talk about the war and he gave me his perspective on life in Baghdad during the American invasion. He had been present for the Nisoor square massacre and told me of his interactions with American soldiers searching his home time and time again, looking for terrorists. In fearing for his life, he came to Spain, where he had relatives but knew no Spanish. Having worked as a software engineer in Iraq, he is now working toward his PhD in Granada so he may someday return to that work.

After our lengthy discussion, I wandered over to a little bar in the Albaicin (a historical barrio in Granada with Romani/Gypsy roots) and struck up a conversation with a Canadian couple from Vancouver. They had moved to Cairo so that the husband could work as an art teacher in the international school there, teaching the children of diplomats and high level American military. They both volunteer after hours in a small, struggling school teaching English to Sudanese refugees who, apparently, receive little to no help from the Egyptian government. I am meeting with them again tomorrow afternoon so that we can discuss their work more. The three of us later began speaking with an Australian woman who lives in Bali and runs a free school for the Balinese children there who need the language as the country relies more and more on English speaking tourists…In short, an inspiring afternoon!

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We arrived in Granada and visited two language schools including Don Quixote and Escuela Montalban. Montalban, especially seemed like a lovely place to study, though both directors were wonderful and engaging. Later, we explored the Alhambra, which was nothing short of breathtaking. Prior to visiting, I hadn’t realized it was a citadel and therefore the size of a small city — days could be spent wandering within its walls. Flowers blossoms and myrtle were everywhere, causing wonderful scents to waft around us as we walked. The sound of running water and gorgeous views of the city below were around every corner. Though it gets chilly at night, the weather here is like a perfect fall day in far away Southern California… breezy, sunny, pleasant, invigorating. After visiting another school que se llama Castila (I liked it so much I’m going back to watch the Spain v Honduras Copa Mundial match with them), which was in a hundreds-of-years-old Spanish casa, we dined at an incredible restaurant in view of the Alhambra at night. The Tempranillo/Cabernet blend served with our colorful, myriad tapas was unforgettable. I could go on forever about Granada and its winding, cobblestone streets, the sounds of Flamenco from unseen places, and Moorish architectural influences, but I think I’ll get out there and explore so I’ll have more to report.

Assistant Editor Kate Sommers-Dawes is in Spain today (El Día del Español) and writes:

Had an outstanding tour of Malaga today after visiting Malaca Language School in the hills surrounding the city which were surprisingly similar in appearance to our rolling, casita-dotted Hollywood Hills. Combined with the weather, it almost felt like home.

Later visited the Picasso museum (as this city is the place of his birth) with its hundreds of sketches, paintings, and ceramics created over his lifetime. The maestro completed over 50,000 works of art in his lifetime and many were on display in the museum, which was originally the 15th century palace of a Duke who came to Malaga to aid in ending the Moorish occupation of the city. In the museum’s basement were Phoenician ruins from 7th century BCE; reminding of us of how far Malaga’s roots stretched into history.

In a late afternoon tour of the city, we visisted the place of Picasso’s birth and the church (originally a mosque, of course) in which he was baptized.

Currently, I am listening to Flamenco singing and guitar-strumming on Malaga’s local radio station and packing for our early morning journey by bus to Granada!

Communicate Period

The administration’s Race to the Top scheme is only the latest in a long line of attempts to “fix” our educational system — all of which have neglected the fundamental changes in our society that have occurred over the last 20 years and are likely to accelerate over the next decades.

Comm­unications have taken on a whole new meaning thanks to technological developments — our computers can teleconference for free with contacts on the other side of the world, and we can even game on our cell phones with intercontinental friends. Air travel is a fraction of its cost a generation ago and international calls are no longer a race against time. We refer to ours as the information age when we might be more accurate labeling it the communication age. However, our schools do not focus on communication as the valuable skill it has proved to be. Sure, we emphasize reading and literacy, pay lip service to geography and history, and dabble with languages and cultural studies, but we fail to integrate these skills into a practical foundation for effective communication — probably the most valuable skill you can give any child.

In our children’s world, the biggest neighborhood employer is as likely to be a Chinese conglomerate as the local Walmart, yet our children will have little chance of succeeding in a real global village without the linguistic and cultural training that will enable them to understand and communicate with the billions of potential clients all around the world.

