1

Retrospective and Prospective Views on

Foreign Language Teaching Methodologies
Elizabeth B. Bernhardt
Stanford University

Of the more than twenty background papers and studies commissioned by the

President’s Commission on Foreign Languages and International Studies in 1978, most of

them use the term “foreign language” in the title. A close reading of many of these

papers provides a multitude of statistics about how many students were in foreign

language programs at the time of the Commission; how many were studying the less

commonly taught languages; reports on the status of funding for international high

schools; concerns about attitudes and experience; and the like. Another dimension to the

set of papers concerned specifically with foreign languages revolved around issues of

pedagogy, instruction, and assessment.

While the former papers are important for the insights they offer into a particular

moment, the statistics they provide are no longer of any particular relevance. And

indeed, many of the concerns raised by Fred Starr, for example, in Foreign Languages in

the American School have been met, in particular most recently through the impact of the

K-16 foreign language standards. A minority of papers was commissioned that targeted

foreign language study in its specifics: Helen Warriner, Foreign Language Teaching in

the Schools—1979—Focus on Methodology; David Benseler and Renate Schulz,

Methodological Trends in College Foreign Language Instruction: A Report; and Foreign

Language Testing Background by Protase Woodford. The purpose of this paper is to

examine these papers from the perspective of university language instruction at a distance

of twenty years. It tries to answer the questions What were outlined as issues and what
 2

specific proposals were made within the context of each paper? Did the proposals made

come to fruition? To what extent do any of these issues remain? Which proposals need to

be added for the coming years?

Retrospect: The 1979 Foreign Language Papers

Warriner, Foreign Language Teaching in the Schools—1979—Focus on Methodology

Warriner begins her contribution with a statement on “pertinent history.” The

historical backdrop that she offers provides a succinct version of the hapless history of

foreign languages in American schools, specifically influenced by world events, most

specifically, the world wars. While Warriner does not go into many of the details that

had placed the knowledge of a foreign language at the reading level she indeed notes that

a knowledge of anything but written language was a rarity on the part of an American

school student until the Second World War. As a result of military needs during the war,

she notes the importance of the federal training program such as the Army Specialized

Training Program and the subsequent influence of these federal programs throughout the

establishment of the National Defense Education Act.

The beliefs engendered by the federal response during the war were felt

substantially in the public school and university system by the 1960s and came to be

called the audiolingual movement. Warriner importantly points out that the most critical

dimension to the federal influence was the change in beliefs—to include all language

skills—not just reading. More importantly, though Warriner argues that the change in

philosophy which at one level fed a “spirit of revolution” ultimately led to “confusion,”

and “eclecticism” on the part of language teachers. She states that despite the positive
 3

spirit behind the discussion “many of us [language teachers] developed professional guilt

complexes or became lonesomely disaffected because no one was talking with realism to

us. We had so many torches of leadership at the front of the troops that we hardly knew

which to follow—and the torches didn’t always move in the same direction” (p. 50).

Warriner then moves to a description of “what a good foreign language class

looks like.” This section provides lists of activities; an explanation of how instruction

should be planned; comments on the nature of class climate; and what kinds of results

should be expected. She notes: “The ability to speak is a reasonably dependable measure

of performance in all of the skills. The same cannot be said of the others” (p. 53).

Warriner notes that despite what is “known” about effective foreign language classes, she

laments teacher development programs, arguing that that is “the greatest dilemma.” She

says: “Shamefully little if any progress has been made in teacher education despite the

advancement of the science of teaching foreign languages. The opportunities for young

teachers today to gain access to the vastly improved knowledge about the science of

language teaching are severely limited” (p. 53).

As a result of poor materials, she notes problems in articulation; motivation and

dropout rate; teacher morale; learning effects; expenses; the role of the teacher; and what

happens (or does not happen) in small districts. She ends that the profession needs “the

moral support that…an out-of-the-ranks group” can give (p. 57) and urges the re-

establishment of NDEA institute programs.

 4

Benseler and Schulz, Methodological Trends in College Foreign Language Instruction: A

Report.

Benseler and Schulz were asked to report on the state of foreign language

instruction in terms of methodology and course construction. They were also challenged

to answer the question of how successful language programs are (what kinds of standards

they meet) and to plot future teaching methodology trends. Like Warriner, they cite the

call for eclecticism as the single unifying character behind foreign language teaching as

practiced in 1978-1979. Despite chaos at some level as the unifying factor, they do

embark upon a clear and succinct review of specific “methods” noted in the literature.

