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Language Separating German Partners

According to a report by Deutsche Welle, Germany’s government-funded international broadcaster, nearly a third of prospective immigrants applying to join their partners in Germany are unable to do so because they fail to pass a basic German test. 

According to data provided by the government to a parliamentary inquiry from the Left Party and shown to the Funke Media Group, last year 16,200 out of 48,130 test takers failed to pass the Deutsch 1 Test. Only applicants who pass the test in their country of residence are allowed to move to Germany to join a spouse unless they are European Union citizens, Americans, Israelis, highly qualified individuals, or spouses of recognized asylum seekers.

The failure rate among Iraqi applicants was particularly high at almost 50%.

“Basic language skills” are defined by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) as “the ability to understand simple sentences, introduce oneself, go shopping, and ask directions. A person should also be able to fill out official forms.”

The language test only serves “to keep families separated from each other for many years,” Left Party parliamentarian Gökay Akbulut told the Funke Media Group.

“Learning the language in Germany would be much easier, cheaper, and less burdensome for those impacted,” she added.

However, the government’s integration commissioner, Annette Widmann-Mauz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), defended the regulations.

Immigrants need to have basic language skills when they arrive “so that they can find their way around from the very beginning and become established in society,” she told Deutsche Welle.

States Classify Long-Term English Learners Very Differently

In classroom, teen female student looks at paper with frustration
Variations abound in state classification of long-term English learners (LTELs).

The broadest study ever undertaken of long-term English learners (LTELs) in U.S. public schools underscores the need to better understand how students receive this classification, and why the classification varies widely across and within states.

Since LTEL status may negatively impact future educational opportunities and outcomes, the study recommends a much closer examination of how LTELs are classified across the U.S. which could impact English learner master plans.

Experts on multilingual learners at the University of Wisconsin–Madison conducted the nearly year-long study by using population data from 15 states that track students who remain classified as English learners for five or more years. They found the population of LTEL students varies from two to 24% across the states studied.

“Currently, one in five students in the U.S. comes from a home in which a language other than English is spoken, and English learners are the fastest growing subgroup of K-12 students in the country,” says Sarah Ryan, director of Research, Policy, and Evaluation for WIDA.

According to Ryan, WIDA is in a unique position to conduct longitudinal research on language learners, “We have exclusive access to data on the entire population of young language learners in most U.S. states, which no other organization has collected. And we have an opportunity and responsibility to use the data in ways that lead to greater equity for multilingual children and youth.”

While previous research has focused on LTEL populations in primarily Arizona, California, New York, and Texas, Ryan and her colleague, Narek Sahakyan, wanted to better understand this population nationally.

LTELs are defined as English-language learners who have not yet reached a minimum threshold of English-language proficiency after five to seven years in a U.S. school. The researchers defined a common “minimum threshold” as a composite proficiency level of 4.5 on the ACCESS for ELLs English-language proficiency assessment to identify potential LTELs. It is the lowest threshold used to reclassify students as fully English-proficient between 2009-10 and 2014-15, the study’s timeframe.

“Each state sets its own threshold of ACCESS scores required for reclassification, so what it means to be a LTEL varies from state to state,” explains Sahakyan. “Early estimates claim as many as one-quarter to one-half of ELs would become classified as LTELs, but we really had no data from other states to back that up. Our study addresses this gap.”

He adds: “The rates of potential LTELs we uncovered may underestimate the size of this population since about 20% of students in the study discontinued participation in the ACCESS assessment before meeting state criteria for reclassification. We suspect that many of these students moved out of the state or country.”

Reclassification is key because it can serve as a gatekeeper to more advanced courses and learning opportunities, especially when EL students reach middle and high school. Often, when English-learner students reach the secondary level, they are clustered together into separate courses.

“So instead of taking biology in 10th grade, ELs might take ‘sheltered biology.’ And a sheltered version of a class does not usually offer college-preparatory credit,” warns Sahakyan, pointing out that taking a non-college-tracked course in high school could result in missed learning opportunities that will have an impact on future educational and economic success.

In their report, Ryan and Sahakyan point to the dilemma for education researchers and practitioners in identifying and examining LTELs as a subgroup, while knowing that labels can be stigmatizing to students.

