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Chinese Dialects Honored in Film

Last month’s Zurong Dialect Film Festival, one of China’s campaigns to preserve language diversity, received 582 entries featuring various dialects in just its second year. The number of entries doubled from last year, coming from all over the country. Zhao Yuhe received the Best Actress Award at the festival hosted by Zhanjiang, in south China’s Guangdong Province, even though she is a farmer, is illiterate, and speaks not a word of Mandarin.

Zhao won for her role in Mobile Phone, which tells a story about deterring juvenile crime in Guangdong, and features the Leizhou dialect, a sub-branch of the Min language group spoken mostly by people living in the Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Among the other 16 award winners were films featuring Tibetan and Cantonese. Due to its size and demographic diversity, China has 130 languages, ten major dialects of Mandarin, and countless minor vernaculars, according to government statistics. However, many are endangered.

“Films, along with songs and other performing arts, are crucial in maintaining linguistic diversity and preserving cultural heritage,” explained Cao Zhiyun, a member of the Zurong Film Festival awards committee and head of the National Language Resources Protection Project, to the Xinhua news agency.

The state-sponsored project collaborates with 250 Chinese universities and research institutes and has recorded nearly 100 languages spoken in China since its launch in 2015. In January, the central authorities issued a directive stressing the importance of preserving dialects and local cultures.

Florida’s ESSA Plan ‘Impedes Progress of ELLs’

Stressed college student for exam in classroomThe Florida Department of Education’s implementation plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has been roundly criticized as it relates to English learner students and Latino students by experts from UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza) and TESOL-related organizations.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, UnidosUS has expressed strong opposition to the state’s education plan and urged the Department of Education take appropriate steps to hold the state accountable.

Florida’s plan, which is awaiting Department of Education approval, proposes an accountability system that does not include an English Language Proficiency (ELP) indicator in the rating or identification of schools.

The objections are based on the following grounds:

  • The state has proposed to measure English Language Proficiency through the English Language Arts (ELA) assessment. ELA tests do not test English across the domains, which is part of the English language proficiency standards, and ELA assessments do not test oral language, a requirement of Title Ill.iii
  • The state has not proposed to develop native language assessments to more accurately measure the progress of their English language learners and dual language learners. Florida’s ESSA plan states “providing an assessment in the native language would impede, rather than support, the student’s ability to demonstrate their knowledge.” Native language assessments give our students the opportunity to demonstrate their content subject mastery while still progressing towards English Language Proficiency.
  • The state has also proposed an accountability system that does not include calculations for subgroups of students such as English Leaners, Latino students and other federally recognized subgroups. One of the critical civil rights protections for our students is that they are justly included in the accountability system.

According to UnidoUS, “Florida’s ESSA plan provides a striking contrast to the fundamental values of the law, opting to impede the progress of the more than 200,000 English learner students in the state’s public school system.”

“In Florida’s final submitted state plan, we saw a complete disregard for the concerns echoed by local stakeholders as it relates to our historically underserved students. There was an absence of substantive changes that would improve outcomes and conditions for our students, especially English learners. As we see it, the state of Florida deliberately chose the path of noncompliance and needs to be held accountable by the US Department of Education to protect the rights of all students under federal law,” said Jared Nordlund, senior Florida strategist at UnidosUS.

“It is the belief of Sunshine State TESOL that by not disaggregating student performance, denying ELs access to native-language assessment to demonstrate their knowledge of content, and by not using the English Language Proficiency Assessment standards to measure English language proficiency, the Florida plan falls short in complying with the requirements of ESSA. Not only are we setting barriers for success, but we are also widening the achievement gap between English learners and non-English learners,” said Dr. Arlene Costello, second VP at Sunshine State TESOL.

For additional information on ESSA and other education issues, visit progressreport.co.

 

EF ‘s EPI Reveals Worldwide English Skills

Education First

For the seventh year in a row, Education First (EF), has released their annual report on English proficiency. EF, an international education company that specializes in language training, educational travel, academic degree programs, and cultural exchange, states in their introduction to the rankings, “In 2017, English is as essential to international communication as it has ever been.

It is the language of science, business, and diplomacy. The global adoption of English is not a testament to the cultural supremacy of any one country, but rather a rejection of the need for a shared language in our deeply interconnected world.”

Index

This year’s index ranks 80 countries and territories based on test data from more than one million adults who took the EF Standard English Test (EF SET) in 2016. According to the EF report, their key findings were:

