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Why Learn a Foreign Language?
For more articles
on the importance of foreign language study:
By
John Jarvis, Ph.D Bay Path College: It's the most amazing thing you may ever see in an educational setting. One hundred and one children are learning French at Montessori International Pre-school in Longmeadow. The youngest are just two years and nine months old. The oldest are five. They will be celebrating the arrival of National Foreign Language Week, March 7-14, with songs, creative play, and stories. The story of the weeks is "Boucles d'Or et Les Trois Ours." Lost? Ask the children for a translation. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears!" they will sing out, dancing with delight at what they know. This year the theme of Foreign Language Week is "Around the World in Seven Days." This linguistic and cultural "jouney" has become so sucessful in the Springfield Public Schools that teachers have expanded it to a month-long event. Nancy Mangari, Elementary School Foreign Lanuage Resource Teacher, reports that learning activities from individual schools will culminate this year in a district-wide Foreign Language Showcase on March 29. From 4-6 p.m., students, parents, teachers, administrators and people from the community will gather to view student projects on display at the Meline Kasparian Profession Development Center, 60 Alton St., Springfield. After last year's big success, District Superintendant Joseph Burke called for making it an annual event. Projects this year grows out of students reading and writing about foreign authors in Spanish, French, Italian, or Chinese. Spanish and French students at Williams Middle School in Longmeadow use Foreign Language Week each year to make forieng languages more visible to fellow students. Literally. As Spanish teacher Anna Gelinas explains, they place Spanish and French signs all over the school that indicate what the various rooms and classrooms are for. Foreign Language Week is a vibrant event at many schools throughout our region. One thing making this year particularly unique is that President George W. Bush has gotten on board. So has the entire U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Governor W. Mitt Romney is leading the charge in Massachusetts. These leaders have joined together in offical proclamation of 2005 as the "Year of Languages." They have made learning other people's languages a national priority. One of the most important lessons learned since September 11, 2001 is that both our domestic policy and our global success depend upon effective communication with other peoples. In January of this year, 35 top businesses, government, academic, and humanitarian leaders convened a national summit to develop an offical "plan of action" for U.S. language policy. Their first priority is keeping the U.S. competitive in the next decade is this: raising the American public's awareness of the need and value of learning languages and understanding cultures. As a professor, I have a very clear message to send to area students planning one day to come to college: study a foreign language as early as you can and for as long as you can. What students may not know is that there is linkely to be very little room in their major field of study to work in a lot of foreign language courses and to graduate on time. And yet increasing pressure is being put on colleges to graduate students in every field who are proficient in at least on foreign language and culture. This pressure is not just coming forom George W. Bush or other top leaders. Employers in every workplace who hire our graduates need new employees who can help, not hinder, their day to day interactions with global partners and foriegn clients. Students who come to college with little or no foreign language skills should plan to spend an extra year or more in college making up for what they missed in elementary, middle, and high school. If they do not, they will find it increasingly hard to land and to keep a job in our global world. Alternately, those students who come to college with high levels of foreign language should be prepared for even greater adventures. It is to people with good Spanish, French, Italian, or German skills that employers turn for assignments in places like Japan, China, or India. People who have learned one foreign language and culture are ready to move on to even more challenging global assignments. National and international trends make it ominously clear: those children in our region not getting an early start at language learning may soon find themselves left far behind. To see where the future could be headed for your child, stop by Longmeadow Montessori. There are 101 very young Americans there eager to talk to you. If your French is rusty, it's a great place to get back on track fast. Just inquire about a certain young woman named Boucles d'Or. And then...hang on.. *This passage was a selection from the original article posted by massLive.com.
By Paul Thompson, Ph.D : Assistant Professor of Neurology Lab of Neuro-Imaging & Brain Mapping Division4238 Reed Neurology, UCLA Medical Center 710 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095-1769 Tuesday, Feburary 18, 2003 Neuroscientists have discovered why children excel at learning languages. Scientists may finally have an explanation for why children reign supreme when it comes to learning new languages. Using MRI and animation technology to study the brains of children, researchers like Dr. Paul Thompson of UCLA have discovered that children are processing language information in a different region of the brain than adults. There are different areas in the brain controlling different functions in our lives. When we brush our teeth, sign our names or drive a car, we don't consciously think: "move the right hand up and down like this," "capitalize this letter," or "turn the wheel 30 degrees to the left." These are examples of automatic brain function. When children acquire language, this same part of the brain, called the "deep motor area," is what they use, so the language is like second nature. But when adults learn a second or third language, their brains operates differently. The window of opportunity to imprint information and skills in the deep motor region of the brain is widest during early childhood and nearly shut by the time we reach about 18. Therefore, adults have to store information elsewhere, in a more active brain region. As a consequence, adults usually think sentences through in a native tongue and then translate them word-by-word, instead of thinking in automatically in another language like a child would. Even for people with extensive training in a second language as an adult, who feel their speech is automatic, on a neurological level the brain is still operating differently from a child's. Research into the neurology of language acquisition is proving useful because understanding the "geographic" differences of language learning in children versus adults may influence educators and their decisions about foreign language instruction. As an example, Thompson says simply teaching young children the sounds and accents of other languages at an earlier age may be valuable, even if they are not getting full instruction in the language. Learning those sounds later in life – from a neurological perspective – can be more difficult.