“The process of labeling a subgroup of students as LTELs can perpetuate the inequity we aim to address. Yet, by not using this terminology, we might silence growing and necessary attention focused on meeting the needs of these students, which are often overlooked,” explains Ryan. In the report, the researchers write, “We have no easy or simple solutions … and we continue to grapple with it.”

Ryan and Sahakyan suggest that large variability in LTEL rates across states could result in part from different state policies and, at the district and school levels, variable policy implementation. They hope the findings will encourage state policymakers to look more closely at their own data to better understand the LTEL population in their respective states, and to explore how and why the size of this population varies across districts.

In the end, it is about accountability to students and their families, says Ryan. “Federal legislation dictates that states have an obligation to ensure that English-learner students are successful in school, college and society.”

South Africa’s Language Question Remains Unanswered

The governing African National Congress (ANC) held a rally in Sharpeville (suburban Johannesburg) on March 21 to celebrate Human Rights Day and to commemorate the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, widely regarded as the inaugural event in the struggle that eventually led to the end of apartheid in 1994. President Cyril Ramaphosa, ANC party leader, gave the principal speech. South Africans vote on May 8, so the event also served as a pre-election rally. 

Rather than the conventional topics such as inequality, poverty, corruption, or economic growth, Ramaphosa chose to speak about the “promotion of indigenous languages,” a theme of the United Nations’ International Year of Indigenous Languages. He spoke with feeling about the need to preserve indigenous languages: “It is said that when a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it.” The South African constitution protects the rights to indigenous languages as part of “promoting and deepening a human rights culture.”

In practice it is more complicated. South Africa has eleven legally recognized languages. Zulu is the largest; it is spoken by about a quarter of the population, but only by the Zulu people, and it is difficult to learn. Afrikaans, on the other hand, is spoken by both Afrikaners and non-Afrikaners alike, making it the most widely spoken language in South Africa. However, it is also considered the language of apartheid, having been imposed on speakers of indigenous languages by the government, so most South Africans would find it unacceptable as a universal language of instruction. English is the language of commerce and also of connection with the outside world, but it is the first language of only about 10% of the population. From an economic perspective, it would be the logical language for primary and secondary education, but as Ramaphosa implied, recognition and use of an indigenous language can be an affirmation of an individual’s human dignity. 

South Africa’s unemployment rate is 25% or higher, yet employers constantly complain about the lack of qualified workers, by which they often mean English-speaking workers. For example, South Africa does not host call centers as India does, partly because of the shortage of English speakers. Johannesburg offices often engage Zimbabweans as receptionists and telephone operators because they speak and write English well. Zimbabwean primary education did not collapse under the Mugabe regime, and English was the usual language of instruction. This is not the case in South Africa, where there is a lively and unresolved debate about what language should be used in primary schools. Should it be the pupil’s first language, likely indigenous, or another, likely English? Though South African primary education has many challenges, among them underpaid and undertrained teachers, enormous class sizes, and very poor physical facilities, language is also crucial.

The debate over the language of instruction in South Africa is reminiscent of a similar debate in the U.S. Should primary education be in English or the pupils’ first language, most often Spanish when not English?

The quality of much of South African education is abysmal. Yet the country hosts the best universities in Africa and many superb primary and secondary schools. Most of these either are private or were established for whites under apartheid. The language of instruction is usually English and occasionally Afrikaans, with indigenous languages offered as electives. They are now all integrated, and non-whites are often half of the student body. However, at just 9% of the population, white South Africans are still overrepresented in elite institutions of learning. Black oligarchs and the emerging black middle class also have access to these institutions. This may reduce pressure from them for improvement of education for the mass of the population, and with it, the resolution of the language question.

John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. He is the coauthor, along with Matthew Page, of Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which was published in July 2018, and he writes the blog Africa in Transition. From 1975 to 2007, Campbell served as a U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He served twice in Nigeria, as political counselor from 1988 to 1990, and as ambassador from 2004 to 2007. Campbell’s additional overseas postings include Lyon, Paris, Geneva, and Pretoria. He also served as deputy assistant secretary for human resources, dean of the Foreign Service Institute’s School of Language Studies, and director of the Office of UN Political Affairs. This article was previously published on the Council on Foreign Relations Blog at https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-africas-language-question-remains-unanswered. 

