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NCOLCTL Newsletter SPRING 2000 Vol. 3, No. I Contents
Established to bring together organizations and teachers of LCTLs across the country so that together we might do what is increasingly harder for us to achieve independently, the Council continues to succeed in its efforts to strengthen LCTLs. Faced with the reality of having to do more with less, with roller coaster enrollment dips and diminishing institutional support, the Council's members are involved in an increasing number of initiatives that will ultimately strengthen each of our languages on a field-wide basis. Supported by successful grant proposals originally conceptualized by Dick Brecht and the late Ron Walton, and brought to fruition as a group effort with the earliest members of what became NCOLCTL, the Council took shape as a facilitating force that brought existing LCT organizations into a forum, assisted other LCTLs in organizing, and opened lines of communication to identify common needs and interests. Since its beginning, the Council has focused on developing strategies for building a lasting national capacity for the study of LCTL's. These strategies include the creation of Language Learning Frameworks to develop solutions to common problems, the creation of the Councilnet website (http://www.councilnet.org) for sharing information, and the convening of national annual NCOLCTL conferences to present new information, and in return, to continue the process of gaining insights from our members. The next NCOLCTL conference, which will take place this year in Washington, D.C. on May 6 through 8, represents a departure from our previous conferences in significant ways. First, the conference is open to all, and will feature papers, panels, poster sessions, and plenary speakers — all addressing LCTL topics of current interest to the field. Second, the conference will not be hosted by a university, as in the past, and rather than shifting locations from year to year, we plan to hold our future conferences in Washington, D.C. Third this year we are coordinating and overlapping our conference with the Georgetown University Round Table (GURT), May 4-6, to enable conferees to attend both conferences back-to-back if they so wish. Finally, the conference has now shifted from a fall to a spring timetable. Registration materials and an overview of conference presentations for NCOLCTL’s 2000 conference will be accompanying this newsletter for most of the recipients. I encourage you to mark you calendar to meet with us in Washington this May! As we enter the new century, NCOLCTL is continuing to expand the number of its member organizations. The Council has also strengthened its voice in deliberations that affect our profession on the national level by joining the Joint National Committee for Languages-National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) and taking a seat on the American Council on Education Coalition task force, a group that has significant influence upon national education policy. The Council has brought together an unusually dedicated and capable group of individuals. It has been a special privilege to work with the Council's Executive Board members and the Council members themselves, and I thank you all for the time and creativity you have put into our work.
In conjunction with this message of thanks, I am delighted to welcome
Scott McGinnis as the new executive director of the Council. Scott’s
energy, his LCTL expertise and his command of both the details and broader
picture have kept us steadily on course. Scott gives the Council a reliable
contact point and provides us with a
center of operations that is stable and productive. The Council
is in good hands as we continue to build a strong foundation to support
LCTLs in the new millennium! I hope to see you in Washington this May! With best wishes, John Schillinger
American University
On August 2, 1999, Scott McGinnis, Senior Associate for Projects at
the National Foreign Language Center in Washington, D.C., was named as
Executive Director of the National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly
Taught Languages (NCOLCTL). Dr. McGinnis’s appointment comes on
the recommendation of NCOLCTL President John Schillinger and Vice President
Frederick Jackson, and with the approval of the NCOLCTL Executive Board.
The Board moved to appoint Dr. McGinnis after the current Executive Director
of NCOLCTL, Dr. Richard Brecht, was named Director of the National Foreign
Language Center (NFLC) .
In discussing the impact of Dr. Brecht’s new role with NFLC, he
and the NCOLCTL officers agreed that it would be best to appoint a new
Executive Director, both in view of his additional commitments to NFLC
and in order to maintain the distinctiveness of the two closely-related
organizations. Dr. McGinnis was the unanimous choice to succeed him.
Dr. McGinnis has fifteen years of Chinese language teaching experience,
including positions as supervising instructor in summer immersion Chinese
programs at Middlebury College and Indiana University, and a decade of
experience as director of the Chinese language programs at the University
of Maryland and the University of Oregon. Professor McGinnis has authored
or edited three books and over a dozen articles on language pedagogy and
linguistics for the less commonly taught languages in general, and Chinese
and Japanese in particular.