  • Fewer Countries Showed Significant Improvement in English Proficiency
    • The report saw only a slight improvement in scores.
    • Only Panama, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Thailand showed significant gains.
  • Europeans Have the Best English
    • Europe’s average score is only slightly higher than that of Asia.
    • Eight of the top ten highest scores are from Europe.
  • Adults in Latin America are Catching Up to Adults in Asia
    • The average English proficiency score in Latin America is just now two points behind Asia.
    • Countries in Latin America have the narrowest proficiency score of any region, which means that the highest and lowest proficiency countries in Latin America are not very far apart. Only ten points separates Latin America’s highest proficiency country from El Salvador, the lowest.
    • In Asia, on the other hand, the gap between the highest and lowest countries is nearly 30 points—the widest in the world.
  • Africa’s English Proficiency Remains Difficult to Gauge
    • Based on the data available, English proficiency in Africa is slightly below the global average. However, this estimate only includes test takes from nine countries. Because of this, EF doesn’t have a clear picture of English proficiency on the continent.
  • The Middle East has the Lowest English Proficiency
    • Especially in conflict zones, education remains a problem.
  • Women Speak English Better Than Men
    • Worldwide, EF found that women’s English proficiency is higher than men’s. In Latin America and the Middle East, men are on par with women.
  • Younger People Have Better English Than Older People
    • The generation proficiency gap is widest in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, where average proficiency scores for recent high school graduates are nearly 20 points higher than those of adults over 40.
  • English Correlates with Key Economic and Social Indicators
    • Countries with higher levels of English proficiency tended to have more service exports, better Internet access, and more investment in research and development than countries with lower English proficiency.

 

THE RANKINGS

The top 10 Highest Proficiency Countries

  1. Netherlands
  2. Sweden
  3. Denmark
  4. Norway
  5. Singapore
  6. Finland
  7. Luxembourg
  8. South Africa

 

The Lowest Proficiency Countries

 

  1. Oman
  2. Mongolia
  3. Saudi Arabia
  4. Angola
  5. Kuwait
  6. Cameroon
  7. Algeria
  8. Cambodia
  9. Libya
  10. Iraq
  11. Laos

 

 

View the full report here: http://www.ef.com/__/~/media/centralefcom/epi/downloads/full-reports/v7/ef-epi-2017-english.pdf?_ga=2.100151326.1418618601.1510360025-178369784.1510360025

 

Should Americans Learn African Languages?

According to the 2011 census, just .03% of Americans speaks an African language. However, the United States was ranked third for capital investment in African countries in 2014 begetting the argument that more Americans should learn African languages. The Financial Times reported that, “the U.S. was the top source country by number of [African] projects last year, with 67 U.S. companies launching or announcing 97 projects – a 47% rise on the previous year’s tally.” As China is reaching out to many countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, with the agenda of language learning and cultural exchange in order to promote growing international business relations, some argue that the U.S. should step up its soft power.

Continue

Canadian Stats Reveal Need for Revitalization

Growth of the Indigenous population in Canada continues to rapidly outpace that of the rest of the country, but Indigenous languages need more revitalization efforts, according to census data released by Statistics Canada (http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/index-eng.cfm).

Between 2006 and 2016, the self-identified Indigenous population g
rew by 42.5%—from 1,172,790 to 1,673, 785—a rate four times that of the rest of the population, according to Stats Can. The agency is projecting the Indigenous population to hit 2.5 million within the next two decades.

While a longer life expectancy and high fertility rates affected the figures, an increase of people self-identifying as Indigenous—particularly as Métis and nonstatus First Nation—propelled the continued growth rate in the population, Johanne Denis, director general of Stats Can’s social and demographic statistics, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

At 587,545, the Métis population is the fasting-growing subsegment of the Indigenous population, rising to 51% of the total over the last ten years. The status and nonstatus First Nations population grew to 977,230, increasing by 39% between 2006 and 2016, and the Inuit population rose to 65,025, up 29.1% over the same time span.

The Stats Can census registered 70 Indigenous languages spoken across the country. The data found that 260,550 people reported being able to speak an Indigenous language, an increase of only 3.1% since 2006. Over the same period, there was a decrease in people who reported being able to converse in an Indigenous language, dropping to 15.6% from 21.4%.

However, the data also found that more people had learned an Indigenous language (260,550 people) than reported it as their mother tongue (208,720), which “suggests that many people, especially young people, are learning (Indigenous) languages as second languages,” said the Stats Can report.

About 64% of Inuit reported being able to speak Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, Inuvialuktun, and other Inuit languages, while the figure was 84% for Inuit living in the homelands of Inuit Nunangat.

The Indigenous languages with the most speakers fell under the Algonquian language group—Cree and Ojibway—with 175,825 reporting an ability to speak the tongues.

Accenting Improvements

Lois Spitzer examines the sensitive subject of accent modification

As educational institutions expand their recruiting horizons and employ more staff from other countries, the extent to which accents may interfere with teaching has become a hot topic. Whether communication is hindered by the accent itself or is a result of the audience’s prejudice, the issue needs to be addressed.

Bailey (1984), Gill (1994), and Rubin (1992) report “A number of colleges and universities… have experienced issues surrounding an increase in non-native graduate teaching assistants who purportedly have low English proficiency and are perceived to be unintelligible” (Gluszek, A., & Dovidio, J. F., 2010, 214). Rao (1995) documented this problem and called it “The Oh No! Syndrome”, which represents the response of many native English-speaking American students on the first day of classes when realizing that the professor has a foreign accent. “…When students language expectations…were confirmed, they felt more angry and anxious… and were more likely to drop a class taught by a foreign-accented faculty” (2).