Right Brain Crucial to Language Success

“The left hemisphere is known as the language-learning part of the brain, but we found that it was the right hemisphere that determined the eventual success”

A new study, “Speech processing and plasticity in the right hemisphere predict variation in adult foreign language learning,” published in NeuroImage, focuses on the roles played by the brain’s left and right hemispheres in language acquisition. The findings could lead to instructional methods that potentially improve students’ success in learning a new language.

The brains of 24 students of were scanned before and after a month-long intensive Mandarin program. University of Delaware cognitive neuroscientist Zhenghan Qi was surprised by the results: “The left hemisphere is known as the language-learning part of the brain, but we found that it was the right hemisphere that determined the eventual success” in learning Mandarin.

“This was new,” she said. “For decades, everyone has focused on the left hemisphere, and the right hemisphere has been largely overlooked.” The left hemisphere is undoubtedly important in language learning, Qi said, noting that clinical research on individuals with speech disorders has indicated that the left side of the brain is in many ways the hub of language processing.

However, according to Qi, during the early stages of language acquisition before people begin processing vocabulary and grammar, they first have to identify its basic sounds or phonological elements. The right side of the brain is key to distinguishing “acoustic details” of sounds.

During the study, the participants were taught in a setting designed to replicate a college language class, although the usual semester was condensed into four weeks of instruction. Students attended class for three and a half hours a day, five days a week, completed homework assignments and took tests.

“Our research is the first to look at attainment and long-term retention of real-world language learned in a classroom setting, which is how most people learn a new language,” Qi said.

By scanning each participant’s brain with functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) at the beginning and end of the project, the scientists were able to see which part of the brain was most engaged while processing basic sound elements in Mandarin. To their surprise, they found that the right hemisphere in the most successful learners was most active in the early, sound-recognition stage, although, as expected, the left hemisphere showed a substantial increase of activation later in the learning process.

“It turns out that the right hemisphere is very important in processing foreign speech sounds at the beginning of learning,” Qi said. She added that the right hemisphere’s role then seems to diminish in those successful learners as they continue learning the language.

Additional research will investigate whether the findings apply to those learning other languages, not just Mandarin. The eventual goal is to explore whether someone can practice sound recognition early in the process of learning a new language to potentially improve their success.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811919301752

‘Vague’ Language of Male Researchers Wins More Grants

A new study in Nature has found that grant reviewers favor vague and broad terminology used more often by men, despite the fact that proposals using those terms don’t produce better research. The study found that despite the use of blinded review for grants, gender discrimination against female applications takes place. The researchers studied grants submitted to the Gates Foundation from 2008-2017, and found that despite blinded review, female applicants receive significantly lower scores which cannot be explained by reviewer characteristics, proposal topics, or ex-ante measures of applicant quality. Instead, they found strong gender differences in the usage of broad and narrow words, suggesting that differing communication styles are a key driver of the gender score gap. Importantly, the higher reviewer scores for vague language did not predict higher innovative performance. Instead, female applicants exhibit a greater response in follow-on scientific output after an accepted proposal, relative to male applicants. According to the paper, titled, “Is Blinded Review Enough? How Gendered Outcomes Arise Even Under Anonymous Evaluation”, “Our results reveal that gender differences in writing and communication are a significant contributor to gender disparities in the evaluation of science and innovation.”

It’s been proven that diversity of individuals and ideas leads to higher levels of productivity and better outcomes, especially in innovation-driven organizations like science and technology.  Many organizations have implemented strategies in order to minimize bias and maximize diversity. These strategies include emphasizing objective measures of candidates’ ability and past performance, building institutional support for equality, and increasing the diversity of evaluators to name a few. Blinded review is another method to increase diversity, and while blinded review and the other approaches are beneficial, they fall short of fully eliminating biased evaluation. If the findings in the sample of the Gates Foundation apply to the broader scientific and innovative communities, it is likely that female innovators are systematically under-funded relative to the quality of their ideas.

Stressing Classy Communication

In a midsized school, a veteran second-grade teacher is working diligently with her students on a unit called Taking Shape. An aspect of Irene’s teacher craft that she values is getting to know her students, how their linguistic and cultural resources can enrich the class, and what fosters their learning. Additionally, during planning time, Irene and her grade-level team pay special attention to academic language use to construct a multishaped model, the product of the unit.