Within the Chinese language teaching profession, Dr. McGinnis has worked
to bring about greater interaction and cooperation among the various settings
within which Chinese language teaching is carried out-- K-12, colleges
and universities, and heritage schools. He has twice served as President
of the Chinese Language Teachers Association and has regularly worked
in advisory capacities for major national projects on standards, articulation,
teacher training and materials. Since 1995 he has served as a member of
The College Board Chinese Language Test Development Committee for the
Educational Testing Service, and since 1999 as a member of the Board of
Examiners for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE).
An important component of Dr. McGinnis' role will be to maintain the
close collaboration that has existed between NFLC and NCOLCTL since the
former was instrumental in the founding of NCOLCTL in 1990 by Dr. Brecht
and the late Dr. Ronald Walton.
Dr. McGinnis may be reached at NFLC as follows: The
National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) received a grant from the Fund
for the Improvement of Post‑Secondary Education (FIPSE) to develop
an online learning/teaching resource based on the concept of the language
learning modules. Once
completed, the project will allow individual learners and teachers to
locate and in many instances download language learning modules on the
ALTA website using a data base search, not unlike that currently used
by most libraries. LangNet, as this service is known, will provide a range
of modules that can be used to: help identify the language of study, provide
assistance in the class room (pictures, video, maps, authentic texts),
give listings of where to find actual lessons (some of which will be available
on line), and give learners assistance in learning a language and other
materials that will facilitate the language learning environment. ALTA
was selected as one of the two vanguard language organizations because
of its demonstrated leadership in establishing a professional organization
with a clear cut set of goals and an established track record such as
the work of the Language Learning Task Forces in Hausa, Kiswahili, Yoruba,
West African Languages and Southern and East African Languages. ALTA will
use the existing structure of these task forces for the project, where
they will be known as “Editorial Boards.” Budgetary restrictions
have postponed the participation of ALTA's most recent task forces, West
African languages and Southern and Eastern African languages, until a
later date. As in the case of our task forces, each editorial board
will be in communication with an advisory board consisting of ALTA members
(teachers, researchers and learners) with an interest in the specific
language and the project. Members
of these editorial boards are: Hausa:
Linda Hunter, University of Wisconsin (chair) Kiswahili:
Lioba
Moshi, University of Georgia (chair) John
Inniss, ALTA president Alwiya
Omar, University of Pennsylvania Yoruba: Antonia
Schleicher, University of Wisconsin (chair) Frank
Arasanyin, Yale University Akinloye
Ojo, University of Georgia
Task
Force Coordinator, David Dwyer, Michigan State University, has been assigned
to coordinate the workings of each editorial board and with the project
staff at the National Foreign Language Center. The
goal of these editorial boards during the first phase of the project,
which ended on October 31, 1999, was to prove the workability of the concept
of using Internet technology to customize language learning programs under
a modular framework. If this phase is successful, FIPSE will continue
funding the project for a second phase. This first phase of the project
does not call for the creation of new modules, but rather the identification
of the existing language learning modules and indexing their content.
For the purposes of this phase, all relevant materials will be considered
as (potential) language modules. Once indexed, the editorial boards will
develop criteria and standards for identifying which modules will be selected
to be “shared” on the website. Questions of criteria
and standards will have to do with matters of size, completeness, accuracy,
priority, and convertibility. The
first step in this process was to review the existing learning materials
in these languages and to provide useful categories for database searches.
The editorial boards then reviewed a wide range of different types of
learning materials and indexed them according to these categories. The
next step was to index the available modules using the refined materials
and to develop standards and criteria for selecting the “shared”
modules. The
NFLC will play an important role of building up the technological infrastructure.