The three primary methods discussed by Benseler and Schulz are: 1) the

audiolingual method characterized by language presentation through dialogues with

“students formulat[ing] grammatical generalizations through analogy during oral pattern

drills; 2) the direct or natural method characterized by an exclusive use of the target

language, emphasizing visual material; 3) the grammar/translation method based on the

Latinate grammatical paradigm with the goal of “developing reading comprehension for

literary, philosophical, or scientific/technical materials” (p. 61). They add then to their

list a set of methodologies practiced on a “relatively small scale” such as 1) the confluent

approach based in values clarification philosophies; 2) the psycho-generative method

which takes its oral emphasis from dimensions of the physical world; from personas; and

from activities; 3) the silent way in which “the teacher attempts to lead students to

language production and to inductive insights about linguistic patterns” (p. 62); 4)

suggestology which “utilizes techniques of yoga relaxation and concentration to tap

subconscious processes” (p. 63) for the learning and retention of vocabulary; and 5)
 5

total physical response which relates the learning and retention of vocabulary and form to

physical action. After describing these techniques, specifically labeled in the literature as

“methods,” Benseler and Schulz mention immersion approaches. They note that “the

distinctive characteristic of such instruction lies in increasing and concentrating the time

of exposure, rather than in any special teaching technique or pedagogical approach.

In the next part of their paper, Benseler and Schulz briefly address issues of

enrollment, attitude, and success rates. They note, importantly, that while most students

enroll in foreign language courses because of “requirements” most indicate that they want

to attain oral proficiency from the course and have utilitarian objectives for language

learning. Also importantly, they note that when students have had instruction in

languages that the attrition rate in language knowledge is not as substantial as “one might

reasonably expect” (p.66).

Benseler and Schulz completed their report with the following recommendations:

1) support for intensive and immersion foreign language experiences; 2) support for

proficiency-based rather than seat-time curricula; 3) support for “pedagogically-oriented

research” 4) summer institutes for college-level teachers that help them acquire

knowledge about research and development in language learning research and that give

them appropriate pedagogical skills sorely lacking among literary-trained graduate

students.

Woodford, Foreign Language Testing Background

In a brief introductory historical note, Woodford reminds us importantly of the

MLA tests for secondary and college instruction as well as tests developed by Pimsleur
 6

and by the various AATs and the College Board. All of these tests developed a speaking

session. Woodford contrasts these efforts with those in the “military, the Peace Corps,

the foreign service and the intelligence community” (p. 72) that developed operational

definitions of levels of oral proficiency from 0-5.

In the next section, Woodford begins to answer the question where should we be

in foreign language testing and how can we get there? He outlines three needs. First, he

argues for a “set of descriptors of foreign language ability that are based on real life

performance” (p.73). He wisely points out that one teacher’s A is another teacher’s B+

and that the meanings of such grades are generally fairly obscure. Therefore, he called

for the development of scales such as the FSI scale that could provide a “common

yardstick.” Second, he urges that substantive training programs be developed for

teachers so that they understand what they are testing and how to evaluate student

performance properly. Third, he supports the development of national exams

particularly in reading and writing to be based on authentic reading materials and real-

world writing tasks.

Woodford then outlines an action plan to implement his suggestions. First, he

urges endorsement of the FSI scale for the development of the common yardstick and the

development of training materials so that teachers understand the level descriptions

attached to the FSI scale. Second, regarding training programs for teachers he relies on

the summer institute model. Finally, he suggests a test-development procedure for

national listening and reading comprehension tests in five foreign languages.

 7

The Commonalities in the 1979 papers

These papers are wonderful to read—they encapsulate the major issues of the time

and were in large part prophetic (admittedly, they were supposed to be); yet, in several

instances they discuss points or issues that just never surfaced again. In telegraphic style,

the three pieces can be summarized with the phrases eclecticism; methods and

approaches; and performance assessment and should be viewed on a continuum. For

example, the relationship between Warriner’s comments about eclecticism in the field of

foreign language teaching and Benseler’s and Schulz’ very structured outline of methods

is noteworthy. Warriner comments that there were so many “leaders” in the field that

teachers didn’t know which way to go; therefore, they went their own way (read:

eclecticism). Benseler and Schulz outline and discuss very specific methodological

procedures that were widely discussed in the field. One comes away wondering whether

they were discussed, but no one listened or whether they were merely discussed in

academic circles only to be modified in the “real world.” Warriner was a school-based

practitioner in the best sense of the word. Warriner had a practitioner focus. The data

cited in the Warriner report are based in discussions of how foreign language teachers

were thinking, feeling, and reacting. Benseler and Schulz, on the other hand, were

academics. There are citations and footnotes in their paper. Perhaps the two papers can

be perceived as prototypes of the classic dilemmas in the field of language teaching.

