The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Thank you for your articles on foreign language instruction, or lack of it, in the recent Nugget. As a foreign language teacher and advocate for over 20 years, we’ll take all the help we can get in bringing our cause to the public forum.

I am the proud parent of two students in this district and have been very pleased by the education my children have received. However, I think it is time that we remedied the cutbacks in foreign language instruction that took place in the 1990s in our district.

The President’s Commission in 2000 recommended that K-12 foreign language instruction should become a top priority. In the Goals 2000 Educate America Act, foreign languages were recognized as a part of the CORE curriculum.

It is not the first time that educators have been told what to do and then not given the funds to implement a sustained program.

I am concerned that we have become complacent about the absence of foreign language instruction in Sisters.

It is important to realize that although English continues to grow as the international language of business, U.S. corporations have started to face the problem that international business cannot be conducted in English alone. Some executives have complained that foreign languages for U.S. managers will be needed in the future because someone will have to determine if hired nationals are doing the job.

Other nations recognize that they operate in a global economy and that understanding other societies and cultures is both valuable in its own right and necessary to be competitive. They are investing heavily in international education. Our nation’s growing insularity will only further dull our competitive edge.

How would any of this apply to Sisters? All of us are aware of how useful a little (or preferably a lot) of Spanish is in our community — but maybe you’d like to know how foreign language could help your student be more successful in school. Learning foreign languages exposes young people to new cultures and new horizons but it also helps them understand the structure of English better.

Children in foreign language classes have tended to demonstrate greater cognitive development, creativity and divergent thinking than monolingual children. Several studies show that people who are competent in more than one language outscore those who are speakers of only one language on tests of verbal AND nonverbal intelligence (math and science).

Competency as defined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages ideally takes 3-4 years of study. The minimum requirement at Sisters High School is two years.

We should be offering foreign language in middle school so that our students have a reasonable opportunity to become proficient. Sisters Middle School is one of the three middle schools in Central Oregon that doesn’t provide a foreign language program.

We should seriously look at models that introduce foreign language in the elementary school, where the most effective and painless language learning can occur.

I believe that foreign language instruction should be available to all of our students, not as a frill for those who can afford it or as a “carrot” for those whose grade point average meets a requirement.

School administrators need to be convinced that there is a relationship between language learning and cultural appreciation as well as higher-order thinking skills and language proficiency. It is true that well-articulated elementary and secondary foreign language programs are the exception rather than the rule.

However, I believe that Sisters is an exception and that it has the capability of becoming a model in this area as well.

We could start to constructively imagine what a K-12 foreign language program might look like. Make use of computer technology, foreign exchange teachers and grants. In our continued efforts to give our kids the advantages they deserve, let’s strengthen the program at the high school, re-institute foreign language instruction at the middle school and give the most effective language learners at the elementary school a chance to further succeed.