This will include the organization of the website and database, the conversion
of existing materials to web-based materials using scanners and other
devices, and the arrangement of copyright permission and/or payment. ATJ, COTSEAL & SALTA Join Language
Network Learning Modules Project In
November of 1998 the Council sent out a request for proposals to its member
organizations. The request’s guidelines emphasized the development
of an online learning/teaching resource based on the concept of the language
learning modules, modeled after LangNet and the FIPSE-funded project described
in the article on ALTA. The proposals of ATJ, COTSEAL and SALTA were selected
by the Council board in January 1999. The proposals were judged primarily
on the following criteria: 1.) Relevance to LangNet mission, 2.) Composition
of task force’s representation of the national field, and 3.) Development
of customization priorities and learner profiles. Each
organization’s project is funded by the Ford Foundation through
the 1996-1999 Council grant. As the mission to advance the LangNet objective
is shared with the FIPSE-funded projects, there will be substantial collaboration
between groups.
by Laurel Rasplica Rodd, President The
Association of Teachers of Japanese was established in 1963 as an international,
non-profit, non-political organization of scholars, teachers, and students
of Japanese language, literature, and linguistics, serving to promote
academic work in the field, and to broaden and deepen knowledge and appreciation
of Japan and its culture. Since
its inception, ATJ has provided scholars in the field with opportunities
to exchange academic and professional views, results of research, pedagogical
approaches, and news of the field. It holds an annual meeting in conjunction
with the Association for Asian Studies and publishes the Journal of
the Association of Teachers of Japanese twice each year and the ATJ
Newsletter four times annually. The organization maintains a home
page at http://www.colorado.edu/ealld/atj.
There
are at present approximately 1400 members of the association. This membership
includes representatives from all areas of study in the field and from
many parts of the world, including North America, Australia, Europe, and
Japan. Recently
ATJ has joined forces with the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers
(NCJLT), founded in 1992 originally as the National Council of Secondary
Teachers of Japanese (NCSTJ). In addition to cooperating in a number of
field-wide projects, the two organizations have established a national
administrative office, the Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese,
that will serve the entire field of Japanese studies. In
recent years, with the growing importance of Japan in the world economy,
politics, and culture, the importance of Japanese language and culture
has been increasingly recognized. As more schools, colleges, and universities
offer programs of study in these areas, ATJ has assumed an increasingly
important role through its meetings, its service and activities in public
affairs, its publications, and the exchange of communications on developments
in the academic and cultural arenas. There
has been a dramatic increase over the past decade in the numbers of students
and teachers of Japanese, especially at the pre-collegiate level (Japanese
now vies to be the fourth most commonly taught language in the U.S.),
paralleled by an increase in the number and variety of programs offering
Japanese at all levels of instruction. The types of institution, the types
of student (in terms of age, goals, background, motivation, and preparation),
opportunities for study abroad--all have grown at a rate unimaginable
when ATJ was founded four decades ago. With
the "successes" of the Japanese language field, however, have
come challenges. Many Japanese programs are anything but stable; they
are liable to cancellation if they lose their outside financial support
or the single teacher who has been their mainstay. Many teachers of Japanese
are untrained and uncertified, brought in as "emergency hires"
while the majority of states have no provision for offering certification
in teaching Japanese. Programs are fragmented: students who begin their
study in elementary school may not be able to continue in junior high
school, for example, and it is very difficult to find the long sequences
of instruction needed to develop real competence. Efforts at articulation
between secondary and university programs have so far been sporadic and
local. Teaching materials are still lacking, especially those tailored
to the new groups of students with new goals; there are few materials
for young children, and few for people learning Japanese for specific
purposes. And while study abroad opportunities have increased and many
institutions have developed exchange programs that make study abroad easier
to arrange, still only a handful of Americans study in Japan each year
compared to the numbers of Japanese who come to the U.S. to study. Finally,
as the emphasis in the news on the economy and politics has shifted the
focus of the majority of students to contemporary Japan, fewer students
approach their study with the interest in and the willingness to master
the classical language and the intricacies of civilization that lead to
a deep understanding of Japanese culture. A large majority of students,
and many instructors, are content with a surface understanding gleaned
from a few months of study of the modern language. ATJ
has formed collaborative alliances with the secondary Japanese teachers'
organization and with heritage teachers and others in the field to address
some of these challenges. Among the projects ATJ is currently engaged
in are the following: 1)
The Alliance (ATJ/NCJLT) is part of the National Standards in Foreign
Languages Education Collaborative Project (NSFLECP) and has developed
a set of national standards for the teaching and learning of Japanese. A national working group of teachers under Alliance
sponsorship has developed resources for the implementation of these national
standards in the classroom, and sponsored a dozen more projects to assess
the best practices in the implementation of the student standards. 2)
We are coordinating and facilitating access to professional development
opportunities for teachers in three broad areas: a)
pedagogy, methods, and assessment; b)
content--both linguistic and cultural; and c)
"street smarts," or issues of advocacy and program management
and maintenance. We have been offering summer intensive language fellowships
to secondary teachers, while also disseminating information about short-term
summer immersion workshops, short- and long-term study abroad opportunities
for teachers, and other types of development workshops. We have provided
fellowships to Japanese secondary teachers to attend ACTFL’s annual
meeting, and sponsored an immersion workshop on pedagogy as part of the
experience. We plan to expand such programs to include all K-12 teachers,
and to incorporate training in advocacy for second language learning. 3)
We have established a central office for the Japanese field which can
act as a clearinghouse for news and information about the field, and hired
an executive director to coordinate activities and develop new resources.