While it is true that Benseler and Schulz note that teachers often use a combination of

“methods”, this is never humanized the teaching process the way it is in Warriner.

The relationship between the Benseler and Schulz and the Woodford papers is

equally noteworthy. Benseler and Schulz outline procedures for teaching. Indeed, they
 8

do mention student outcomes in some quick references to proficiency standards rather

than seat time in their section on student expectation—not in the context of instruction.

Woodford, in contrast, focuses exclusively on the outcome of teaching—student

performance. He makes no comment on how the performance comes about; rather, he

writes about what the performance should like much like viewing a theater performance

with no thought to the rehearsal or directorial process.

The Aftermath of the 1979 Papers: Foreign Language Teaching over the Past Two

Decades

The President’s Commission furnished two large organizational categories

regarding for discussions of language teaching at the time: first, methods and approaches;

second, tests and measurement. This section of the paper examines each of these

categories in turn for what they meant for subsequent language instruction. Whether they

continued to mean anything for language instruction is another question. Interestingly,

the concept of “method,” for example, is no longer with the profession; the concept of

tests and measurement is, in stark contrast, alive and well. The interaction of method and

assessment is, in part, international but, in part, uniquely American.

Methods and Approaches

In their paper, Benseler and Schulz cite the most common methods books used in

foreign language teacher education. The classic texts they list are Allen and Valette,

Classroom Techniques: Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language; Chastain,

Developing Second-Language Skills: Theory to Practice; Grittner, Teaching Foreign

 9

Languages; Rivers and others, A Practical Guide to the Teach of French (which also

included companion volumes on German, Spanish, and Russian; and Papalia Learner-

Centered Language Teaching: Methods and Materials. These texts remained as leaders

in the teaching methods field well into the 1980s.

The books mentioned are products of their time—a time that had only a practice-

oriented literature and approach and no research base. The books are compartmentalized

and technique-oriented. Allen and Valette, probably the most frequently used text,

provides a flavor of the 1970s version of language teaching. Chapters are hierarchized

within units called “Presenting the Languages” and “Developing the Skills” in the

following manner: Teaching the Sound System; Teaching Grammar: General

Procedures; Teaching Grammar: Techniques Arranged by Grammatical Categories;

Teaching Vocabulary; Listening Comprehension; Speaking; Reading Comprehension;

Writing. Against the backdrop of the Benseler and Schulz review, these chapters are

compatible with the four primary “methods” mentioned--audiolingual, cognitive, direct,

and grammar/translation. A deconstructivist glance at each Allen and Valette chapter,

for example, provides evidence that supports the drill and kill notion behind

audiolingualism; the explanatory mode of cognitive; the notions of language use within

the direct method. The clear exception actually in all of the methodology books is the

notion of translation—translation was clearly the taboo technique in the 1970s. As an

example, Allen and Valette refer to translation with exactly 11 lines of text.

What these types of books tried to do was to provide a relatively thorough and

exhaustive treatment of foreign language teaching methodology – at least for the first-

year of instruction. They ultimately came to be referred to as “cookbooks”—in other

 10

words, one was to look up “reading comprehension” and find ten different way of

“teaching reading comprehension” in a very concrete manner much like the cookbook

approach (Lamb is what we have in the refrigerator. Let’s figure out something to do

with it.) Many of these books remained in production and are still produced.

This review should not be interpreted as the haughty post-modernist bash of the

1970s. All of the authors undertook a huge project: trying to communicate with

inexperienced teachers about how to “pull off” a language course. Their catalogue-like

approach was an enormous resource and convenience. Indeed, a huge portion of the

techniques reviewed in all of these books remain as viable techniques, used in any

“modern” instantiation of a language classroom. The books are also charming looks at

the past: the days of dittoes and overhead transparencies and opaque projectors. But

these kinds of books dispappeared from the scene. A last dying gasp of the large-scale

methods book was Omaggio, Teaching Language in Context, copyright 1986. This book

will be discussed within the context of assessment below. It needs to be mentioned at

this juncture, however, because it is a reminder of the way in which methods of foreign

language teaching were viewed at the time of the President’s Commission.

So what happened? In reality, the concept of a “course;” the concept of one

person authoring all of the components that go into a course; the concept of a “book”

encapsulating knowledge about the four skills; and the concept of a teacher being able to

ingest all of this information within the context of a course never to be revisited became

as outdated as leisure suits and platform shoes. The rejection of these concepts was

rooted in three key forces: the explosion of English language teaching across the globe as

a result of massive immigration and emigration; research in language learning and

 11

teacher education; the recognition of the academic nature of understanding the teaching

and learning process in foreign languages and the concomitant development of a critical

mass of academics in the field. In other words, there was need; greater knowledge; and

significant numbers of professionals who understood the need and had the knowledge.