What could be more important to a teacher than being able to communicate clearly to his or her students? More and more, lack of intelligibility caused by a foreign accent is cited a problem for students and faculty in higher education. Another cause of communication problems is cultural differences. “Beyond English proficiency, foreign-accented faculty must adjust and cope with differences in cultural authority structures, social relationships, educational systems, and educational processes as well as student resistance” (Kavas & Kavas, 2008, 882). International faculty must understand the relevance of different culturally-based education practices and be willing to make an effort to overcome them (Bailey, 1984b).

To mitigate this situation, faculty and students must also develop cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity. Some areas of the country until very recently have remained fairly isolated from recent immigration trends and many individuals in these areas have not had the opportunity to travel to other geographic and linguistic areas; therefore, they are not used to hearing accents that are different from their own. This situation often creates a communication problem for foreign-accented faculty and students. In addition to frustrating all involved, this lack of exposure and experience can also impede academic success for students and retention or promotion for faculty.

What is a foreign accent?

An accent, as defined by American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA), is “the unique way that speech is pronounced by a group of people speaking the same language” (ASHA.org). Pronunciation of words is affected by the area in which an individual grew up or resided (e.g., regional accent) or by interfering phonological elements of another language (e.g., foreign accent). Even though it is widely accepted that a regional or foreign accent is not a speech or language disorder, it is also acknowledged that accents affect communication. Not being able to communicate clearly can affect many areas of one’s life but the main obstacle of a strong accent influenced by interference from another language is that of an inability to communicate clearly. It is undeniable that a strong non-standard accent can affect one’s job performance, academic achievement and ultimately, one’s self-esteem. Many non-native speakers don’t initially recognize the extent to which their first language affects the pronunciation of their second language. If and/or when they do, there are few places they can go for help.

How does an accent affect an individual?

It only makes sense that individuals with accents have diverse opinions about their own accents and whether they want to change them. For many, an accent is the mark of one’s cultural identity. According to Shah (2012), speaking with an accent is not reason enough for accent modification. “SLPs (Speech Language Pathologists) can help determine who can benefit from accent modification and who is misidentified as having a communication problem…it is useful for clinicians to have a framework with which to determine whether an individual would be able to communicate more effectively with accent modification services” (Shah, 2007, 1).

Shah goes on to identify the most common reasons why clients seek or are referred for accent modification services. The first is personal preference, and for these individuals, accent does not contribute to communication difficulty. Media personalities and communication professionals often seek out accent modification services to change an accent or adopt a new one.

Others seek services because of a mild accent or a regional variation or dialectal or ethnic variation (some examples include, African American Vernacular English, Southern, New York, and Midwestern accents). For these individuals, intelligibility is not an issue and those who cannot understand these speakers with a mild accent would benefit from cultural competence training (Shah, 2012).

Still other individuals truly have difficulty with communication because of their accents. “When a client reports across-the-board communication difficulty that affects his or her job performance and social acculturation, it is likely the client could benefit from accent modification services” (Shah, 2012, 2).

To determine whether a client actually needs accent modification services, Dr. Amee Shah, the director of the Research Laboratory in Speech Acoustics and Perception at Cleveland State University, developed an assessment that objectively measures intelligibility as a predictor of communication difficulty intelligibility called the Comprehensive Assessment of Accentedness and Intelligibility (CAAI). CAAI includes a decision-making rubric that is culturally sensitive and is used to identify individuals who may benefit from accent modification. She also recommends that clinicians use other means of assessment; specifically in academic settings, student evaluations of the intelligibility of non-native Standard English-speaking teachers or teacher evaluations of the intelligibility of non-native Standard English-speaking students often serve as informal assessments.

How do native speakers react to non-native speakers’ accents?

Although a general perception among listeners and speakers alike is that accents interfere with communication, there is also the possibility that this difficulty is caused by the listener’s prejudice (Derwing & Munro, 2009). According to Sato (1991) there is a tremendous amount of intolerance for foreign accented speech in the U.S. This has led to an increase of the number of accent reduction or elimination programs; these programs inherently suggest that accents should be viewed as pathology, which need to be reduced or even eliminated (Munro & Derwing, 2000). Many studies have shown that native-speaker (NS) listeners tend to underestimate the language proficiency of non-native speakers (NNSs) simply because of a foreign accent (Anisfield, Bogo & Lambert, 1962; Brennan & Brennan, 1981a, 1981b; Kalin & Rayko, 1978; Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner & Fillenbaum, 1960; Ryan & Carranza, 1975; as found in Munro & Derwing, 2000). Ryan, Carranza, & Moffie (1977) found that people are prejudice against people with strong accents. Derwing (2003) and Gluszek & Dovidio (2010a) posit that NNSs are often stigmatized because of their accents, and Ng (2007) agrees that accent is a basis for discrimination. People assume that individuals who speak with non-native accents have poor language proficiency (Lindemann, 2005).

