Elementary School Foreign Language Teaching: Lessons Learned Over Three Decades (1980-2010)

Abstract: The purpose of this research was to investigate the major successes and challenges of elementary school language teaching from 1980 to 2010 through the voices of some of the individuals who were instrumental in the development of the field. The author conducted interviews with 16 leaders in the field of early language education to elicit their views on such topics as program models, instructional approaches, proficiency assessment, and advocacy. Ten lessons learned are presented in the form of recommendations for the expansion of proficiency-based language programs in elementary schools. These recommendations will help the field learn from past successes and failures, develop the highest possible levels of language proficiency, and build on the methodologies (e.g., immersion and content-based instruction) that have been demonstrated to be best practices.Key words: content-based FLES, elementary school foreign language teaching, immersion, K-16 articulation, lessons learnedIntroductionThe number of elementary schools in which world language instruction is offered fluctuated in the last half of the 20th century in response to a wide range of political, economic, and social factors. Although elementary school foreign language programs experienced rapid growth in both popularity and number in the 1950s and 1960s (Andersson, 1969), many had disappeared by the late 1960s and early 1970s because of poor planning and failure to provide developmentally appropriate instruction for children (Rosenbusch, 2002).In response to the report of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies (1979) and a grassroots effort by parents, teachers, and administrators, the early 1980s saw a marked increase in support for early foreign language education programs. As new programs were established, experienced educators urged program developers to avoid the mistakes of the 1950s and 1960s, including unqualified teachers, de- velopmentally inappropriate curricula, inad- equate funding, and lack of articulation across levels of instruction (Alkonis & Bro- phy, 1961, as cited in Curtain & Dahlberg, 2010; Heining-Boynton, 1990; Lipton, 1988; Rosenbusch, 1991). These new programs also featured new methodologies-most no- tably immersion and other content-based approaches-that allowed children to devel- op high levels of language proficiency. Awareness of the needs and potential of heritage language speakers-children who speak languages other than English at home -also grew during this time. As a result, some bilingual education programs de- signed for learners of English began includ- ing native English-speaking children in their programs; the resulting two-way immersion programs offered both the English-speaking and the non-English-speaking (heritage lan- guage) children the opportunity to learn each others' languages alongside their native speaker peers. While the number of elemen- tary schools offering language programs continued to increase until the first decade of the 2000s (Rhodes & Pufahl, 2010), a downturn in the economy, coupled with the effects of federal education legislation (No Child Left Behind), led to the closing of many public school early language pro- grams. While this brief introduction out- lines some of the key factors that influenced elementary school language edu- cation during this time period, additional details and information about the broader historical context are available in a number of other sources, including Chapter 16 in Curtain and Dahlberg (2010), Hancock and Scebold (2000), Heining-Boynton (1990), Lipton (1988), and Met (1993).Recent calls for an early start for foreign language education by President Barack Ob- ama, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Utah Governor Gary Herbert, among others, have emphasized the need for linguistically competent, globally compet- itive students in the 21st century, and lan- guage educators across the country are poised to respond by offering well-designed, well-articulated, proficiency- and standards- based curricula and instruction. …