The explosion of English language teaching across the globe as a result of

massive immigration and emigration is one of the key forces that led to the decline of

“methods”. Quite simply, there was no time for teachers to work through an entire

method. Teachers were faced with the reality of non-academic language learning—in

other words, many immigrants had neither the time nor the resources to cope with

traditional school learning. The forced march from present tense to past perfect subject

for use in academic papers was a very distant and mostly unrealistic need. Learners

needed to be able to understand health care professionals; needed to be able to get food,

clothing, health insurance and other immediate personal and familial needs; needed to

understand how to function in another language essentially yesterday. The notion of seat

time leading to functionality was an empty promise.

Classrooms were full of exceptionally diverse students. Many “students” were

already fully schooled professionals in homelands that either could not or would not

sustain them; other “students” were illiterate adults with families dependent on them.

The traditional notion of four skills; of practice with barely reasonable content; and of

delayed if ever positive outcome was completely at odds with the perceptions of adult

teachers and students. Limited resources and the notion of long term instruction for

penniless immigrants was an absurdity. Finally, the diversity of settings in which

languages were taught was enormous. Language classes in English were provided by
 12

community agencies, civic groups, churches, clubs, and every conceivable educational

institution. Many books and articles in the 1980s and 1990s address these dilemmas

(Bernhardt, 1998; Scarcella, 1990;Tollefson, 1995). “Methods” were viewed as what one

learned in formal teacher education programs and formal teacher education programs did

not provide the staff for anything but formal educational programs--programs that

quickly receded into minority status and visibility.

Research in language learning and teacher education. Another important

explosion post-President’s Commission was that of research in language learning and in

teacher education. Research in language learning meant the examination of the learning

of individual second language skills. Research into speaking led the profession to begin

to understand the concept of oral language development. Based in the research paradigm

of first language development, it became clear throughout the 80s that learners did not

learn and use forms in the order in which they were presented in traditional textbooks.

Learners don’t “learn” the present tense and then “learn” the past tense. They don’t

absorb all of the prepositions and then move on to adverbs. They learn to use multiple

grammatical functors and syntactic patterns over time. And many of these patterns are

distributed across the learning of previous forms (Ellis, 1994; VanPatten, 1998). These

findings were clearly at odds with the sequencing of grammatical forms in traditional

language textbooks and classrooms.

Research in cognitive psychology had a great impact on the understanding of the

development of comprehension skills—listening and reading. It was clear that knowing

all the words and all of the syntactic patterns—in other words moving from adding words

and patterns together did not necessarily lead to understanding. In fact, sometimes
 13

learners’ language knowledge was low, but knowledge of the world was high, enabling a

reader to appear to be quite fluent. And sometimes language knowledge was substantial

but the knowledge of a particular topic being read or heard was limited and therefore

comprehension suffered. In other words, the knowledge of the individual comprehender

was crucial—and this knowledge was rarely generic (Bernhardt, 1991).

But the education of teachers, too, took on a very different form from what it was

at the time of the President’s Commission. The concept of input into students equaling

output from students was questioned (Schulman, 1986). Rather than focussing on teacher

“behavior” (in other words which teacher behaviors lead to the highest achievement) the

question became which student activities lead to the best student performance and how

teachers conceptualized the art of teaching (Wittrock, 1986). Teacher cognition and

teacher development research signaled the complexities of teaching and re-directed all

fields (certainly not just foreign languages) toward decision-making approaches that shut

out formal procedural, how-to- kind of thinking that is more akin to folding paper

airplanes than dealing with human beings. The notion of the reflective practitioner

which entails a teacher who is an active decision-maker who considers research-based

knowledge regarding the learning of second languages and new linguistic theories created

a very different context for how the profession thinks about teaching (Clark & Peterson,

1986) .

