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March 2001, Week 2

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From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 14 Mar 2001 17:10:24 EST
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--- Forwarded Message from Nina Garrett <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 17:09:23 -0500
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum               <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Nina Garrett <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #5986.5 Response from David Maxwell
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

------------------
As a professional courtesy I sent David Maxwell a copy of the message I 
posted yesterday to LLTI and a couple of other lists.  He had himself just 
the day before sent off a long letter to the Chronicle, and he asked me to 
post it to LLTI.

        Best,
                Nina

To the Editor [of the Chronicle of Higher Education]:

I am not at all surprised by the vehemence of the responses to The 
Chronicle$E2s recent article, $E3A University Plans to Promote Languages by 
Killing its Language Department: Russian professor-turned-president 
eliminates all jobs
in French, Spanish, and German.$E4  Indeed, The Chronicle$E2s incendiary 
headlines seem intended precisely to invoke an emotional, rather than 
intellectual, response, and I managed to fuel the flames with a few 
comments that, in retrospect and in print, read like ill-considered 
wisecracks.  Were I still a full-time member of a foreign language and 
literature department (which I was for eighteen years), and did not read 
the article carefully$F7with all of the skills in understanding subtexts that 
most of us develop as literature critics$F7I, too, would be joining in the 
Colloquy in loud protest against Drake$E2s seemingly draconian measures, and 
criticizing (politely) its seemingly arrogant and ignorant president.  I 
would like to think, however, that I would have done it with civility and 
respect. For the past week, my e-mail inbox has looked like the transcript 
of The Jerry Springer Show.   I have a scholar$E2s commitment to the value of 
debate, and a thick enough skin to not take disagreement personally,  but I 
must admit to be truly astounded by the volume of mean-spirited, 
self-indulgent, personal attacks that have been submitted to the Colloquy; 
they do nothing to advance the debate, and they do everything to embarrass 
the profession.

First, I would like to emphasize that Drake University did not $E3kill$E4 its 
language department; we removed it from artificial life support after years 
of sustained attempts to bring it back to life.  Those who seem so ready to 
criticize the University for this decision have indulged in a behavior that 
they would not tolerate (I hope) in their students:  a failure to undertake 
a close and nuanced reading of the text (The Chronicle article), a 
willingness to leap to unsubstantiated conclusions (would real scholars 
ever base their research on a single newspaper article?), and a failure to 
demand more evidence before reaching a conclusion (I am astounded that many 
people took the time to send me belligerent diatribes via e-mail, 
condemning both the University and me personally, yet only three wrote to 
say, $E3There must be more to this than meets the eye, because it doesn$E2t 
make sense to me.  Can we discuss?$E4)

As might be expected, it would be neither judicious nor appropriate for me 
to go into great detail publicly regarding the situation that we faced in 
foreign languages at Drake University; if nothing else, it would be 
demeaning and unfair to the faculty affected by our decision.  I must limit 
my comments on this issue to points that were made in the course of Faculty 
Senate discussion, and that are therefore in the public domain. The 
decision was based solely on quality; on the need to produce outcomes that 
met our students$E2 learning goals, and that were consistent with the goals and
mission of the University.  Allegations that the decision was driven in any 
way by financial considerations are simply incorrect. It was not a decision 
that I, as president, forced on anyone; thankfully, I have neither the 
power nor the desire to do such things.  Rather, it was the result of a 
lengthy, institution-wide review of all programs$F7a process that involved, 
in one way or another, the vast majority of faculty and staff on the 
campus.  The recommendation that we phase out on-campus language 
instruction came from the faculty of Arts & Sciences, and forwarded with 
support by the Provost and, ultimately, from an elected 
faculty/staff/student Review and Priorities Advisory Committee.  While I am 
responsible for accepting that recommendation (and for proposing the basic 
design of what we might do next), the notion that this was forced down 
anyone$E2s throat by the president is entirely incorrect.

