Foreign Language Instruction:
Implementing the Best Teaching Methods
By: R. K. Goswami
From preschool parents to
Pentagon chiefs, people are calling for more foreign language instruction.1 Factors driving the demand
include China ’s
economic growth, which has prompted the College Board to add Chinese to its
list of Advanced Placement tests.
Essential
Information for
Education Policy
Published by the American Educational Research
Association
Meanwhile, President George W.
Bush, citing national security concerns, has called for the expanded teaching
of languages not typically offered in public schools, including Arabic, Farsi,
and Chinese. Also fueling interest are the growing ranks of “heritage” language
students who are raised in homes where a language other than English is spoken.
At the same time, more parents and schools are recognizing the value of
preparing even very young children for life in a broad international community. In funding and
implementing language programs, three questions
policymakers and instructors often ask about foreign language learning and
teaching are:
4At what
age should foreign language learning start?
4What
teaching methods should be used?
4To what
extent is there a special aptitude for foreign language learning?
Should Foreign Language
Learning Start Early?
It is now well established that
young children tend to absorb relatively easily any language that they are
surrounded by, and they appear to learn to speak a new language more easily
than adults do.2, 3 Compared to an older student, a child’s
language learning advantage is greatest in the area of pronunciation, somewhat
weaker in the area of grammar usage, and slight when considering the size of
their vocabulary. Still, the apparent overall benefit of early learning is leading
many to implement foreign language programs in elementary school or even
earlier. Is this the best or even an advisable use of resources, especially
children’s time? The answer depends on what you want to achieve and how much
you are willing to invest. A few hours a week of foreign language instruction
focusing on learning words, songs, and a few
ritualized exchanges is good for cultural exposure and appreciation, but do not
expect real mastery. The implication of the research is not so much that one should
start language teaching early — say, age 6 — and expect spectacular results,
but rather that the teaching should be age
appropriate. When considering the “earlier is better”
approach, three points often are
overlooked:
4A young
child tends to absorb a language through massive amounts of input and
exposure, while explicit learning, involving rules and
systematic practice, plays an important role for
adolescents and adults.4
4The
impact of age of learning on ultimate proficiency is not always clear cut; in
other words, some child learners end up with accents and
incomplete second language grammars, and some
adult learners become, for all practical
purposes, as skilled as native speakers.
4While
young learners are more likely than older students to ultimately speak a
new language like native speakers, adolescents and
adults actually learn foreign languages faster.5 If proficiency is the goal,
teaching young children a foreign
language in an age-appropriate manner means providing a full-immersion education,6 taught by teachers who know the language well. Such
programs simulate the
environment of growing up with a language by:
4Integrating
the second language with instruction in other subjects;
4Giving
learners ample opportunities to engage in meaningful discourse with other
students and teachers using the foreign
language;
4Exposing
learners to a variety of native speakers of the target language; and
4Focusing
instruction on attaining the language skills needed for communicating
about and understanding academic subject matter, not on mastering a foreign language for its own
sake. Some parents and teachers may be concerned that total immersion in a
foreign language could impede a child’s grasp of English and ability to learn
other subjects. However, studies have shown that, while there can be an initial
lag in English achievement, full immersion students catch up, scoring at least
as well as other students on verbal and mathematics skills.7, 8
They may even exceed monolingual
children on some measures of cognitive
processing.9 Also,
many language programs that call themselves
“immersion” fail to produce the expected results,
apparently because they do not provide an
experience similar to exemplary immersion programs like those
used in Canada
to teach French and other foreign
languages to English speakers.10, 11
Teaching Older Students
Immersion is not the only
efficient way to learn a language. For older students, effective foreign
language instruction includes direct
teaching, systematic practice involving rules and grammar, and
plenty of opportunities for conversation. It should be
aimed at having students express and understand
fully formed ideas and phrases, as well as learn
the language’s structure. A balanced instructional
approach is vital. Too much focus on meaning fails to
create the knowledge
of structure necessary for
anything beyond the most basic conversational skills. At
the same time, while teaching structures directly is
highly productive,12 an over-reliance on structure,
perhaps through endless mechanical drills, can lead to
the “boredom factor” — students want to actually
communicate in a foreign language, not labor over the
nuts and bolts. In the proper dosage, focusing
on the foundations of grammar and language
structures will support a student’s ability to express himself or herself
readily.13 There are many ways to draw
attention to the form of a language (whole words, sentence
structures, stress, and intonation patterns),
depending on the student’s aptitude, motivation, and
previous experience and on the educational and learning
goals of the student and the teaching program. Much
research is available to guide educators in managing the
balance between structure and meaning.14, 15, 16
Can Everyone Learn Foreign
Languages Well?
As with any type of learning, students’ individual differences have
an impact on how well each one grasps a subject. For adolescents and adults, a student’s aptitude and motivation can be key factors in his or her foreign language learning.