Our traditional print newsletter is now supplemented with regularly updated
information on the World Wide Web; we now have an office staff who can
answer phone inquiries; and we are producing new informative brochures
on study abroad, professional development, and other issues. The Web site
includes the contents of the newsletter, news of upcoming events, and
other information of professional interest , and it will soon link to
or provide downloadable materials for classroom use, professional development
modules, tools for use of the Internet (such as on-line dictionaries and
free word processing software), and instructional modules. 4)
ATJ has established an editorial board to review publications and materials,
including on-line instructional resources, and to endorse those which
the field believes to have the most value, as part of the LangNet project
which was initially conceived and developed under the auspices of NCOLCTL. 5)
A candidate registry on the ATJ Website is the first step toward addressing
the problem of lack of Japanese certification standards in many states.
In cooperation with the national professional organizations, ATJ is moving
toward providing an official professional organizational certification
to qualified teachers. We
will be convening a national conference on the credentialing process in
Japanese language education in the fall of 2000. 6)
A clearinghouse on study abroad in Japan (the "Bridging Project")
offers advice and counseling to individual students and teachers, holds
informational meetings, helps with credentials transfer, supports and
disseminates research related to study abroad, helps to pair exchange
institutions, and administers a new program of scholarships to help students
with the high cost of living in Japan while they study there. Bridging
Scholarships for Study in Japan were awarded to 45 undergraduate students
in 1999. 7)
A new "special interest group" within ATJ is exploring the related
goals and needs of scholars and students of pre-modern Japan. It is planning
ways to expand the dialogue across disciplinary lines. Other special interest
groups are being organized to help those in similar situations and with
related interests network more efficiently. ATJ
has clearly come of age. It is grappling with some of the problems faced
by the more "established" languages in the United States and
attempting to find innovative solutions that may serve as models for other
language fields. Norwegian Teachers Association of North America (NorTANA) by Louis Janus, Vice President
The
Norwegian Teachers Association of North America was founded in 1987 to
increase the cooperation and exchange of ideas and materials among Norwegian
teachers in North America. As stated in its charter, the purpose of the
organization is "to engage in all activities that will enhance Norwegian
studies in North America, and which will prove to be of mutual benefit
to teachers of Norwegian and the instructional programs they serve."
Prior to formal establishment of the Association, Louis Janus had edited
and distributed the Norwegian Teachers' Newsletter to all the programs
and teachers he could find. The enthusiasm expressed about having a newsletter,
and the willingness of Norwegian teachers to work cooperatively, led Lloyd
Hustvedt, Professor Emeritus at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota,
to organize a meeting of all Norwegian teachers, proposing to discuss
ways to encourage joint projects and cooperative ventures. This founding
meeting was attended by approximately twenty active Norwegian language
teachers, and NorTANA (then known as NTANA) was established by proclamation.