NNELL NATIONAL NETWORKING NEWSLETTER “International studies and foreign language education must be considered part of our global economic competitiveness strategy. But they are also critical to our national security. It’s no secret that America needs to improve our public diplomacy efforts—we need to communicate in a way that makes sense to the man on the street in Beijing or Cairo. We need the next generation of political leaders around the world to have a first-hand understanding of what America is all about.” The Honorable Norm Coleman (R-MN) It has been an exciting year for world languages! The National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) has sparked much dialog about the role of world languages in a global education. In turn, world language professionals are busy at work using the national spotlight as an opportunity for advocacy. Please read on to see what your NNELL colleagues have been up to. Jean Modig
NORTH EAST REGION The Northeast Region has been busy these past few months. Successful workshops sponsored by NNELL and the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center were held in MA and NJ. Both were very informative and well attended. The Region also held its annual NECTFL Conference in New York City. Congratulations to all who held sessions and especially to two wonderful teachers who were recognized by NECTFL. Please join me in congratulating Christi Moraga, the CT NNELL State Representative for her award as the “Northeast Teacher of the Year.” It is an honor so well deserved! Christi will be one of the five candidates to compete for the national award at the ACTFL Conference in November. “Kudos” also to Jessica Haxhi, a Japanese FLES teacher from Connecticut, who has been appointed to the NECTFL Board. Jessica will be a great asset, especially as a “voice” for early language learning. The Northeast has much to be proud of, indeed!
“Advocating” is key this year in New York State! Currently, there are two bills in the Senate and Assembly that include language that supports the implementation of early language programs in five elementary schools in high need districts. The 8th Annual Trevor Conference on Early Language Learning will be held at the Trevor Day School in Manhattan on Saturday, May 6th, 2006 from 9:00am to 3:00pm. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Teresa Kennedy who will address the topic “Creating Brain-Compatible Classrooms Through Content-Based Programs.” There will also be three pre-conference workshops on Friday, May 5th. For more information go to website: http://www.trevor.org/Foreign/conference_2006/index.htm
NNELL was the focus at the annual meeting for FLES teachers in Maine.
The 15th Annual CT COLT Rhyme Celebration was held on March 14th at Central Connecticut State University. Approximately 200 children recited rhymes in 13 world languages and delegations represented 19 school districts from around the State. In addition to world languages learned in school, there were also groups from after school programs, Saturday programs and heritage languages learned at home. The theme this year was “When I Grow Up.” Carmela Pesca, the Director of the Italian Resource Center at the University, was co-chair. Other sponsors of this event from the University included the Center for International Education, Department of Modern Languages, and the Department of International and Area Studies. It was the first CT event of 2006 to launch the national campaign” Discover Languages” and “2005-2015: The Decade of Languages”. For more information go to www.ctcolt.org or www.discoverlanguages.org or contact Christi. Dr. Mary Ann Hansen, State World Language consultant, has also announced that CT will be sponsoring two professional development sessions this summer for CT teachers of World Languages funded by FLAP. Grants for World Languages with the Connecticut-Italy Partnership and the Federal Foreign Language Assistance Program for critical languages and elementary programs will become available, as well. Almost 200 children Pre-K to 6th on stage in Welte Auditorium,
The World Languages Implementation Committee completed its work and presented its recommendations to the State Board of Education at its February meeting. The recommendations included a goal statement: All Vermont children will begin the study of a foreign language in the primary grades (PK-4), and they will meet a minimum of novice-middle proficiency by the end of eighth grade. All Vermont school districts will coordinate foreign language curriculum from primary grades through high school. Following the goal statement, seven action steps were suggested. These
are as follows: Board members posed questions as general as how Vermont taxpayers would benefit by investing in early foreign language education, to probing questions on the merits of LinguaFolio.. The Board approved the goal statement and requested time to pose additional questions on the recommendations before considering approval in March. (To read the full text of the recommendations, go to www.vfla.org/nnell.) VFLA is encouraging its members to write to the Board and to keep track of its progress towards implementation of the recommendations. At Town Meeting this year, favorable votes allowed two elementary schools in the Chittenden East School District, Jericho Elementary School and Underhill ID, to add K-4 foreign language instruction in fall, 2006. Parent advocate, Karen Glitman, spearheaded the effort for Jericho ES. Karen presented her methods for success at the 2005 VFLA Annual Convention in Manchester. The school board of Barre City Elementary School dropped elementary French instruction for 2006-2007, which had been in place for the past five years. As a cooperative effort between the Government of Quebec and the State of Vermont, a Vermont foreign language teacher was selected by VFLA to receive a 1,500 USD scholarship to study teaching French as a second language at the University of Montreal this summer. Congratulations to Mary Romary of Burlington, who received the scholarship for the 2006 summer term. On March 21, Mary was presented with her letter of award at a reception hosted by the Quebec Delegation during La Semaine Internationale de la Francophonie in Burlington. Mary, who is serving as a substitute teacher in French this year and has taught middle school level French, is interested in developing exchange opportunities between her students and those in Quebec. She looks forward to sharing what she learns at the University of Montreal with VFLA members via the newsletter and convention.