Aptitude for language learning can be measured through specialized tests,17, 18 and large amounts of research suggest that it is the second most important language learning characteristic after age.19, 20 Foreign language aptitude consists of several components.
Research Points | Spring 2aching Language Proficiency at All Ages
Adults Need Varying Amounts of
Study Time To Reach Proficiency in
Different Languages
The power of immersion language education is
reflected in the experience of immigrant students who, in effect, live in an immersion
learning environment when they relocate to a new country.
In a study of immigrants who spoke Korean or
Chinese at home but English outside, those who came to the United States
between the ages of 3 and 7 had average English grammar test scores as adults
equal to those of native English speakers. Those who arrived at later ages had
less mastery of grammar as adults.
At the elite Foreign Service Institute of the
U.S. Department of State, students studying full time to achieve professional speaking
and reading proficiency in “easy” languages (those closest to English) spend
575 to 600 hours in class — 25hours per week plus three to four hours per day
of directed self study. For languages very different from English, class time jumps
to 2,200 hours, with half of that time spent in the country where the language
is spoken. A typical year of college language instruction is three to five
hours per week —180 hours per year at most — plus homework.
Early Immersion for Young Children
Leads to Nativelike Language Ability
Hours of Class Time Instruction
0
200
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
1,400
1,600
1,800
2,000
2,200
Far from
English
(e.g., Arabic,
Chinese,
Japanese)
Different from
English
(e.g., Farsi,
Russian,
Urdu)
Close to
English
(e.g., Dutch,
French,
Spanish)
600
1,300
2,200
Language, by Degree of Difficulty
Fact at a Glance
268.8
210
220
230
240
250
260
270
280
Native 3–7 8–10 11–16 17–39
269.3
256.0
235.9
210.3
Age of Arrival in United States
Mean Score on English
Grammar Test
Source: Johnson, J.S., Newport , E.L. (1989). “Critical Period
Effects in Second Language Learning: The Influence of
Maturational State on the Acquisition of English as a Second Language.” Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 21, pp. 60–99. Source: Adapted from National Virtual Translation Center (2006). “Language Learning Difficulty for English Speakers.”
http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/
november/learningExpectations.html, accessed
March 31, 2006.hould Policymakers Do?
First, recognize that simply starting
early does not guarantee that a language will be learned. Second, support age-appropriate foreign
language teaching — a total immersion program for young children, moving toward a more explicit focus on structure for adolescents and adults. Third, be realistic with students and
parents about how much foreign
language skill a few hours a week of instruction can generate, especially for preschool and elementary school learners. Such
limited instruction will not lead to mastery, but it may build motivation
and a “taste” for language learning. Fourth, recognize that for almost everyone, high proficiency in a foreign
language will develop outside the classroom, through conversations with native
speakers made possible by the skills acquired in the classroom.
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6). Jan, T. (2005). “Along with ABCs, Some Learn Chinese,” Boston Globe (June
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Department of Defense (2005). Defense Language
Transformation Roadmap (January). 2) Johnson, J.S., Newport ,
E.L. (1989). “Critical Period Effects in Second Language Learning: The Influence of Maturational State on the Acquisition of English as a Second Language,” Cognitive Psychology, Vol.
21, pp. 60–99. 3) DeKeyser, R.M., Larson-Hall, J. (2005). “What Does the Critical Period Really Mean?” In J.F. Kroll and A.M.B. de Groot (Eds.) Handbook of Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Approaches. Oxford : Oxford University
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including sensitivity to sound, which is important for pronunciation; sensitivity to structure, which affects a student’s grasp of grammar; and memory, which can determine how well a student learns and retains vocabulary. Furthermore, the precise impact of a student’s foreign language aptitude is affected by three important variables — age; type of exposure to the language; and “linguistic distance,” or the degree of difference between the native and the foreign language. In the end, aptitude, while difficult to define, clearly is an important factor for adolescents and adults learning a foreign language in the classroom.21, 22 In conjunction with aptitude, foreign language mastery also is enhanced when a student is sufficiently motivated to learn a language, for example, to gain employment, travel, or integrate into a community.23
Conclusion
Determining which type of foreign language instruction is best depends on a number of variables: the learner’s age, aptitude, and motivation; the amount of time available for instruction; and the difference between the native and the foreign language. For young children, starting early can lead to mastery of a foreign language — with no long-term detriment to their grasp of English — only if it is taught through a well-developed form of total immersion instruction. A program consisting of a few hours of foreign language teaching per week is not enough. Older students and adults, on the other hand, need a judicious mixture of practice and communication. Deliberate direct instruction (e.g., studying grammatical structures, memorizing lists of vocabulary words) is vital, along with ample classroom and study time. As such students progress, their instruction should become increasingly communicative and should include an extended stay abroad for greatest effect.