There is no indication that reduction of accent necessarily increases intelligibility. In fact, “the effect of non-native pronunciations on intelligibility are far from clear” (Munro & Derwing, 2009, 287). Therefore, the emphasis should not rest solely on accent reduction, but also on ways to reduce the negative perceptions caused by non-native accents. “One such intervention may break the chain of negative social consequences for the speakers by addressing others’ perceptions of accent strength, for example, by teaching native speakers how to listen to accented speech (Derwing, Rossiter, & Munro, 2002). Both speakers and listeners need to be made aware that accents do not necessarily lead to communication problems (Munro & Derwing, 1995a) and that reducing a non-native accent is extremely difficult and elimination is perhaps impossible (Scovel, 2000).
Cook (1999) argues that a NNS’s pronunciation should be considered an individual right and that the NS’s pronunciation should not be considered an ideal against which the NNS measures his/her own accent. In fact, increased globalization will cause NSs to deal more often with their own prejudices, and this is what those of us in higher education can face head-on: this is a perfect opportunity to help NSs to find positive ways to meet the challenges of the “social and cultural realities of living with many tongues” (Cheng, 1999).

How can this problem be alleviated?

How can institutions step up to meet the need of both helping NNSs modify their accents and also educate the college community about their own perceptions and prejudices? This author poses the following plan:

1. Set up a program where speech pathology students can assess and carry out their clinical practice while helping those faculty & students (and staff) who have accented speech.

2. Encourage NNSs to sign up for these services by advertising throughout the college.

3. Find a way to offer these individuals “scholarships” for these services at a low (or no) cost.

4. As part of New or Transfer Student Orientation or Freshman Seminars, introduce this issue of accented speech and help students become aware of their own prejudices by sharing research and having students go through “Globalization” workshops to help them prepare for teachers, classmates, roommates, who may be NNSs with an accent.

5. When the college hires new faculty/staff, encourage the NNSs (who feel they have an accent that may impede communication) to visit the speech clinic and get an evaluation to increase their own self-confidence.

6. Offer special workshops on the American academic culture to help international faculty better understand their students.

7. Offer classes to help students with cross-cultural understanding, sensitivity and communication. This author is offering a class entitled “Developing Cross-Cultural Understanding” and a large part of the class involves helping students become aware of their own stereotypes and prejudices.

Finally, collaboration and communication among faculty, students and administration about language and cross-cultural communication will help globalize and educate the college community. Another suggestion would be to encourage students to become active participants in international student clubs and programs. Faculty can and should engage in conversations about these topics and challenge preconceptions. New college graduates will be entering a global workplace and it is our responsibility to prepare these individuals for it and to help them realize that the accented speech of the many NNSs in their lives need not be a barrier to communication. Breaking down communication barriers will ultimately lead to a more globalized college community and beyond for all involved.

References
American Hearing and Speech Association (ASHA). ASHA.org.
Ansfield, M., Bogo, N., & Lambert, W. (1962). “Evaluational reactions to accented English speech.” Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 69, 89-97.
Bailey, K. M. (1984). “The ‘foreign TA problem.’” In K. M. Bailey, F. Pialorsi, & J. Zukowski-Faust (Eds.), Foreign teaching assistants in the U.S. universities (pp. 3-15). Washington, DC: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs.
Brenan, E. M., & Brennan, J. S. (1981a). “Accent scaling and language attitudes: Reactions to Mexican American English speech.” Language & Speech, 24, 207-211.
Brenan, E. M., & Brennan, J. S. (1981b). “Measurements of accent and attitude toward Mexican American English speech.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 10, 487-501.
Cheng, L. -R. L. (1999). “Moving beyond accent: Social and cultural realities of living with many tongues.” Topics in Language Disorders, 19, 1-10.
Cook, V. (1999). “Going beyond the native speakers in language teaching.” TESOL Quarterly, 33, 185-209.
Derwing, T. M. (2003). “What do ESL students say about their accents?” Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des language vivantes, 59, 547-566.
Derwing, T. M., & Munro, M. J. (2009). “Putting accent in its place: Rethinking obstacles to communication.” Language Teaching, 42, 476-490.
Derwing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., & Munro, M. J. (2002). “Teaching native speakers to listen to foreign-accented speech.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23, 245-259.
Gill, M. M. (1994). “Accent and stereotypes: Their effect on perceptions of teachers and lecture comprehension.” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 22, 348-361.
Gluszek, A., & Dovidio, J. F. (2010). “Speaking with a nonnative accent: Perceptions of bias, communication, and belonging.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 14, 214-237.
Kalin, R., & Rayko, D. S. (1978). “Discrimination in evaluative judgments against foreign-accented job candidates.” Psychological Reports, 43, 1203-1209.
Kavas, A. and Kavas, A. (2008). “An exploratory study of undergraduate college students’ perceptions and attitudes toward foreign accented faculty.” College Student Journal, 42, 2, 879-890.
Lambert, W. E., Hodgson, R., Gardner, R. C., & Fillenbaum, S. (1960). “Evaluational Reactions to spoken languages.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 60, 44-51.
Lindemann, S. (2005). “Who speaks ‘broken English’? U.S. undergraduates’ perception of non-native English.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15, 187-212.
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (1995a). “Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners.” Language Learning, 45, 73-97.
Munro, M. J., & Derwing, T. M. (2000). Foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in the speech of second language learners. Language Learning, 49, 285-310.
Rao, N. (1995). “The Oh No! Syndrome: A language expectation model of undergraduate negative reactions toward foreign teaching assistants.” Paper submitted at the 79th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Albuquerque, NM. May 25-29, 1995. ERIC ED384921.
Rubin, D. L. (1992). “Non-language factors affecting undergraduates’ judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants.” Research in Higher Education, 33, 511-531.
Rubin, D. L., & Smith, K. A. (1990). “Effects of accent, ethnicity, and lecture topic on undergraduates’ perceptions of nonnative English speaking teaching assistants.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 14, 337-353.
Ryan, E. B., & Carranza, M. A. (1975). “Evaluative reactions of adolescents towards Speakers of standard English and Mexican American accented English.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 855-863.
Ryan, E. B., & Carranza, M. A., & Moffie, R. W. (1977). “Reactions toward varying degrees of accentedness in the speech of Spanish-English bilinguals.” Language and Speech, 20, 267-273.
Sato, C.J. (1991). “Sociolinguistic variation and language attitudes in Hawaii.” In J. Cheshire (Ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 647-663) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scovel, T. (2000). A critical review of the critical period research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 20, 213-223.
Shah, A. P. (2002). Temporal characteristics of Spanish-accented English: acoustic measures and their correlation with accented ratings. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University of New York.
Shah, A. P. (2007). Comprehensive assessment of accentedness and intelligibility (CAAI). [assessment battery]. Cleveland, OH: EBAM Institute, L.L.C.
Shah, A. P. (2012, March 13). “Helping clients choose a voice.” The ASHA Leader.