In the particular case of foreign languages, the institution-wide Program 
Review Initiative followed years of concerted attempts to reform and 
reposition the program.  Faced with low and declining enrollments, 
expressed dissatisfaction among students and other faculty, a devastating 
external review, and a failure to respond both to offers of targeted 
faculty development resources and finally to a mandate that the department 
produce a feasible, credible strategic plan for its own renewal, the 
University was left with little recourse.  As I indicated to The Chronicle 
in an e-mail that was not quoted$F7or paraphrased$F7in the article, in ideal 
circumstances, we would of course have preferred a different solution to 
our dilemma.  But ideal circumstances are rarely encountered in higher 
education, and sometimes drastic situations require a dramatic 
response.  The decision that we reached was not taken lightly; the minutes 
of the Faculty Senate to which some have referred in the Colloquy do not 
show the careful deliberations of a faculty advisory group within Arts & 
Sciences (which rated the language program twenty-sixth in quality out of 
twenty-six programs in Arts &
Sciences) and the lengthy deliberations of the elected Review and 
Priorities Advisory Committee.  Ultimately, all of us saw the decision to 
phase out our on-campus language offerings as unfortunate, frustrating, and 
painful.

Nonetheless, we are excited about the opportunities that our new approach 
affords, and optimistic that it will provide significant and meaningful 
learning opportunities for our students. My good friend (at least until 
now) Prof. Heidi Byrnes has correctly pointed out to me an in email that a 
real danger here is that other senior administrators will see our approach 
as prescriptive, given my alleged (my term) credibility as the former 
director of the National Foreign Language Center. However, ours is a 
solution that we have chosen at Drake as a response to the particulars of 
Drake$E2s situation;
it is not intended deliberately as a model for others, nor do we intend it 
deliberately as an assault on the integrity and competence of the foreign 
language profession.  I am entirely aware of the potential shortcomings of 
this model (though I don$E2t agree with all of the alleged flaws pointed out 
in the Colloquy), and do not want to minimize their importance; but they 
are vastly outweighed by the gravity of the situation that we faced, and by 
what we believe to be the potential for success of the new initiative.  We 
will do our best to exploit the significant opportunities that this model 
affords, and to minimize the impact of its flaws.  We will also continually 
monitor its effectiveness and impact, and make the necessary adjustments 
accordingly.  I should note that several of the alleged shortcomings of our
approach identified in the Colloquy strike me as straw men, erected for the 
purpose of self-righteous posturing.  We are not tossing unprepared 
students into uncharted and unstructured waters overseas, nor are we 
encouraging them
to enroll in other institutions$E2 programs. We are forging partnerships with 
overseas universities to design programs that specifically address the 
learning needs and goals of our students: they will include carefully 
crafted instructional programs, course content in culture (high culture and 
behavioral), home stays, etc.  I have no idea where The 
Chronicle$E2s  phrase, attributed to me, $E3can$E2t shoot the breeze with a bank 
teller,$E4 came from; our aspirations for our students in terms of linguistic 
and culture knowledge and capability are far more meaningful than that: it 
is our hope
that they will develop a sufficient level of competence (which, in my 
definition, requires both linguistic and cultural knowledge) to function 
effectively in culture.  No one has said that culture is not important, and 
no one has said that language and culture are not essential to liberal arts 
education.  What we have said is that we are going to try to address these 
essential subjects in a manner that is far more effective than what we have 
been doing at this university. Finally, cost to the student is not an 
issue, as some have alleged (calling this an elitist approach); these will be
exchange relationships in which there will be no change in cost (or 
financial aid) for Drake students.

I would also like to clarify some of the impressions regarding my views on 
language learning in the U.S. conveyed by The Chronicle.  While I do agree 
that a U.S.-based classroom is not the place to $E3master$E4 a foreign 
language, I did not remember saying anything remotely resembling the fact 
that I am $E3not convinced that colleges in this country need classrooms at 
all.$E4  I also did not say that I was an ineffective teacher. I did not rely 
on the $E3grammar-translation$E4  model; even I knew, then, that it wasn$E2t a 
very creative approach. Quite the contrary, my students became quite 
competent in Russian language and culture$F7but I do feel that I could have 
been much more effective had I been more knowledgeable about second 
language acquisition and applied linguistics.  In that sense, I was typical 
of the time; very
few$F7if any$F7of my colleagues across the country in those days had any formal 
training in language pedagogy, let alone applied linguistics.  What I did 
say is that we were constrained by the model, a one-size-fits all, 3-4 
hours per week exposure to a foreign language in an English-speaking 
environment$F7and that no one expected students to come out of that model 
with communicative competence, unless they complemented it with an 
immersion experience.