The recognition of the academic nature of understanding the teaching and

learning process in foreign languages and the concomitant development of a critical mass

of academics in the field was a third force that led to the demise of the notion of

“method.” The field of language teaching found its identity in the conflation of
 14

linguistics, sociology, and language education known as applied linguistics. Applied

linguistics enabled the exploration of language teaching from a variety of research

perspectives. It also enabled interdisciplinary professional dialogue which led, naturally,

to subfields of subfields being developed. To be specific, the professional dialogue

revolves around skills and dimensions of skills such as the differences between oral and

written discourse production; formal and informal registers in professional versus

informal settings; the interrelationships between first and second language literacies;

crosslinguistic patterns in oral language development; and so forth. The field looks at

these diverse pieces as elements in the fabric of language teaching that must be

understood and exploited rather than “teaching the four skills—listening, speaking,

reading, and writing.” Indeed there are global networks of persons who work in each of

these fields. Of particular import is the consequence of language teaching identifying

with applied linguistics and of decoupling itself from literature study. Literature study

throughout the end of the twentieth century has been seen as a narrow project that has

little practical application to language learning (Kramsch, 1995; Bernhardt, 1995; Byrnes,

1995).

This is a generic global (re: worldwide) description. Most assuredly, the British

Council and especially English, Australian, and Canadian academics were at the forefront

of these forces. Additionally, Northern Europeans represented by the Council of Europe

(Trim, 1978) were major players on the world stage of language teaching; significant

work was also conducted in Israel. While foreign language academics in the United

States participated in and contributed toward what could be seen as a global movement,

the Americans had a particular take on the issue. That particular take came arguably
 15

from the Federal Government and was initially launched through the mechanism of the

President’s Commission on Language and International Studies. It became known as The

Proficiency Movement.

Tests and Measurement

While Warriner and Benseler and Schulz all refer to the spirit of the criticality of

“seat time” versus proficiency (meaning what a learner can actually do at the end of the

seat time), it is the Woodford paper that details the specifics of proficiency through the

vehicle of proficiency testing. This distinction between proficiency and proficiency

testing is an absolutely critical feature because it was the American contribution to the

world stage to focus on testing and to move from testing to instruction—not the other

way around. Given that the United States is the home of the Testing Industrial Complex

(no other society genuflects at the notion of creations such as the PSAT, SAT, GRE, AP,

MCAT, etc they way Americans do), it is not terribly surprising that language educators

as an American subset would begin at their natural beginning—with tests. But the

influence of the foreign service model built as it is on tests for both placement and

advancement in its system was enormous—also not terribly surprising since it would be

expected to command the attention of any Federal Commission.

The President’s Commission recommended the adoption of a common standard

(actually it became known as the common yardstick) for measuring language proficiency.

This common measure was to be a gauge external to particular curricula—in other words,

no matter which textbook, set of objectives, quality of teacher, or length of seat time

devoted to language learning, this common yardstick would enable a sense of what
 16

learners could or could not do with the language that they had learned at any given point

in time NOT what they did or did not KNOW about that language. The common

yardstick was to be based on the Foreign Service Institute Scale. This scale

made provision for eleven major ranges of proficiency, beginning with 0

(no functional ability in the language) to 5 (proficiency equivalent to an

educated native speaker), using “+” designations between levels.

…proficiency ranges are not equidistant from one another; that is, the

scale is not linear. Rather, the ranges become farther and farther apart

from one another as one moves up the scale (Omaggio, p. 11).

In order to generate data for the scale, a structured interview—an Oral Proficiency

Interview (OPI)—which probes through questions and role plays, the function (what one

can accomplish with language), content (themes and topics), and accuracy (grammar and

discourse) of a speaker—is administered.

Centering instruction around the end-result; i.e., around proficiency—put a very

different light on the notion of “teaching method.” The question became one of what

does a teacher need to ask the students to do in order to come up with a particular end-

result defined by the FSI/ACTFL scale. In actuality, all methods listed above are able to

provide an answer to the question; some dimension of all the methods listed was able to

facilitate the development of oral proficiency. “Teaching for Proficiency” became the

hallmark of the period and its full spirit was embodied in Omaggio’s Teaching for

Proficiency. This book is painstakingly organized according to the Foreign Service

Institute model of assessing oral proficiency on the five-point scale mentioned earlier. It

takes that same organizational model and extends it to the other language skills. Each
 17

activity listed in the book is contextualized within the notion of one of the levels on the

scale.

A massive number of teacher workshops, training initiatives, and other

professional development activities using proficiency as an organizing principle were

conducted throughout the 1980s and continue to this day. The points on the scale

“Novice”; “Intermediate-Mid”; “Advanced” are common parts of the foreign language

professional vocabulary at the end of the century. University and high school language

programs from coast-to-coast have articulated their objectives within the proficiency

parlance. The plan as set forth by the Commission’s papers most especially that of

Woodford was fully articulated and in place within the two decades following the

President’s Commission. There is little surprise that the entire philosophy and its

practice became known as “The Proficiency Movement.”