Lois Spitzer has an Ed. D. in Applied Psycholinguistics from Boston University, an M.Ed. in Secondary Education/ESL from Rhode island College and a B.A. in French from California State University Fullerton. She currently teaches education, ESL and linguistics at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and is active in the TESOL and NAFSA associations.

Elevating Investment in Youngest of California

du

Alejandra Campoverdi advocates investing in pre-K initiatives, including dual-language programs, for California ’s most at-risk children

One of the most challenging yet rewarding jobs in life is raising a child. My mother faced this responsibility alone, raising me as a single parent just a few years after immigrating to the U.S. from Mexico.

Luckily, she had the support of my grandmother, who played a pivotal role in my childhood—filling our home with music, creativity, and homemade tortillas. Yet what we had in love we lacked in resources. So we relied at times on welfare, WIC, and Medi-Cal to make ends meet. I was too young then to understand all the systems—social and familial—that were actively investing in my capacity to thrive in the future.

Now, with the perspective of age and time, as well as with the experience of working for President Obama in the White House, I am especially passionate about ensuring that all young people have access to the critical support and resources they need to succeed, which is why I am honored to have been appointed as First 5 California’s newest commissioner. My family, like many families in California, faced financial, cultural, language, and educational obstacles at every turn, and many times, it is California’s youngest who slip through the cracks.

Recognizing this fact, voters passed Proposition 10 in 1998, which added a new revenue stream, funded completely by a new tobacco tax, to make the welfare, health, and education of California’s children one of our state’s top priorities. This was the inception of First 5 California and its mission—to help ensure that all parents giving birth in California, especially those of greatest need, receive support, resources, and information to help their children succeed.

Since 1998, First 5 California has invested in the design and implementation of comprehensive early education and health programs, along with resources and support, to address the needs of children ages zero to five and their families. We work with the First 5 commissions in all 58 counties to develop and fund efforts that are tailored specifically to the needs of local communities to ensure that children begin school healthy and ready to learn.

Our programs are currently focused on early brain development, health and nutrition, early literacy and language development, systems for quality childcare and preschool, and smoking cessation.

Through our “Talk. Read. Sing.” campaign, we focus on messaging and information about the verbal engagement during a baby’s first months and years that stimulates critical brain growth, helps build vocabulary, and prepares them for school and success in life. It is a multifaceted media effort that includes television, radio, and online messaging, outreach, and the First 5 Express—a moving tour that travels throughout the state demonstrating activities and providing free materials to parents and caregivers to help them in this effort.

Since its inception, First 5 California, in partnership with the county commissions, has distributed more than five million kits for new parents. These kits provide helpful information and resources for the well-being of newborns and are most often sent home with new parents when they leave the hospital after giving birth.

First 5 California also has made a significant multiyear investment in First 5 IMPACT (Improve and Maximize Programs so All Children Thrive), an innovative approach for high-quality early education and care that provides early educators and families the information and support they need to promote and optimize their children’s development and learning, both inside and outside the home. First 5 IMPACT uses research-based strategies to promote and support a comprehensive and coordinated early-learning and development system.

First 5 California recently partnered with Senator Hannah Beth Jackson, Legal Aid at Work, the California Employment Lawyers Association, and the California Work and Family Coalition to sponsor and champion the passage of SB 63. This bill, which Governor Brown recently signed, extends job protections and leave time to 2.6 million more Californians when they become parents. Previously, only parents working for very large employers had a right to take up to twelve weeks of parental leave. With this new law, more parents will have basic job protections and be able to spend time caring for their newborns.