The group of teachers carefully selects relevant college and career readiness standards and matches them to English language development standards to ensure that English language learners (ELLs) have as many opportunities to access the content, engage in learning, and achieve academically as their English-proficient peers. In designing curriculum, the standards, the instructional materials, and the funds of knowledge from the families and community are major sources of academic language in classrooms. Using these resources, the team sets learning targets that focus on the major concepts and highlight academic language.

What is academic language and why is it important?

In today’s classrooms, with the prominence of challenging content standards, rigorous academic content is at the center of teaching. Academic language, the language required by students to understand and communicate that understanding in subject-area disciplines, forms the heart of grade-level curriculum, instruction, and assessment (Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit, 2014). Academic language (also referred to as scientific language, critical language, and the language of school) helps define the pathways to school success. It is the language of textbooks and homework, in classrooms, and on tests. It is different in register, structure, and vocabulary from everyday speech and social interactions.

Educational theorists and linguists offer varying definitions and a variety of perspectives on what constitutes academic language use. The following bulleted list is a brief summary of some of the major contributors to the discussion; see which views are most aligned to your own, your grade-level team’s, and your school’s philosophy.

  • We construct meaning from the purpose of the communication and its related language choices.
  • We process and produce language around particular functions or purposes that are expressed through vocabulary, grammatical forms, and discourse.
  • We have come to realize that literacy as meaning making extends beyond text to include discourses from visual arts, digital input, and other forms of multimedia.
  • We use language to understand multiple points of view and perspectives as members of communities of practice.
  • We attribute academic success to cognitive engagement, language skills, and metalinguistic strategies.
  • We recognize that students’ identities and student agency are central to deep and involved learning where they are active participants.

Although there are different representations of academic language use, most everyone agrees on its three dimensions. As shown in the diagram below, discourse, exemplified by different genres or text types, shapes the organization and structure of sentences, which in turn consist of vocabulary, expressed as general, specialized, and technical words and expressions.

The Dimensions of Academic Language

Academic language use is central to today’s content classrooms. Because academic language conveys the abstract and complex ideas of the disciplines, it allows users to think and act, for example, as scientists, historians, and mathematicians. “Learning academic language is not learning new words to do the same thing that one could have done with other words; it is learning to do new things with language and acquiring new tools for these purposes” (Nagy and Townsend, 2012, p. 93).

Academic language is much more than vocabulary. Knowledge of single words is not enough to describe complex concepts, thinking processes, and abstract ideas and relationships. The academic language needed by students to access grade-level content and successfully participate in activities and assessments involves knowledge and ability to use specific linguistic features associated with academic disciplines. As shown in the figure, these features include discourse elements, grammatical constructions of
sentences, and vocabulary that often represents multiple meanings across language domains (listening, speaking, reading, writing) and content areas.

Each content area or discipline has a unique discourse, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Think about it. There is a prescribed way of formulating the language used to solve a geometric theorem, and that discourse is distinct from how to narrate a fairy tale, debate the issue of space exploration, or compare two historical events. Providing a deep and well-planned foundation of academic language that considers its multiple dimensions allows students to reach disciplinary success.

The dimensions of academic language help characterize content. Here are some examples of discourses, sentences, and vocabulary for each content area. Embedding the dimensions of academic language into content teaching enables students to attend to processing and producing oral and written text. Let’s look at some classrooms where students are busily using academic language as part of deep and meaningful interactions that revolve around disciplinary practices and activities.

How is academic language learned in different classrooms?

A Fifth-Grade Example

In a fifth-grade classroom in a southeastern state, Maria and her 24 students are embarking on an interdisciplinary unit on ocean ecology with strong ties to literature. Like many teachers, Maria has a diverse group of students, including seven ELLs, in addition to other students with home languages that include English, Spanish, Gujarati, Arabic, Russian, Tamil, and Bosnian.

Maria is excited about this unit, because she and the other fifth-grade teachers plan to adopt the city aquarium as a teaching tool. Together with her grade-level colleagues, Maria selects the essential knowledge and skills along with the corresponding academic language for this ecology unit, which she applies to crafting content targets for science and language arts. Maria then combs the state’s English language development standards to create a language target for the unit. Here are her overall content and language expectations.