At the same time, our own communities have rapidly changed as the world has experienced its largest waves of immigration in history, so even those who eschew the online world would be well-advised to add language and cultural expertise to their skill set in order to maximize their potential.

Very soon, it will no longer be enough to be a monolingual engineer. Employers will be able to choose from international pools of qualified, experienced, multilingual candidates whose cultural competency will make them difficult to reject.

We need to infuse the instruction of world languages and cultures throughout our educational system immediately. Ideally, every child would have the opportunity to experience cultural and linguistic immersion through a study abroad program but since budgets will not stretch that far, we must explore other opportunities for developing intercultural communication. The possibilities of online relationship building through mutual understanding of languages and culture are endless (and safe nowadays thanks to the advent of secure educational communities). And many of us are lucky enough to live in areas with large immigrant communities where a pseudo-immersion experience is only a bus ride away.

We can hardly imagine how technology will transform communications by 2050 but we do know that our children deserve the chance to benefit from the opportunities and excitement that our global village offers. It is our responsibility to give them the chance to participate in this new world. Only through learning about different cultures and languages can they acquire the tools they will need to build a new global society based on mutual respect and understanding. Con­tinuing to ignore the communication benefits offered by world language and culture programs will leave our next generation of Americans so far behind that history will be their only solace.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Maximizing Mother Tongues
Laetitia Chanéac-Knight suggests we build on the importance
of heritage languages

Avoiding Six Study Abroad Pitfalls
Fred Dervin explains how preparing students to go beyond stereotypes will help them make the most of international education

Academic Assimilation
Assunta Martin examines how culture affects the writing of academic English by international students

International Education News
The latest on global study

Spanish One Step at a Time
Kate Sommers-Dawes follows a learning path that leads
to more than fluency

Last Writes
Richard Lederer on the real lives of teachers
Plus all the latest news in language learning technology, book reviews, and source information on language funding

On Friday, May 7, a summit meeting entitled, “Building World Citizens for California’s Success,” brought together leaders from business, education, public policy, and local school communities to begin developing a strategic plan for prioritizing world language competence to meet California’s current and future language needs.

The California Language Roadmap is sponsored by National Security Education Program (NSEP), the UC Language Consortium (UCCLLT), San Diego State’s Language Acquisition Resource Center (LARC), and the California Foreign Language Project (CFLP). Ohio, Oregon, and Texas have already held Language Roadmap summits.

The California Language Roadmap initiative is particularly crucial at this time given the fact that world language education in the state is actually retracting despite its wealth of heritage languages and its historical success as an international exporter.

California is not only the most populous state in the U.S. (36.5+ million) but is also one of the top ten world economies.  Developing and maintaining linguistic expertise in world languages is vital to the state’s economic development and international stature and, in the face of recent economic cutbacks, should be an integral part of returning California’s K-12 education to previous levels of performance.

Organizers and participants in the meeting proposed strategies to promote earlier and more widespread language learning in the state. These strategies will be developed and documented on the UC Language Consortium’s website.

Language Magazine is taking an active part in the Roadmap and welcomes all input from interested parties.

In a recent column for the Washington Post, Why Waste Time on a Foreign Language?, Jay Mathews argues that “based on what actually happens in high schools, learning a foreign language often is a waste of time.”

Language Magazine staffer Kate Sommers-Dawes has responded in her own letter to the editor.
Click here to read her response (registration may be required).

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Reading in Any Language

The theme of the International Association’s 2010 conference “Reading in Many Languages”seems perfectly timed to coincide with a new report (see News, p10) which finds that bilingual education works as well as English immersion in the pursuit of English literacy.   

There is a wealth of evidence supporting the premise that acquiring literacy in one language accelerates the acquisition of literacy in others, including the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth’s conclusion, “Rather than confusing children, as some have feared, reading instruction in a familiar language may serve as a bridge to success in English.”(Chapter 14, Erlbaum 2006)   

Some countries recognize this by encouraging literacy acquisition in minority languages as a precursor to literacy in the dominant language, while others see the acquisition of literacy in minority and foreign languages as complementary to literacy in the country’s main language.   

Although some states do allow English learners to learn to read in their heritage language, many do not, and the campaign against bilingual education has succeeded in convincing many voters of its failure despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary with the result that fewer children are being given the opportunity to develop literacy in their native language.