We are in the process of developing a dual language learner pilot program to identify effective strategies that support dual-language development across early-learning settings; engage families to support their children’s dual-language development; and create learning opportunities for educators, caregivers, and program administrators to effectively support the learning and development of young dual language learners.

When I walked my mother into the Oval Office to meet President Obama, I could not help but think about what a full-circle moment it was. Here was the same single mother who had struggled to survive in an embrace with the president of the U.S. Who knows what futures await California’s children, if only they are given all the tools they need to thrive? As we look toward the future and its myriad challenges, First 5 California and its stakeholder partners will continue to collaborate to help ensure every child in the state is given the best possible start in life. It is an investment in a better California, in our shared economic future, and in a brighter and better world for millions of young children.

Elevate CA, an effort to highlight and expand ideas and policies that promote upward mobility, is a focus of the 2017 California Economic Summit, which begins Thursday, November 2 in San Diego.

 

Alejandra Campoverdi is a former White House aide, an advocate for women’s health issues, a media executive, and a commissioner for First 5 California. A farmworker’s daughter, Alejandra served as Director of Multicultural Content for the Los Angeles Times. Alejandra previously served as founding Managing Editor of #EmergingUS, a digital magazine founded by Jose Antonio Vargas that explores the emerging American identity and lives at the intersection of race, immigration, and identity in a multicultural America. Prior to joining the Times, Alejandra served as Senior Advisor for Innovation and Communications Strategy for Univision Network News and was a part of the team that launched Fusion. She was a special election candidate who sought election to the U.S. House to represent the 34th Congressional District of California. Alejandra is also a volunteer teacher for Inside Out Writers, through which she teaches a weekly creative writing class to incarcerated youth in juvenile detention facilities in Los Angeles.

The International Benefits of Language Education

Michael Nugent, Martha “Marty” Abbott , Esther Brimmer, and Sanford J. Ungar discuss the importance of language education to the U.S. on the international stage

This summer, the Council on Foreign Relations (ww.cfr.org) convened a meeting of experts to discuss foreign language learning in the U.S. education system, as well as learning methods that go beyond the classroom walls and the value of foreign language learning to U.S. national security. Here is a key excerpt:

