--- Forwarded Message from Nina Garrett <[log in to unmask]> ---
>Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:43:05 -0500
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Nina Garrett <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #5986.4 Alarming Development -- Entire Languages Program Axed
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
------------------
I am distressed that so many of the postings to this and other lists on the
topic of the Drake situation have taken the Chronicle article at face
value. Surely all of us have had the experience of reading a newspaper or
newsmagazine piece on some subject about which we happened to have inside
information and been dismayed at the distorted and trivialized presentation
of it? Why then are we so ready to ignore the possibility that there are
factors not known to us in this case? I cannot believe that any university
president much less one who has dedicated the major part of his
professional life to foreign language education would take steps such as
President Maxwell has taken without the most serious consideration of
alternatives. Is it not possible that there is a subtext here? It's not
unheard of for a department to be dysfunctional enough to require its being
put into receivership; perhaps the situation is bad enough so that that
wouldn't work. Perhaps Drake's students and the Drake curriculum as a
whole do not emphasize the liberal-arts reasons for studying foreign
languages; perhaps the language department has been unwilling to address
the changing needs of the student body or the rest of the curriculum.
Moreover, the Chronicle article was deliberately written/edited to be as
sensational as possible, to provoke a knee-jerk response from its
readers. I was interviewed on the telephone for 45 minutes by the
reporter who wrote it; I expressed my conviction that there must be
problems of the kind I surmise above, and gave my opinion on the strengths
and weaknesses of the different components of Drake's proposal. I also
sketched out the kind of research that I could see coming out of this
proposal and its potential benefits to the profession. For example, I've
always endorsed the study cited by Dan Davidson in the Chronicle article
which showed that students who first get a solid grammatical foundation in
the language at their home institution do better when they go abroad. But
we do not have data on the question of whether students in properly
designed instructional programs abroad can just as well get that solid
foundation while they're also immersed in the language and culture. Drake
also plans to address a problem that many institutions are becoming aware
of, that they do too little to help students returning from study abroad to
integrate their newly learned language into the rest of their
curriculum. As for the online learning component, other universities have
already substituted technology-based language learning for significant
parts of elementary courses with far less creation of newly designed
material, far less development of specifically tailored modules to fit in
with a new curriculum, than is proposed at Drake. But all my comments, and
the issues I raised (substantive ones, I believe), were completely left out
of the article, obviously because I was taking a moderate and questioning
stance rather than launching into outrage.
Don't get me wrong: I'm as distressed as anyone else about a situation in
which dissolving the department seems to be the only move, and I share many
of the concerns expressed about the results of the alternatives that
President Maxwell proposes to put into place. Of course it's better to
have a department of foreign languages than not, for all the reasons
adduced by other participants in these discussions. But I am not willing
to get on a soapbox and say that at no university, under no circumstances,
for no programmatic purposes, should a plan like Drake's be considered. I
thank my lucky stars that I'm at a university where the liberal-arts
mandate for foreign language study is warmly endorsed by nearly everyone,
and where low enrollments are not the only factor in determining the
success of a program. (Some 30-40 % of Yale's undergraduate courses have
fewer than 10 students.) But Drake is not Yale, and there's no reason why
it should even try to be. If the president, faculty, and board of trustees
feel that the main goals for language learning at Drake are career-oriented
and are willing to put serious thought into an innovative plan for helping
students achieve those goals as well as possible, the least we can do as a
profession is to suspend judgment until there is good evidence of the
results. I confess that I wish that President Maxwell had couched his
decision more in terms of Drake's specific problems and needs than as a
reflection on foreign language education generally, because I do believe
that there are many excellent postsecondary language programs. But in
light of my insight into the Chronicle's editing of this story, I think it
entirely likely that his remarks were quoted out of context in order to
give the effect of maximum attack. As a field we deserve better from the
Chronicle.
Nina Garrett
Director of Language Study
Yale University
P.O. Box 208349
New Haven, CT 06520-8349
Tel. (203) 432-8196
Fax. (203) 432-4485
[log in to unmask]
http://www.yale.edu/cls/
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