Spanish Only for Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES): Competing Discourses in Local Language Policy

Abstract: Teaching Spanish has become increasingly popular in the United States due to demographic shifts. This study focuses on a Spanish-only initiative for an existing Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) program proposed by a southeastern public school district's school board. It analyzes discourses underlying the policymakers' rationales and resistance from teachers, students, and community members. Analysis of documents, video recordings of school board meetings, newspaper articles, and e-mail exchanges reveals competing discourses that constructed particular views on language, language learning, and the benefit of Spanish for Latino and African American students. Characteristics of these discourses include language ideologies, racialization of the arguments, hospitality as a reaction to "language panics" (Hill, 2001, p. 245), and the constructed nature of Latino parents' knowledge. The study suggests the importance of multilingualism for world language education. Key words: Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES), language offerings, language policy, minority students, world language education Language: Spanish, French, relevant to all languages Introduction World language education, as any other field within education, has always been connected to sociopolitical processes. In the United States, factors such as world wars, demographic changes, national defense needs, and business interests have influenced patterns of enrollment figures in foreign language programs in schools and universities over the past hundred years (Watzke, 2003). Of these factors, demographic shifts in the past few decades seem to explain the current popularity of Spanish language teaching.1 According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 47 million people age 5 and above spoke a language other than English, and among them, the number of Spanish speakers grew 60% between 1990 and 2000, reaching 28.1 million or 60% of this population (Shin, 2003); overall, the growth rate of speakers of languages other than English was 14%. More recently, the 2005 American Community Survey reported that the Spanish-speaking population had grown to 32.2 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Increased bilingualism within individual communities might trigger a laissez-faire, negative, or proactive reaction, each of which would endorse a different language policy. While the laissez-faire stance would entail mere observation of the shifting linguistic landscape, negative reactions or "language panics" (Hill, 2001, p. 245) often lead to an English-only policy in public institutions including schools. Conversely, the proactive stance might highlight the benefit of the newcomers' language (i.e., Spanish) to unite language-minority and majority members. Any of these approaches influence which world languages are taught in a school district, a decision that involves complex factors including local and national educational priorities, personal emotions, and discourses on language, language learning, and race/ethnicity. This article focuses on a Spanish-only controversy for a Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) program in a small school district located in the southeast region of the United States, which we call Spring Valley Public Schools (SVPS). The controversy, which occurred in 2002-2003, was prompted by the school board's proposal to replace a successful French program. This study aims to reveal the complexities of local language policy observed in a clash of multiple discourses for and against the initiative. It taps issues of language policy at the school district level, changing patterns of language enrollments and offerings, and the ways in which the general public and policymakers react to demographic changes. Our analysis also paid attention to issues of race, which typically is not an easy topic to discuss. Nonetheless, we believe that racial issues influence various facets of foreign language education and thus need to be explicitly investigated (cf. …