UNGAR: Michael, do you have to—do you sort of proselytize? Has [Defense] Secretary Mattis heard your pitch yet?
NUGENT: I don’t think the secretary has heard it, but I know he was very engaged when he was wearing the uniform… Yes, we do proselytize all the time, that’s kind of our mission. It’s part of our statute to advocate for language learning. We do a lot of outreach.
But I think our biggest problem is—is that many people tell me, “oh, yeah, I took Spanish in high school, it was terrible, I can’t say a word.” Well, that’s our biggest problem, it’s that some of the teaching that happened in the past was pretty bad.
And Marty’s organization [ACTFL] is working very hard, as we are through our various programs, trying to get students learning effectively, so when they graduate from college, they’re not only able to order a beer, maybe they can actually sit up here. Our students who finish the Flagship Program at 26 universities across the country doing the language flagship in Korean, in Persian even, in twelve universities doing Chinese, five doing Arabic, four doing Russian—when those students finish, they can sit on this panel and have this conversation in those target languages.
UNGAR: How many of those students are there now altogether?
NUGENT: Currently enrolled? Currently enrolled, we have signed up a little over a thousand, but there are 2,000 taking courses in the programs across the country.
UNGAR: And how many have come through the program altogether, if that’s meaningful?
NUGENT: It is meaningful because it takes a while and the program is fairly new. It does involve an overseas program. But I believe we have fully certified around 500 people that have gone through this program, that have tested at the level three or the ILR, which means you’re professionally proficient. It means they’re like those folks who come from Europe and speak here on this stage in English. They’re using Chinese, Arabic, and Russian at that level. It’s pretty amazing.
UNGAR: The same level as people who come here?
NUGENT: Who come here from Europe, who are sitting up here having the same conversation. We are now doing a video project where we’re actually going to be sampling these students sitting in the kind of environment we are in now, speaking the language, and having people ask them questions. It is pretty amazing.
UNGAR: So, to ask an awkward question, if we have a foreign policy now that is characterized as an “America first” foreign policy, does it have room for promoting language study? Or is that a setback, too?
ABBOTT: You know, one thing we’ve found is that languages, for many reasons, resonate on both sides of the aisle.
NUGENT: That’s true.
ABBOTT: And we have just had a national report released, and it was commissioned by Congress.
UNGAR: This is the study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
ABBOTT: Right, America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century. And two Democratic and two Republican senators, as well as two Democratic and two Republican House members, commissioned the study. And we’re also seeing that at the state level with the Seal of Biliteracy. We have 26 states now that have enacted some kind of documentation on a high school senior’s transcript that demonstrates competence in two languages. And that has been passed by—
UNGAR: That’s a pretty big step.
ABBOTT: —state legislatures that tend to be fairly conservative.
BRIMMER: It’s interesting because we similarly see a bipartisan understanding that it’s important to invest in international competencies, so we, of course, look particularly at study abroad and international students coming to the U.S. And what’s striking is we just take something like the Simon bill, which was introduced both by Senator Durbin and Senator Wicker—
UNGAR: But was never enacted.
BRIMMER: Right, but reintroduced again, you know. And what’s interesting is it is actually saying that the ability to study abroad, which helps with immersion and really learning a language to a high level of competency, that this is an important skill for the U.S., and that being able to create greater access by funding to institutions would be beneficial.
What’s interesting is that particularly increasing access to study abroad is just as important for international affairs speakers and specialists as for an inner-city kid. You could be on a rural farm—it’s not a red state, blue state [issue]—it’s how do we get more Americans to have these opportunities. And that’s a bipartisan issue.
UNGAR: I have heard a person of some significance in this very room say that he thinks it’s not a great idea to waste your chits in college on language courses, that you should acquire language in some other informal ways but not spend your valuable X number of courses in college studying languages.
NUGENT: I would like to take that one because we’ve got great examples of how that is in fact probably true if the language is poorly taught. In the case of the Flagship Program, not only are we making liberal arts central to an engineer or whatever the major might be—because remember, we’re not doing language majors through Flagship, we’re saying to the Flagship major, “You, as an environmental science, or health sciences, or engineering student at UT”—for example—“doing Arabic at the University of Texas, you’re committing to learning to the highest levels possible, that is the professional level, while you’re in undergraduate study.” What ends up happening is that students’ central aspect of everything they do in engineering or health sciences focuses around their focus area of Arabic studies. And it just makes the richest experience for these students. It’s like an honors program. They come out and they are transformed, but also their disciplines are transformed. They are acting and working in their disciplines. When they go overseas, they study in their disciplines, so we are creating a kind of a mini honors program nationally that’s focused around this.
So, I would say your colleague is probably right if the language is poorly taught, because anything poorly taught is a waste of time. And I think that that’s usually what people are referencing. “I took, you know, language X in college, it was a waste of time.” Well, we’re trying to change that, and we’re trying to set very clear goals, very clear expectations, and then allowing, through funding and other mechanisms and working with universities, the creation of opportunities for these folks to meet these expectations.
UNGAR: I don’t know how many other people remember this. I was particularly sensitive to it as a college president at the time. But at some point, when he was running for president, Newt Gingrich—oh, I think I know when it was, 2012—mocked Mitt Romney for speaking French, and he said that he sounded just like John Kerry, he said at the time. (Laughter.) That was a pretty high level—a guy speaking who has a lot of people he resonates with as a politician. That’s one that I’d ask you to address.
The other one is this perennial effort, which I think is perhaps not active at the moment, to declare English the official language of the U.S., which—I don’t think that bill has ever passed either house of Congress. S. I. Hayakawa, the late senator from California, was the great proponent of it, and having his Japanese name, I think people felt that lent it somehow some more credibility.
It never achieved its goal, but it was a pretty powerful influence. So, how do we address those two phenomena in the face of a new awareness about studying language?
ABBOTT: I think we need to create a new normal in this country the way it is around the world. In almost every other country of the world, if it’s not an anglophone country, it’s very normal to grow up speaking more than one language.
I think what happened in the case of Newt Gingrich criticizing was that maybe there was some resentment and jealousy, thinking, oh, he’s trying to show off and show that he’s so smart because he knows another language. There’s still that mentality in this country.
UNGAR: You know, there are circles where it’s sort of frowned upon to show off that you speak another language.
ABBOTT: Right. Right. So again, I think it’s starting students early. And there are many students now in what we term dual-language programs where they’re learning half the curriculum in one language and the other half of the curriculum in English. And they’re growing up with language proficiencies that are going to assure that they can get into the Flagship Program because it’s a long sequence, and it’s going to be part of their normal. And that’s what I think we need to try to create.
BRIMMER: I’ll just share this point also about the opportunities that are opened up by speaking languages, and even one just on a foreign policy point. In my previous life when I was at the State [Department], one of the things we would do at the International Organizations Bureau, of course, was place Americans in international organizations. And some countries are masters at this, of getting their nationals on the international staffs helping shape policy.
But the U.S.—we’re actually underrepresented, literally, an underrepresented country amongst the United Nations staff. And remember, at the United Nations and at NATO, the working languages are English and French. So part of our job was actually to place Americans in key jobs. And usually we’d have brilliant people, great scientists, all sorts of people we could place in international organizations. Usually, the problem was finding people with the language capabilities. And so, for foreign policy reasons, you wanted to be able to make sure you had Americans in key positions, but we needed them to speak another language.
UNGAR: Michael, what do you—I don’t imagine people say to you, “English ought to be the official language of the country,” because they know better. But what would you say if they did say that to you?
NUGENT: Well, I know that organizations that work worldwide know the realities of their workforce, of their mission. And I know for a fact that many of the government agencies that we work for in promoting the language work of the National Security Education Program, those folks are well aware of the need.
So, I think that the proof—back to your earlier question about, is it easier now than before. I would say it’s easier now because we’ve actually created through some of our efforts a momentum. We’ve created students that we can put up here on stage now consistently, not just a couple, but a whole bunch, 500 of them that can get up here on this stage and do this kind of thing in that target language. Once you start showing that—
UNGAR: I can tell you’re very proud of that.
NUGENT: We are, because we were told it couldn’t be done. When we started this, we were told—you remember that, Marty—we were told, “that cannot be done, students are not capable of doing that.” And they are, and we’ve proved it.
I think that the point is, as time moves on, more and more of these people move into positions. For example, some of the big companies—investment companies will get these people as interns, and they’ll say, “how can we get ten more of these?” because they never realized that these people existed and could do the kind of work that they do.
So, I’m very optimistic about the more we do the work that we’re doing, the more that people will get behind it. Yes, there will always be skeptics…