Since its inception, NorTANA has sponsored several pedagogical conferences
and projects: 1) In 1991, NorTANA organized and ran
a special seminar for Norwegian teachers which dealt with "Proficiency
in the Norwegian Classroom." A follow-up pedagogical seminar in 1994
covered aspects of "Teaching Culture." 2) During much of 1995,
NorTANA and the Less Commonly Taught Languages Project at the University
of Minnesota co-sponsored NorWORD, daily Norwegian lessons sent out on
e-mail, to approximately 2000 participants world-wide. The response was
enthusiastic, pointing out the hunger world-wide for on-going opportunities
to learn Norwegian, even when there is no regular teacher or classroom.
3) The Association sponsored a writing contest for undergraduate Norwegian
majors. The topic "Why Major in Norwegian?" brought forth many
excellent ideas and a prize for the writer of the most insightful essay. 4) A workshop on developing multimedia
materials, held at St. Olaf College in June 1997, brought together 15
Norwegian teachers from the US and Canada for hands-on training in creating
Web exercises and explanations, computer-assisted language lessons, and
presentational software. Evening sessions focused on reviewing available
commercial software and pedagogical materials. As a pre-conference workshop
at the 1998 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian
Study (SASS), NorTANA presented a short demonstration of World Wide Web
resources as curricular support.
The Norwegian Teachers' Newsletter continues under the editorship
of Torild Homstad, Director of the North American Admissions Office of
the Oslo International Summer School. Current issues of the newsletter
are mailed out, and also posted on the World Wide Web, and thus are accessible
to members and non-members alike. Coverage includes announcements of open
positions, conferences, summer programs, grants and stipends, interesting
websites, ongoing projects, new products, and upcoming events. Reviews
of teaching and reference material attempt to keep NorTANA members abreast
of the latest in pedagogy. Currently there are 93 dues-paying, lifetime,
and complimentary members, with an additional 65 libraries, newspapers
and government agencies on the mailing list. While the name of the organization
suggests a North American focus, 16 NorTANA members come from Norway.
Dues have remained reasonable: $10 for one year or $25 for 3 years. In
addition to the special seminars and workshops NorTANA sponsors, general
meetings are held twice a year, one at the annual Fall Norway Seminar
and the second at the annual spring meeting of SASS, where the Association
gathers for a luncheon, occasionally with a guest speaker. The NorTANA
web pages(http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/norwegian/nortana/nortana.html)
not only summarize the activities and organization of the Association,
but also provide students and the general public with a directory of links
to Norwegian websites, grammatical reviews, and a bibliography of teaching
and reference materials. Several recent events point to the active role
NorTANA plays in supporting and advocating for good Norwegian teaching
in North America: 1) In May 1998, the Association was honored with the
Akademika Prize by the Board of Directors of Akademika AS. Akademika is
the university bookstore in Oslo, serving the University of Oslo, adjacent
academic institutions, and professionals nationwide. The prize, amounting
to 50,000 Norwegian Kroner, was established "to recognize that person
or institution which has made a particular noteworthy contribution of
making Norwegian fiction, non-fiction, specialist literature and research
known to an international public." The award was presented at a ceremony
in Oslo on October 2, 1998, to Margaret Hayford O'Leary, President of
NorTANA. 2) NorTANA will partially fund one Norwegian teacher to attend
the Professional Development Summer Institute for Teachers of Less Commonly
Taught Languages, held July 6-10, 1998, at the University of Minnesota.
This institute investigated theories and practices for effective second
language teaching and learning. 3) In 1997, NorTANA joined the sixteen
member organizations in the National Council of Organizations of Less
Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL). The
Executive Board of NorTANA, elected every three years, currently consists
of the following officers: President:
Margaret Hayford O'Leary
St. Olaf College Vice
President: Louis
Janus
University of Minnesota Secretary:
Nancy Aarsvold
St. Olaf College Treasurer:
Solveig Zempel
St. Olaf College Editor:
Torild Homstad
Oslo International Summer School Board
Members: Zoe Borovsky
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Ingrid Urberg
Augustana College, Camrose, Canada At
the pre-conference workshop of the 1998 NCOLCTL Conference in Philadelphia,
about forty attendees were presented with information on the latest developments
in Internet resources for language teaching and learning. The workshop
illuminated the greatly increased access to authentic target language
materials made possible through the Internet, and explained how to incorporate
these materials into classroom language practice. Dr.