As Director of the National Foreign Language Center, I had the opportunity 
to interact, in one way or another, with hundreds of language programs, 
language faculty, and college/university administrators around the 
country.  While I do not pretend to ultimate wisdom and knowledge, I do 
have some idea of what$E2s going on.  So allow me, if you would, to make my 
views perfectly clear:  I know that there are extremely competent foreign 
language teachers throughout the United States who are doing wonderful, 
creative things with up-to-date, effective materials$F7I have met and 
observed many of them. I know that there are thousands of language teachers 
out there working very hard, and very effectively, to serve their students 
well. Of course I know that many things have changed since I was a 
full-time language and literature teacher$F7more sophisticated pedagogy 
informed by research, the application of technology, better training of 
language teachers, and so on.  I also know that there also exist extremely 
incompetent, unimaginative, and ineffective
foreign language teachers who are not only failing to meet students$E2 
learning goals, but destroying any interest the student might have in 
learning a language.  I have met and observed them too, in numbers and in 
places that I find disturbing$F7and not twenty years ago, but in the last 
three or four. I have observed first-hand the $E3grammar hell$E4 that one 
submission described in classrooms at elite private colleges, top public 
institutions, and many other schools. I don$E2t think it$E2s the norm, but it$E2s 
also not hard to find.  I recognize that some of my comments, as reported 
in The Chronicle, may convey an uncharitable view of the profession as a 
whole; where my remarks were ill-considered and intemperate, I sincerely 
apologize$F7where they were quoted out of context or paraphrased 
inaccurately, I am as frustrated as anyone in reading them. Any criticism 
that I have made, in The Chronicle and elsewhere, has not been direct 
criticism of individuals (exercising the restraint that seems to have 
escaped many of the participants in the Colloquy), but of a system that$F7in 
spite of the best efforts of many$F7seems to be failing us.  And that is the 
issue about which I would have hoped The Chronicle$E2s coverage would have 
sparked a debate, a discourse that might have helped all of us address the 
difficult problems that we are facing on many of the nation$E2s campuses.

Let me provide just a few bits of evidence for my contention that the 
system is failing to serve us well:

·     we are the only country in the developed world that puts the burden of 
foreign language learning on the post-secondary system
·     there is virtually no effective articulation among levels of the 
education system
·     Only 8% of the nation$E2s undergraduates are enrolled in foreign language study
·     The average persistence time of the students who do study a foreign 
language is 2-3 semesters, hardly enough time for most students to acquire 
usable competence
·     Fewer than 15% of the pitifully small number of students studying any 
foreign language are studying any of the less commonly-taught languages 
that are so critical to the nation$E2s interest (and to a truly global 
education), and very few of those who do stick with it long enough to 
achieve anything remotely resembling mastery
·     most colleges and universities offer only a one-size-fits-all language 
learning track for its students, regardless of their learning goals and 
backgrounds, i.e., whether they are studying language for general education 
(or liberal   education) purposes, to achieve communicative competence, to 
prepare for graduate school in the field, or to acquire formal knowledge 
and/or literacy in the language of their own family; I simply do not 
believe that a single class$F7or sequence of classes$F7can address all of these 
goals with equal effectiveness
·     The National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) and the Association of 
American Colleges and Universities (AACU), with funding from the Henry Luce 
Foundation, conducted a three-year Language Mission Project with sixteen
colleges and universities seeking to refocus and revitalizing language 
education;  one hundred and ten four-year colleges and universities applied 
for participation, and the application process required a detailed 
explanation of their dissatisfaction with current practice on their campuses
·     Similarly, the NFLC and AACU conducted four national workshops entitled, 
$E3The Crisis in Foreign Language Learning in Higher Education,$E4 which 
collectively attracted senior academic officer/faculty teams from nearly one
quarter (well over 200) of all the four-year institutions in the 
country!  We learned from our interactions with the institutional teams 
that there is a significant and pervasive level of dissatisfaction and 
frustration with the language programs on hundreds of the nation$E2s campuses.

I do hope that this response in some measure serves to clarify Drake$E2s 
situation and plans, as well as my views on the state of foreign language 
learning in the United States.  I will be delighted if Drake$E2s action, and 
The Chronicle$E2s coverage, serve to catalyze an ongoing discourse on some of 
the issues that I have raised above, and on other critical concerns that I 
know others will introduce.  We all owe it to ourselves$F7and to the 
profession (of which I am still proudly a member)$F7to demonstrate that we 
are capable of a discourse that is more meaningful,  more useful, and more 
civil than much of what has taken place in the past week.

David Maxwell
President, Drake University
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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