Introduction: A Tale of Two Schools

Rationale for this Monograph

Similar to Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities, creating and sustaining foreign language education programs for all children in the elementary grades can be viewed as 'the best of times and the worst of times'. Despite intense efforts by national organizations, such as the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL) and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the development and implementation of extended sequences of well-articulated foreign language instruction in K-8 schools has been vigorous and healthy in some cases and inconsistent and unsustainable in others. The story we wish to tell is about this contrast and difference. Just as the main characters of Dickens' novel represent two contrasting personalities, Darnay, the romantic French aristocrat, and Carton, the cynical English lawyer, the story of K-8 foreign language programs is also one of passionate commitment or wavering optimism toward the inclusion of foreign language education in the school's curriculum.

This story is based on our continuing work since 1991 with two different schools that wished to implement foreign language education in the elementary grades. Our work in these two schools involved collaborative planning meetings, curriculum development and longitudinal research to assess the progress that students made as they moved through the grades. What we hope to show in this educational narrative is that, although both schools aimed to provide the best world language education possible for their students, only one school produced a program that was sustainable and fully integrated into the life of the school. In the case of the other school, the program was closed two years before we began to write this story. Why this occurred, what we learned from our research and how others can learn from these two experiences is the purpose of this book.

How to read the story

Our claim in this account is not to provide the definitive formula for successful programs. As Eggington (2005) states, any language planning activity – including policies for the teaching and learning of additional languages in school districts – is embedded within a series of immediate and interconnected eco-systems. That is, one program model or set of considerations for program development cannot be applied to all school districts without careful consideration of specific local factors that influence educational change. For example, parental attitude toward language learning and their own histories as language learners, faculty support for language learning, time for instruction, the position of a program in the school curriculum and monetary resources are a few of the myriad factors that are consequential to what gets implemented, received and regularized. However, based on our experience with acquisition planning and research in the eco-systems of these two schools, we have identified prominent themes through research that form a profile of a successful program. It is our hope, therefore, that this story will offer guidance to school districts, administrators and teachers seeking to implement early foreign language learning programs (EFLLP). Where programs already exist, we hope our research will provide assistance to those who wish to assess current practices and program outcomes. We maintain that the credibility and sustainability of early language programs nationwide depend largely on serious research investigations of program practices and outcomes. Through research into programs, we can ensure consistent and sustainable quality instruction for all children in world language programs (see also Rosenbusch & Jensen, 2005; National Association of State Boards of Education, 2003).

As our story unfolds, we hope that those involved with the foreign language education of young children will be able to identify experiences that connect to their own programs or realize that our tale may contrast with theirs in whole or in part. Moreover, comparing and contrasting local experiences through the lens of the context of specific programs allows for an understanding of why programs function as they do. Thus, the generalizability of this research is not found entirely in external factors such as all elementary school children or all elementary school foreign language teachers who teach them. Rather, our research is centrally concerned with deepening our understanding of the educational activity of teaching children ages five to 13 in a foreign language in American schools. In this way, we believe that our research generalizes to the concept of early language learning programs rather than to specific groups of individuals or practices involved in these programs. Moreover, we believe that the research plan that we present in detail in later chapters can serve as a framework for research into other programs. This research framework illustrates how various aspects of a school's ecology come into play when evaluating foreign language education programs.

Why is this story important to tell?

Understanding the dynamics of early language learning programs in the local context in which they occur is important for two reasons. First, recent professional concern for the lack of advanced and superior levels of language proficiency on the part of graduates has led to the national priority of achieving stronger proficiency gains as an outcome of our programs. EFLLPs clearly play a role in addressing this priority. Second, the idiosyncratic and variable structure of foreign language teaching in the elementary school makes comparative research all the more difficult and complex. Given the lack of comparability of early language programs, making general claims about the young language learner, the level of his/her achievement and the relationship of this achievement to program characteristics is extremely difficult and highly context bound. As Hamayan (1998) has so aptly pointed out, understanding early foreign language programs and how children achieve in these programs is like painting a chameleon. Just as the animal's colors depend on its physical surroundings, any one representation becomes inaccurate as soon as this background changes. Language programs in the early grades, especially one teaching a language that is perceived as nonessential to the daily life of the community, is similarly hard to depict.

Over the past few years, many professional language organizations and regional conferences and consortiums have turned their attention to the issue of advanced and superior language proficiency. As we...