Lisa Frumkes, director of the Tri-College Language Learning Center at
Swarthmore College, covered “Web Tactics: Making the Web Work for
LCTLs.” She began with a general discussion of technology in language
learning, and touched on the question of adapting technology to individual
teacher’s classroom philosophy; what support is required for using
technology; and developing basic skills to use the Web. She presented
several important and useful tips for accessing resources on the Web,
such as coping with Web addresses that don’t work, making bookmarks,
and using search engines for foreign language resources. A few quick searches
found many LCTL radio and newspaper sites. Dr Frumkes also discussed getting
students to use websites, and using exercise handouts with appropriate
Web addresses. Mr.
Attila Lantos of the Hungarian Section at the Foreign Service Institute,
Arlington, VA, presented “Internet Solutions for Small Languages.”
Mr. Lantos discussed the practice of the Hungarian Section in using the
Internet to supplement the regular FSI 44-week course. Several questions
of interest to classroom practitioners were discussed: why and how to
incorporate Internet applications in the language classroom; catering
to individual needs and customizing the learning process; overcoming the
lack of materials in the LCTLs; and injecting variety into the language
classroom. He explained how at FSI instructors supplement classroom activities
with pre-assigned reading tasks using target language Internet newspaper
sites; specifically utilizing downloaded news broadcasts with listening
comprehension exercises; Internet searches to find specific target language
information; and on-line audio broadcasts with texts. Mr. Lantos noted
that assigning individual activities on the Internet also allows teachers
to conduct one-on-one tutorials with learners. Dr.
Nina Garrett of Yale University presented “Pedagogy of Information
Technology”. Dr. Garrett discussed the possibilities of technology
to meet the diversity of learner needs and goals. She noted that very
focused learning goals, as well as wide range of learner abilities (especially
considering Heritage learners), are typical of the LCTLs. Dr. Garrett
suggested that teachers in the LCTLs must work together to develop materials
that would be difficult for teachers in one-person departments to develop
alone. By way of example, Dr. Garrett recalled that twenty years ago Betty
Lou Leaver developed a countrywide network of Russian teachers to develop
and share focused activities at different levels, all based on the same
news broadcast. A lively discussion ensued with conference attendees,
and the following issues were discussed: What activities are required
to work with Internet resources? What are the ramifications of LCTL learners’
previous learning experiences for using new technology? Dr. Garrett noted
Wilga Rivers’ distinction between “skill-getting” and
“skill-using”, and asked attendees to consider how to develop
learners’s skill-getting for language learning. She
also discussed using available resources on the Net to create new tools;
for example, concordances. In discussion, Dr. Garrett reminded the attendees
that language learning technology doesn’t save money. Instead, it
can replace some repetitive and time-consuming activities where instant
feedback is required, thus freeing up teachers’ time to develop
new materials. Many
attendees noted that similar workshops are extremely valuable for language
classroom practitioners, especially those who may be unfamiliar with using
the Internet. This workshop and its discussions formed a very appropriate
prelude to the discussions of technology sharing during the plenary sessions
of the conference. On
January 10, 2000, Dr. Dorry Kenyon, Division Director of Foreign Language
Education and Testing for the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), attended
the meeting of the NCOLCTL Executive Board. Dr. Kenyon is serving as the
liaison between the nine national Language Resource Centers (LRCs) and
NCOLCTL, and will be working to provide an enhanced channel of communication
regarding the mutual needs and interests of the LRCs and NCOLCTL. All
nine of the LRCs now can be accessed by a common website of http://nflrc.msu.edu. At that site you will
be able to find information about the various summer institutes being
offered at the LRCs, with topics including “Computer-based Tests
for Less Commonly Taught Languages” and “Slavic and East European
Languages: Acquisition, Techniques, & Technology.” Some of the
courses offer partial funding, fellowships and scholarships.
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