Maria uses a picture walk and small-group brainstorming to grab students’ interest in the different organisms found in marine ecologies. She nurtures that interest by having students point out the many exotic and colorful fish species that live in tropical environments, some of which the students are familiar with. As students look at the maps around the classroom, they note that some of their peers have written their names on regions where they have lived or visited. Maria knows that making connections for her students makes learning more motivating and meaningful.

The ecology unit is packed with a variety of engaging tasks, with assessment that is integrated into instruction. Maria is a strong supporter of oral interaction between and among students. She facilitates students working in pairs, in small groups, or in large groups and provides opportunities for students to develop their oral language to access grade-level content. By setting up criteria for success with her students, she is able to make ongoing focused observations and offer students descriptive feedback. Students also have time to reflect on their learning, using the same criteria, and engage in peer assessment. Here are some of Maria’s ideas used during this unit.

An Eighth-Grade Example

Now on to a middle school English language arts class, where Enrique and his eighth- grade  students are engaged in dissecting the academic language of gothic literature. Enrique has decided to focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” Taking into account the content or college and career readiness standards and language development standards, the materials for the unit, and the strengths of his students, Enrique plunges into the unit.

There are many other instances in which the teacher builds on the students’ linguistic repertoires and capitalizes on their interests. One specific example of making connections with the students’ languages and cultures is having them compare a written gothic story (“The Cask of Amontillado”) and an oral gothic story from Latin America (“El Chupacabra,” or “The Goat Sucker”) known by many of the students. The comparison centers on the devices used in each story that contribute to unity of effect, such as setting, symbols, foreshadowing, mood, and tone.

At the close of the unit, students are able to articulate the features and characteristics of gothic stories, including those from other languages and cultures, and to relate Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of mystery and the macabre to contemporary novels, movies, and oral traditions from Latin America. Enrique is pleased that his class can articulate the meaning and give examples of allegory and symbolism in both written and oral gothic stories using grade-level academic language (Minaya-Rowe, 2014).

Academic language: Important for all, essential for ELLs

For several decades now, academic language has been important to the work of educators engaged in advancing educational equity for ELLs. With the emergence of college and career readiness standards, academic language learning has become equated with the educational success of all students. Academic language can no longer be considered the “top ten” important words needed for a topic or lesson. Rather, academic language needs to be broadly understood as the knowledge and ability to use specific linguistic features (dimensions of discourse, sentences, and vocabulary) within the context of the content-area practices. This kind of language affords ELLs, alongside their English-proficient peers, opportunities to think, know, act, and interact during instruction. Ultimately, academic language offers pathways for all students to maximize their success in school.

References

Gottlieb, M., and Ernst-Slavit, G. (2014). Academic language in Diverse Classrooms: Promoting content and language learning: Definitions and contexts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

McCloskey, M. L., and New Levine, L. (2014). In M. Gottlieb and G. Ernst-Slavit (series eds.). Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Promoting content and language learning, English language arts, grades 3–5, (pp. 131–178). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Minaya-Rowe, L. (2014). “A Gothic Story: ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’” In M. Gottlieb and G. (series eds.). Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Promoting content and language learning. English language arts, grades 6–8, (pp. 137–182). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Nagy, W. and Townsend, D. (2012). “Words as Tools: Learning academic vocabulary as language acquisition.” Reading Research Quarterly, 47(1), 91–108.

This article originally appeared in Language Magazine in September, 2016. Dr. Margo Gottlieb was co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the Wisconsin Center of Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. Gisela Ernst-Slavit was professor of education and ELL at Washington State University in Vancouver. Margo and Gisela authored a foundational book and co-edited a series of language arts and mathematics books on academic language in diverse classrooms, published by Corwin.

Ontario Supports French-Language Education

The province of Ontario will invest $19.41 million in several projects and initiatives to support students, parents and teachers in French-language schools. This investment is part of the new $330 million Priorities and Partnerships Fund (PPF) which funds high impact initiatives that directly support students in the classroom.

“We continue to take action to protect what matters most to Franco-Ontarian families by putting them first,” said Lisa Thompson, Minister of Education. “Every Franco-Ontarian family in this province should feel supported when it comes to ensuring their child has access to a meaningful and modern education.”