 

 

 

Michael Nugent is director of the Defense Language and National Security Education Office, U.S. Department of Defense.

Esther Brimmer is executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators and a former adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Martha “Marty” Abbott is executive director of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and executive director of Lead with Languages.

Sanford J. Ungar is director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University.

A complete transcript of the discussion is available at https://www.cfr.org/event/link-between-foreign-languages-and-us-national-security.

UCLA to Create Center for Greek Culture

Ioanna Kakoulli, professor of archaeological materials science and conservation, documents the condition of Byzantine and post-Byzantine wall paintings in the caves of the St. Neophytos Monastery near Paphos, Cyprus.

A $5 million grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation will enable UCLA to create a center for the study of Hellenic culture, which will be housed in the UCLA College and will build on the university’s strengths in Hellenic studies, supporting research across disciplines ranging from archaeology and classics to languages and digital humanities.

In addition to its teaching and research mission, the center is envisioned as a vibrant cultural hub for the sizable Los Angeles Greek community, which has been formed by generations of families and new immigrants. About 150,000 Americans of Greek ancestry live in California—more than in any other state except New York—with about half of them in Southern California, according to a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau survey.

The center will engage with organizations, churches, and academic institutions throughout Southern California to present community programs and generate interest in Greece’s historical and ongoing contributions to modern culture.
“We are grateful to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for helping us establish a permanent home for research and teaching on Greece and the Greeks, ancient and modern,” UCLA chancellor Gene Block said. “The Greeks have played an important role in the history of the world and in higher education. Their ideals and achievements have sparked inquiry and teaching and advanced our understanding of humanity, all of which are echoed in UCLA’s own commitments as a public institution.”

With the support of the center, scholars will pursue new research, develop state-of-the-art digital resources, and forge international collaborations for students and faculty.

“Thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, we are now in a position to contribute even more to the field of Hellenic studies and to connect with cultural institutions and universities near and far to highlight the rich legacy of Hellenic culture in our world today,” said David Schaberg, UCLA’s dean of humanities.
UCLA will raise an additional $3 million in external funding in support of the center. The fundraising effort will include engaging with members of the Greek-American community in Los Angeles and throughout the West Coast who wish to play an active role in the center’s growth and success.

The grant will include funding for visiting faculty and graduate students from the U.S., Greece, and elsewhere. In addition, the humanities division will bolster the core capacity of the center by funding a lecturer hired to teach modern Greek language and literature. And those studying at the center will be able to take advantage of UCLA Library’s extensive collections related to ancient, Byzantine, and early modern and modern Hellenism.

Gates Highlights English Learners

During a speech last month at a meeting of the Council of Great City Schools in Cleveland, Ohio, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates outlined a change of direction in his foundation’s approach to education funding in the U.S., while highlighting the application of data analytics to discover priorities for English learners. He expects to invest close to $1.7 billion in U.S. public education over the next five years. Gates announced that: “Although we will no longer invest directly in new initiatives based on teacher evaluations and ratings, we will continue to gather data on the impact of these systems and encourage the use of these systems to improve instruction at the local level.”
He also said that they will focus on locally-driven solutions identified by networks of schools, and support their efforts to use data-driven continuous learning and evidence-based interventions to improve student achievement, increase commitment to develop curricula and professional development aligned to state standards, continue to support the development of high-quality charter schools focus more on working with charters on developing new tools and strategies for students with special needs, and expand investments in innovative research to accelerate progress for underserved students.
Gates anticipates that about 60% of this spending will eventually support the development of new curricula and networks of schools that work together to identify local problems and solutions, and use data to drive continuous improvement.
Gates highlighted examples of data being used to improve student outcomes, including that of Summit Public Schools, which operates 11 charter schools in California and Washington, where they analyzed data and determined that English Learners [ELs] entered school significantly behind and never caught up. Data was used to identify the teachers whose EL students were doing the best, so they could talk to them and curate their materials, and apply those best practices across all Summit schools. In less than a year, the performance gap between English Learners and others decreased by 25%.
Gates began his speech by recognizing the racial and economic inequity in the U.S. that preludes educational success across the board, “When disaggregated by race, we see two Americas. One where white students perform along the lines of the best in the world—with achievement comparable to countries like Finland and Korea. And another America, where Black and Latino students perform comparably to the students in the lowest performing OECD countries, such as Chile and Greece.”

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