“The Proficiency Movement” was not, however, without its critics on a number of

levels. First, within the profession of language teaching in the United States there was

serious concern about governmental interference in and control of the secondary and

postsecondary curriculum and of professional organizations. Evidence for this view

came from the highly visible presence of government language school staff—most

especially from the National Security Agency and the Foreign Service Institute—in

workshops and other professional conferences particularly throughout the 1980s.

Further, the subventing/survival of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign

Languages by means of government grants that funded proficiency workshops and

training to the exclusion of other activities lent credence to these concerns. The rejection
 18

of persons who criticized or provided counter-evidence to proficiency from the annual

ACTFL program also fomented distrust.

Second, there was some clear counter evidence and counter opinions about the

government’s proficiency scale. Scholars such as Bachman and Savignon (1986),

Lantolf and Frawley (1986), Bernhardt (1991), and Lee and Musumeci (1988) all

provided evidence that the neat hierarchical Foreign Service Institute scales were not so

neat and perhaps not so hierarchical at all. The wholesale imposition of an oral language

scale of development on the other language skills created extreme tension among

academics. The tensions surrounding writing and reading and listening remain;

controversy surrounding oral language scale subsided in the 1990s. While there may be

many reasons for this including exhaustion and capitulation, one positive reason may

well be that there is considerably more emphasis on oral foreign language skills in the

last decades than ever before. The vast majority of the foreign language profession views

this as an extremely positive outcome.

The Present Challenge

Many of the recommendations from the 1979 report were indeed accepted and

implemented. Rejection of seat-time requirements and the acceptance and

implementation of a proficiency orientation articulated in the three key foreign language

pieces in the report—Warriner, Benseler and Schulz, and Woodford—fundamentally

characterize the past twenty years. The past years are also characterized by a discussion

of teacher preparation also mentioned by the three sets of authors. In this domain,

however, the set of successes is less clear. While it is true that the authors all refer to
 19

summer institute models for teacher preparation, the reality became (at least in the early

years beyond the President’s Commission) that those professional development programs

were focused on training within the oral-proficiency-interview framework—a useful and

yet relatively constrained and limiting framework. Certainly, the act of teaching was

more complex and more skills were involved than oral skills at the beginning and

intermediate level. Hence, while the reports all refer to opportunities for training, it

remains unclear about how and in what kind of context that training should take place.

Further, several issues were never mentioned in the Commission report. A key

word not found in the President’s Commission report is technology. At the time of the

publication of the Commission’s Report, the concepts of the personal computer,

videoconferencing, email, the internet, cell phones, DVD, were the stuff of research labs

and scientists—certainly not commonly owned property let alone common features in

offices and schools. This is not to say, however, that the foreign language profession had

not danced with technology. It had, in fact, squandered millions in audio cassette

laboratories designed to foster “effective practice” through repetitive drills. It had,

further, squandered significant research dollars in The Pennsylvania Project—a project

designed to document the effectiveness of the audiolingual approach and the ancillary of

the language lab. The failure of audio drilling to bring about language acquisition

coupled with the major professional embarrassment of the Pennsylvania Project may well

have conflated to silence the issue (Chaudron,1988) .

Perhaps having been once burned by technology caused the language teaching

profession to be rather shy about pursuing the topic in the past decades. Nevertheless,

“teaching with technology” and “technology and language learning” have become
 20

hallmarks of current scholarly discussion. Almost all contemporary language learning

materials contain video components and digitized material for drills and exercises.

Computer-based labs have emerged prompted in part by these materials; in part by the

immediacy of the global experience brought on by the internet; and, in part, related to the

efficiency and convenience of multiple off-the-shelf word processing programs in most

commonly and uncommonly taught languages. There is virtually no research- or

experiential-base available from which to understand the impact of these technologies or

to process their relationship to the development of language proficiency.

Finally, the Report is silent on the issue of upper-level skills. While there are

papers that underline the importance of language for business and language for research

purposes, the foreign language papers never refer to these issues. These issues became

critical in the 1990s; the language across-the-curriculum movement as well as content-

based language instruction were attempts at addressing the language use of learners

beyond the social survival skills. These latter issues indicate that, in the final analysis,

the foreign language profession has outlived the agenda of the President’s Commission

on Foreign Language and International Studies.