PPF funding will support a wide range of projects and initiatives that help retain and engage students and their families, strengthen partnerships across the system, and increase access to quality French-language programs and services both inside and outside the classroom, including:

  • Funding to assist French-language school boards in the implementation of aménagement linguistique initiatives in French-language schools in Ontario, engaging students and developing their sense of belonging to the French-language school system and their community.
  • Funding to support six French-language school boards, with a view to build the capacity of administrators, principals and teachers in data collecting, analysis and identifying next steps.
  • Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) meetings organized regionally by French-language school boards to support SHSM programs in schools, share expertise and encourage networking among school boards.
  • Funding for l’Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO) and Council of Trustees’ Associations (CTA) to promote the success of French-language students with special needs.

“Education for Francophone students in Ontario is imperative, and I am proud of the work our government is doing to support students and families in our French-language education system,” said Sam Oosterhoff, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Education. “We will continue to work with our education partners to ensure French-language education continues to thrive in our province.”

There are twelve French-language school boards in Ontario, with 470 French-language schools; more than 108,000 students attend French-language schools, and the province is home to more than 620,000 Francophones.

Australian Scientists Find Link Between Language Diversity and Climate

Language diversity is closely linked to a region’s climate, rather than being purely incidental, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications. Researchers have also found that language diversity is more heavily impacted by a region’s climate than the region’s landscape, such as altitudinal range and river density, which may contribute to isolation of cultural groups.

The research team of Xia Hua, Simon Greenhill, Marcel Cardillo, Hilde Shneemann, and LIndell Bromham from ANU in Canberra mapped languages around the world and found that areas with high year-round productivity led to more languages. The study was the first global analysis of language diversity that compares the relative importance of isolation and ecological risk.

The study first looked at the fact that the geographic distribution of the world’s approximate 7500 languages is strikingly uneven. Papua New Guinea represents over 10% of the world’s languages in <.5% of the world’s land area. Compare that to the Russian Federation, which covers 11% of the world’s land area but accounts for only 1/5% of the world’s languages.

The researchers noted that there are broad geographic patterns in the distribution of languages, notably latitudinal gradients in which diversity increases towards the equator, and languages in the tropics tend to be restricted to smaller areas than languages at higher latitudes. The hypothesis that landscape features (such as mountains and rivers) stimulate diversity by limiting human movement and dividing populations into smaller speaker groups, thus making more language diversity, was disproved, along with any direct link between biological diversity and language diversity. With that said, a general map of the locations of higher linguistic diversity does correlate with general maps of biodiversity.

The researchers tested six climatic variables for associations with language diversity: mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, temperature seasonality, precipitation seasonality, net primary productivity, and mean annual growing season. Among these climatic variables, precipitation seasonality and temperature seasonality has the strongest associations with language diversity.

Climate and geography are not the only factors that shape diversity, however. For example, regions of higher than expected language diversity may have had a longer period of language diversification, or have undergone a higher rate of diversification, leading to a greater accumulation of languages in these regions than in other regions of similar climate.

The overall picture supported by the analysis is that environmental factors are a significant determinant of global variation in the diversity of human languages, as they are for global variation in biodiversity. Associations between global patterns of language diversity and climate are consistent with the ecological risk hypothesis, that stable productive climates allow human cultures to persist in smaller, more localized groups.

Languages ‘Critical’ to U.S. Employers

Young translator introducing Arabian businessman to business partners

A new survey, released today, calls attention to the serious foreign language skills gap in the U.S. workforce. The report, “Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers,” shows the critical demand in the U.S. economy for multilingual employees, providing the most comprehensive look at the value of foreign language to date.

Demand for language skills in the U.S. workforce is greater than ever before. In boardrooms and in the field, with customers and partners and on social media, U.S. employers today are increasingly conducting business in a language other than English. Accordingly, the ability to effectively communicate in more than one language is a critical asset for U.S. students and employees—not only in boosting their marketability in the workplace, but in helping them thrive in a global economy.

This groundbreaking industry report, based on a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) as part of its Lead with Languages campaign, and with support from Pearson and Language Testing International, includes new data emphasizing the vital need for language skills in the U.S. workplace and their impact on the U.S. economy.

“There is no denying the dominant position STEM subjects have enjoyed in today’s curriculum. Foreign language, unfortunately, is often treated as a competing discipline. Our survey findings highlight the need for world language skills to be recognized as a complementary and interdependent capability. We already know that language learning deepens our connections to other cultures, boosts confidence, strengthens decision-making, and contributes greatly to national security; we also know language skills are necessary to produce the globally-competent employees U.S. businesses are seeking,” said Howie Berman, ACTFL’s executive director. “This reality requires an education system that prepares graduates to be proficient in the languages they need to successfully compete in a 21st century global economy.”