At the same time, the opportunity to learn foreign languages in U.S. public schools is diminishing – according to The Center for Applied Linguistics’ national survey completed last year, “the percentage of elementary and middle schools offering foreign language instruction decreased significantly from 1997 to 2008: from 31 percent to 25 percent percent of all elementary schools and from 75 percent to 58 percent of all middle schools.”

Most technologically and economically developed countries have mandatory foreign language requirements for children beginning at eight years old. However, in the U.S., most students do not begin to learn another language until age fourteen.

Learning to read in any language is part of the educational process and the first step in  personal and social development.

In his essay, Por un Progreso Incluyente (Towards an Inclusive Future, 1997), Carlos Fuentes, the renowned Mexican author, argues that education is the foundation for knowledge, knowledge is the foundation for information, and information is the foundation for development.

Learning to read in more than one language, as many of our European peers do, expands our perceptions and improves our capacity to comprehend the complexities of our increasingly global society. As media outlets become more monolithic, we need to explore alternative information sources in order to build a balanced picture of situations, and literacy in other languages can help us access those sources.

It is not only English learners who can benefit from literacy in more than one language – we would all benefit from the ability to access information in multiple languages. Information is the currency of our age and the inability to process it in more than one language may well limit personal, social, and national development.    

IN THIS ISSUE:

The Ethics of Language Choice in Immigration
Florian Coulmas debates the extent of society’s duty to cater to the linguistic diversity of immigrants

Does the Power of Reading Apply to All Languages
Stephen Krashen argues that recreational reading is the key to literacy in any language

Making Learning to Read Fun
Language Magazine’s guide to materials that take the strain out of learning to read

Doing Time for Change
Kate Sommers-Dawes finds that good teachers given the chance can overcome all the odds against English literacy

Mexican Welcome
Daniel Ward is in good company when he makes the point that the vast majority of Mexico is perfectly safe for visitor

Go East, Young Woman
According to Kate Sommers-Dawes, studying in China is a great career move as well as a cultural adventure 

Last Writes

Richard Lederer on Alice in Wonderland‘s wonderful use of language

Plus all the latest news in language learning technology, book reviews, and source information on language funding

In the first randomized-assignment study in which English language learners were followed for as long as five years, researchers have found that Spanish-speaking children learn to read English equally well regardless of whether they are taught primarily in English or in both English and their native language. The findings lend considerable weight to the argument for bilingual education, as students in bilingual education programs are less likely to fall behind in subjects other than English compared to students in English immersion programs.

“Reading and Language Outcomes of a Five-Year Randomized Evaluation of Transitional Bilingual Education,” from the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University and the Success for All Foundation, reports the fifth-year results of a study comparing the English and Spanish language and reading performance of Spanish-dominant children randomly assigned beginning in kindergarten to Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) or Structured English Immersion (SEI). Funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, this is the first randomized study to compare TBE and SEI reading approaches over a period as long as five years.

As expected, on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and its Spanish equivalent (TVIP) and on English and Spanish versions of three Woodcock Reading Scales, kindergartners and first graders in TBE performed significantly better in Spanish and worse in English than their SEI counterparts, controlling for PPVT and TVIP. After transitioning to English, TBE children in grades 2-4 scored significantly lower than those in SEI on the measure of receptive vocabulary on the PPVT, but there were no significant differences on most English reading measures. On the Spanish language (TVIP) and reading measures, TBE students scored significantly higher than SEI in grades K-3, but not grade four. Both groups gained substantially in English receptive language skills over the years. These findings suggest
that Spanish-dominant students learn to read in English (as well as Spanish) equally well in TBE and SEI.

The researchers followed three cohorts of English Language Learners who entered kindergarten in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Only the group that entered kindergarten in 2004 was followed for a full five years, through 4th grade.
For both groups studied, teachers used Success For All, a reading program that one of the report’s authors, Robert E. Slavin, developed. Success For All is available in English and Spanish.

Teachers of both groups received similar professional development. They took part in an initial two days of professional development, focusing on topics such as strategies for teaching English-language learners, using cooperative learning, and teaching reading in a comprehensive manner.

The study involved six elementary schools, one each in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Texas. Not surprisingly in light of public pressure, some of the elementary schools in the study have since dropped their bilingual education programs. North Alamo Elementary School in Texas, has also dropped its transitional bilingual education program.

The full report will be available from Johns Hopkins University.