The Prospects for the Future

While consensus is virtually impossible to achieve particularly in academic areas,

one could argue that being able to use what one learns in a variety of contexts for a

complex and multifaceted world might be a proposition that many could affirm. Given

that, support for the acquisition of all language areas—listening, speaking, reading and

writing-- is critical. While embracing all language skills might seem a bit trite, it is
 21

critical to recall that at the turn of the century emphasis was placed exclusively on the

acquisition of reading skills (NEA, 1894); by the mid to late century that emphasis

became almost exclusively on oral skills (Coleman and Fife, 1949); and by the last

decades of the century, a re-thinking of the role of literacy in the acquisition and the use

of foreign languages took place (Byrnes, 1990). The next century should see language

programs that utilize all language skills—a key difference now being all language skills

each in the support of the acquisition of the other three. The Standards project brings this

concept into full view and should be embraced and supported. Research in teaching and

learning the writing and comprehension processes in second language learning (namely

reading and listening) should be funded. Federal support for the past several years has

been substantially and rightfully targeted at oral proficiency; yet, for the future, the

literacy skills need to be considered. Questions such as the balance of literary and

expository material in the curriculum; notions of text support such as online dictionaries,

hypertext links; and how the literacy skills link, buttress, and enhance oral skills are

worthy of significant research attention.

The original framers of the President’s Commission Report referred to “longer

sequences.” This too perhaps might be an issue on which all are able to claim common

ground. In language learning—like in most learning—the longer one stays with it, the

better the learning. The Commission reports refer explicitly to the disjuncture between

high school and college, but offer few suggestions. Projects like the Articulation Project

sponsored by the Modern Language Association that pairs and partners school districts

and institutions of higher learner must be scrutinized and supported for the knowledge

they develop and deliver. When faculties are able to understand the cultural context of
 22

each other and able to find common objectives and understandings—much like a relay

race—student learning and achievement in foreign languages are enhanced.

Perhaps another area of common ground is the notion of time. Time is probably

the most valuable commodity in any instructional setting. Rather than questioning in the

20th century way of what “method” or set of procedures a teacher in a given setting uses

or does not use, a more modernist question is whether there are ways in attaining that

same learning level in less time. Efficiencies in instruction – which activities and skill

practice must have a teacher/speaker present and which can be done in isolation – would

serve to focus important research energies.

Teacher development and fostering teacher knowledge is also a critical issue—the

issue is not one of the initial licensure and then some summer institutes sprinkled here

and there. It is clear that teachers do not have significant time for professional

development; at present they are asked to give up significant amounts of their private

time for teacher development activities. Currently, professional development for other

professions takes the form of attendance at professional conferences. While this will

continue, problematic for teachers is that they cannot leave their students in the hands of

another caretaker without paying for their replacements. The financing of schools is such

that enabling teachers to participate in professional development activities often causes

significant hardships either on them, their fellow teachers, on their school districts or

educational institution. Alternatives that enable teachers to participate in professional

development activities on their own turf are currently unavailable. The financial and

time costs involved in professional development are often prohibitive. And, clearly,
 23

issues of language proficiency, its growth, and maintenance for teachers are still in need

of serious consideration.

Recommendations

The President’s Commission report played a significant role in the manner in

which teaching foreign languages was constructed for the remainder of the century and,

probably most importantly, provided the blue print for Federal funding throughout the

1980s and 1990s. In many ways, the document served the foreign language profession

and the nation admirably. With the anniversary of its 1979 publication in 1999, the time

has come for a new generation to examine the issues and to determine whether the initial

challenges have been met; the extent to which new challenges have developed; and to

recommend a plan to meet and exceed those challenges in the new century. Clearly, the

areas of language learning; of language program design; and of teacher development

provide critical foci for the study of foreign languages in the new century.

Language Training Needs

1. Additional support for researching and developing knowledge about literacy skills

(namely reading and writing) and how best to teach them is critical. Knowledge

about effective assessment; about the psycholinguistic relationships between and

among the literacy and oral skills; and about the interaction of content knowledge and

linguistic knowledge needs to be generated.

2. Support for research programs that analyze and teach upper-level language skills (i.e.,

from the intermediate high/advanced level of proficiency and upwards) is extremely

 24

important. The past twenty years has seen understandings regarding basic language

proficiency develop. How to bring students to professional-levels of proficiency; the

nature of activities and materials involved; the role, if any, of study abroad in the

development of upper-level skills; and the interrelationships of oral and written

upper-level skills must be understood.

Language Programs and Curriculum

3. Analyses of curricular articulation between college/university-based language

programs and the language needs of the other professions should be undertaken and

analyses underway of high school/college articulation should be continued.

4. Research on electronic tools in language instruction should be implemented. These

should take the form of how these tools bring efficiencies to language instruction;

whether they enhance or impede learning; and how teachers can best be taught to

integrate them into instruction.

5. Examinations of programs that demonstrate success in bringing learners to higher-

level language skills are also critical. Such examinations should provide insights into

materials used; types of assignments and distribution of assignments within

conventional course structures; and actual costs of providing such language training.

