Foreign Language Teaching Around the World
By Marie Holmes

In Thailand, students begin learning English in the first grade. French instruction now begins in the second grade for Moroccan children. Non-native French speakers in Ontario start learning French in the fourth grade. Yet, in the United States, despite a growing interest in languages, most students are not introduced to a foreign language until the age of 14.

“There is a growing awareness, even in the U.S., that English isn’t enough,” says Dr. Ingrid Pufahl, a consultant at the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) during a recent interview. While English continues to dominate in the international sphere, monolingual English speakers still find themselves at a disadvantage among their multilingual peers.

“If you only speak English, you have to
wait until the other person lets you in on the communication,” explains Pufahl. Language instruction in the early grades was one of the top recommendations of an exploratory study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. CAL researchers collected data from 19 countries, asking experts to name the most successful aspects of foreign language instruction in their countries. The importance of an early start was one of the common threads among their responses.

Many of these countries also designate foreign languages as a core academic subject, one often included in high school exit exams. Others cited the importance of a “well-articulated framework” in setting high standards for language instruction. Countries belonging to the European Union, for example, use guides written by the Council of Europe to promote fluency in two or even three languages among their populations.

Fulfillment of these high standards requires good teachers and many of the countries surveyed go to great lengths to provide their students with the best language teachers available. In Finland, teachers are recruited from among the top high school graduates for admission to universities, where all teacher training takes place. Due to the prestige of university studies,

as well as other factors such as pay and benefits, teachers are some of Finland’s most highly regarded professionals.

Other countries, such as Morocco and Germany, also cite rigorous teacher training as one of the most important aspects of successful language instruction. In these countries, future teachers are required to pursue university level studies in education as well as the language that they will be teaching.

While, says Pufahl, “there is a certain reluctance in the U.S. to accept research conducted elsewhere,” she also believes that “you definitely can benefit from other’s experiences and then adjust them to the specifics in the U.S..”

Looking to other English-speaking countries, which face similar problems, might prove particularly helpful to U.S. educators. However, “it is certainly not the case that the U.S. is a monolingual country,” adds Pufahl. “You have about 40 to 50 million people who do speak a foreign language.”

The report recommends that educators take advantage of our linguistic diversity through instruction of the many languages spoken within our borders. ESL students can learn English at the same time that they maintain and improve their native language abilities. One method is two-way immersion, in which equal numbers of, for example, English and Spanish speaking children study together in a bilingual environment, gaining fluency in both languages.

Options such as two-way immersion appeal to many parents who want their children to have an edge when it comes to university admissions and the workplace. Few people, however, realize that the benefits are also developmental.

“One of the advantages of learning a second language at an early age is cognitive,” says Pufahl. “It aids children’s mental development, and helps them to better understand their own language.”#

Marie Holmes, a senior at Columbia University is an editorial intern.

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2001.