Pennsylvania Governor Rendell proclaimed March 2006 as Foreign Language Month. During the month, world language teachers throughout the state demonstrated their dedication and creativity through a variety of learning activities and cultural events. The Governor’s Institute for World Language Educators sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the University of Villanova will take place in July. The theme will be assessment in light of the standards. The Pennsylvania state government is funding a new French/Mandarin Chinese Immersion program for grades K-2 in an urban public school. Discussion have been held at the Upper Darby School district on the topic of implementation of programs at the elementary level and debating the addition of less commonly taught languages at the high school level.
The FLENJ annual conference in March was a big success! There were over five hundred language educators in attendance. Workshops ranged from pre-K to university and covered different techniques and teaching scenarios. There was a great selection of materials at the many exhibitor booths. I’m proud of the language community in our state!
Silvina Iglesias from Sanderlin Elementary School in Pinellas County was named this year's Outstanding Hispanic student, Graduate Student division, University of South Florida, College of Education
The Pinellas County FLES Team has been busy visiting schools with their live performance of "Familia Contenta.” The "Familia" is a comedy that provides students with the opportunity to experience language in authentic, humorous situations. Congratulations to the team for their creativity and for their dedication to FLES programs. The Dual Language Program in Palm Beach county has 13 elementary The Florida Foreign Language Association is proud to have co-hosted the
SCOLT
On a sad note, several metro Atlanta, GA school systems have chosen to
cut
The end of the year is in sight, but there is still much going on in early language learning in Iowa! In the West Des Moines FLES program, sixth graders recently completed their annual reading and writing assessments. Each assessment is given to every sixth grader in West Des Moines. (You can view these on our website: www.wdmcs.org/fles ) Each year the district has seen growth in the students' ability to read and write in the language, so teachers, students, parents, and administrators are eager to view the results from this year. Tammy Dann (Central States West Representative) and Lindsey Cornwell
(Iowa State Representative) presented a session on information gap activities
at the Central States Conference in Chicago. You can view the presentation
handout on the West Des Moines website listed above. “Foreign language skills are not only perishable but also crucial
for U.S. National Security and for its commercial, academic and government
leadership throughout the world.”
Current Research On Cornell Studies Provide Evidence Of Babies' Innate Capability
To Learn Language How Babies Acquire Building Blocks Of Speech Affects Later Reading,
Language Ability Parents' Instinctive Use Of Isolated Words May Help Babies Learn
Language Rare Brain Mapping Procedure Provides Unique Picture Of Two Areas
Concerned With Language Processing And Production Infants Use Sign Language To Communicate At Ohio State School Parents Do Make A Difference, By Promoting Childhood Chatter,
From Birth To Age 3 Twin Study--Genetics Key Factor In Speech Learning Deaf Children Who Get Cochlear Implants Early In Life Get The
Biggest Language Boost, Concludes Largest-Ever Study Mother's Depression Impedes Baby's Development "Mama! Dada!" Origin Of Language Pegged At 6 Months Infants Have Keen Memory For Learning Words Scientist Uses Artificial Language To Study Language Learning The new data alter a long-established trend that had swung the emphasis in language learning research onto pre-programmed mechanisms built into the human brain. "The thinking for years had been that something as complex as language could not be acquired with fairly simple learning mechanisms that rely on word frequency, associations between adjacent words, and other statistical phenomena," says Rebecca Gomez, a presenter at the panel and an assistant professor of psychology in The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University. "But we now have new methods for assessing learning in infants, and we've been able to demonstrate that this type of learning is in fact very strong." Study Ties Stuttering To Anatomical Differences In The Brain
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