According to the report, a vast majority of U.S. employers say they rely on employees with language skills other than English to advance their business goals. Those unable to fill this need may find themselves falling behind in the global market.

Key findings of the report include:

U.S. employers have a growing demand for multilingual employees.

  • Nine out of 10 U.S. employers report a reliance on U.S.-based employees with language skills other than English.
  • One-third (32%) of employers report a high dependency on language skills other than English.
  • A majority of employers report that their need for foreign languages has increased over the past five years and project that it will continue to grow.

High-demand languages also have the greatest shortages.

  • Spanish, Chinese and Japanese see the highest demand among U.S. employers. Additionally, employers are most likely to report shortages in these languages.
  • A third (34%) of U.S. employers reliant on foreign languages say their foreign language needs are not currently being met by their employees.

Foreign language skills impact employers’ bottom line.

  • Nearly one in four U.S. employers surveyed acknowledged losing or being unable to pursue a business opportunity over the singular lack of foreign language skills.

The report also proposes seven concrete recommendations U.S. employers can implement to better recruit and sustain a multilingual workforce, as well as understand the implications of early language instruction on creating a more robust pipeline of future workers with language skills.

“We are pleased to support the work that ACTFL is doing to quantify the demand for multilingual employees in the United States and raise awareness of the importance of foreign language education,” said Andrew Gilfillan, Pearson’s VP of Product Management for the Humanities, Social Sciences, World Languages, and Business. “At Pearson, it is our mission to be a true partner in language learning for instructors and students by creating proficiency-oriented educational solutions for the 21st century classroom. Students are increasingly focused on how their studies relate to employability, and the results of this survey unequivocally demonstrate the value of language education to the U.S. economy.”

ACTFL’s report details the findings of a national survey among 1,200 upper-level managers and human resources professionals with knowledge of their organization’s foreign language needs.Public administration and government employers were excluded from this survey as were employers with fewer than 10 employees.

To learn more andto download the report, visit https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/report.

Feds Called to Account for Lack of Teacher Diversity

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and leaders in Congress have been called to act to address the lack of teacher diversity in our nation’s classrooms in a letter from a coalition of 75 education organizations representing teachers, preservice teachers, school counselors, education staff, principals, superintendents, charter school leaders, education reformers, tutors, and teacher educators. The list of signatories includes Association of American Educators Foundation, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Network of State Teachers of the Year, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, Educators Rising, Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, National Council for the Social Studies, National Association of Special Education Teachers, Organization of American Historians, American Association for Employment in Education, Association of Teacher Educators, American Association of Physics Teachers, Kappa Delta Pi, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Educators for Excellence.

The letter, citing federal data and university studies, reports that 53% of public school students are children of color, while only 18% of teachers identify as a person of color. Studies reveal this disparity causes overall lower student achievement and outcomes, especially in populations of at-risk students and students of color.

The letter states, “We believe that increasing teacher diversity elevates the teaching profession and improves the lives and outcomes of all students,” and calls on all parties involved to play a role in addressing the problem and volunteers the services of the undersigned organizations to help Congress and the Department of Education determine how proposed regulations and legislation may increase or decrease teacher diversity.

“Our teaching population is not reflective of the students they serve, which is no fault of the good women and men in teaching today,” explains Colin Sharkey, executive director of Association of American Educators (AAE) Foundation. “We know this lack of racial diversity can have a devastating effect on the academic achievement of students of color and it means countless persons of color are discouraged from choosing education, which has a negative impact on the profession.”

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) VP of K-12 Advocacy Sekou Biddle, who co-signed the letter, stated, “UNCF is dedicated to improving outcomes for African-American students to ensure they are well-equipped to enter and succeed in college; and we are committed to working with AAE to develop sound and effective solutions to diversify the teacher workforce.”

“We believe the collective effort of these signatories and other organizations committed to this issue will lead to solutions improving pathways for the next generation of educators and addressing issues of morale, training, and support disproportionately impacting teachers of color but too commonplace for all teachers,” added Sharkey.

More information, including the full letter text, list of signatories, articles and studies cited in the letter, is available at aaeteachers.org/diversity.

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