Teacher Development

6. Understandings of how best to structure professional development activities for in-

service practitioners must be constructed. Studies that examine different formats

(weekends; summers; evenings; time distribution; sequence, etc) and different

 25

contexts (face-to-face; electronic; distance learning; self study, etc) for teacher

development need to be conducted.

7. Investigations of how best to help teachers maintain and enhance their foreign

language skills must also be undertaken. Questions such as how best to use out-of-

country time should be posed as well as whether home country experiences can take

the place of foreign experiences.

8. The preparation of post-secondary language instructors should become a significant

research agenda item. With significantly increased knowledge of language

development processes and given the current minimum requirements for teaching

assistant training, how university literature programs can best prepare their students

for modern (in the 21st century sense) language teaching is a critical question.

Whether it remains possible for effective graduate student training for language

instruction within the context of traditional literature programs is an open issue.

 26

Works Cited

Allen, Edward D., & Rebecca Vallette. (1977). Classroom Techniques: Foreign

Languages and English as a Second Language. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich.

Bachman, Lyle, & Sandra Savignon. (1986). The Evaluation of Communicative

Language Proficiency: A critique of the ACTFL Oral Interview. The Modern

Language Journal 70, 4, 380-390.

Bernhardt, Elizabeth B. (1998). Sociohistorical Perspectives on Language Teaching in

the Modern United States. In Heidi Byrnes, Ed., Learning Foreign and Second

Languages: Perspectives in Research and Scholarship. New York: Modern

Language Association. 39-57.

Bernhardt, Elizabeth B. (1995). Response to Kramsch. ADFL Bulletin, 26, 3, 15.

Bernhardt, Elizabeth B. (1991). Reading Development in a Second Language:

Theoretical, Research, and Classroom Perspectives. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Byrnes, Heidi. (1995). Response to Kramsch. ADFL Bulletin, 26, 3, 13-15.

Byrnes, Heidi. (1990). Addressing Curriculum Articulation in the Nineties: A Proposal.”

Foreign Language Annals, 23, 281-292.

Chastain, Kenneth. (1976). Developing Second-Language Skills: Theory to Practice. 2nd

Ed. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Chaudron, Craig. (1988). Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and

Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge.

Clark, Christopher, & Penelope Peterson. (1986). Teachers’ Thought Processes. In

Merle Wittrock, Ed. Handbook of Research on Teaching. New York:

 27

Macmillan. 255-296.

Coleman, Algernon, and Robert Herndon Fife. (1949). An Analytical Bibliography of

Modern Language Teaching, 1937-1942. New York: King’s Crown.

Ellis, Rod. (1994). The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Grittner, Frank. (1977). Teaching Foreign Languages. New York: Harper and Row.

Kramsch, Claire. (1995). Embracing Conflict versus Achieving Consensus in Foreign

Language Education. ADFL Bulletin, 26, 3, 6-12.

Lantolf, James, & William Frawley. (1985). Oral Proficiency Testing: A Critical

analysis. The Modern Language Journal 69,4, 337-45.

Lee, James, & Diane Musumeci. (1988). On Hierarchies of Reading Skills and Text

types. Modern Language Journal 72,2, 173-187.

National Education Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies.

(1894). New York: American Book.

Omaggio, Alice C. (1986). Teaching Language in Context: Proficiency-Oriented

Instruction. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.

Papalia, Anthony. (1976). Learner-Centered Language Teaching: Methods and

Materials. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Rivers, Wilga. (1975). A Practical Guide to the Teaching of French. New York: Oxford

University Press.

Rivers, Wilga. (1981). Teaching Foreign Language Skills. 2nd Ed. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press.

Scarcella, Robin. (1990). Teaching Language Minority Students in the Multicultural

 28

Classroom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Shulman, Lee. (1986). Paradigms and Research Programs in the Study of Teaching: A

Contemporary Perspective. In Merle Wittrock, Ed. Handbook of Research on

Teaching. New York: Macmillan, 3-36.

Tollefson, John. (1995). Power and Inequality in Language Education. Cambridge:

Cambridge.

Trim, J. L. M. Some Possible Lines of Development of an Overall Structure for a

European Unit/Credit Scheme for Foreign Language Learning by Adults.

Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1978.

VanPatten, Bill. (1998). Cognitive Characteristics of Adult Second Language Learners.

In Heidi Byrnes, Ed. Learning Foreign and Second Languages: Perspectives in

Research and Scholarship. New York: Modern Language Association. 105-127.

Wittrock, Merle. Ed. (1986). Handbook of Research on Teaching. New York:

Macmillan.