LCTLs

Tutorials Are Key to MSU’s Array of Languages

In the aftermath of September 11, as Americans struggled to understand the motivation of terrorists, a national weakness totally unrelated to military weapons became obvious: our shortage of trained translators for Arabic, Pashto, Uzbek, and other "strategic" languages of the Middle East and Central Asian regions.

Although predicting the potential relevance of these and other "less commonly taught languages," or LCTLs, is difficult if not impossible, U.S. universities have a major responsibility to provide broad options in foreign language education for our citizens. But even large universities find it difficult to offer regularly scheduled classes in a wide range of languages, and meeting demand for one language often means reducing offerings in other languages.

The recent rise in enrollments in Spanish, which equalled more than half of the nearly 1.2 million foreign language enrollments in U.S. institutions of higher education by 1998, has been accompanied by a drop in enrollments in some other languages, including French, German, Japanese, and Russian. Spanish is not the only popular language: enrollments have also increased in Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese, among others. In terms of total enrollments, Spanish is the clear leader (656,590 enrollments), with French (199,064) and German (89,020) claiming the second and third slots. These three form the standard core of languages offered by most institutions.* Many language professionals label all others (except English) LCTLs.

Michigan State University, like most institutions, has long included a number of LCTLs in its standard curriculum: Classical Greek, Chinese, Hausa, Japanese, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Swahili. In addition, MSU's language departments have responded to student interest in recent years with traditional teacher-fronted instruction in Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Nepali, Ojibway (the regional Native American language), and Portuguese. There is limited but important demand at MSU for instruction in numerous other LCTLs, particularly African languages.

MSU's long history of involvement in Africa and its broad strength in African studies have resulted in a small but steady demand for instruction in the 26 African languages it offers "on demand" to faculty and graduate students through the African Language Program coordinated by Professor David Dwyer in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages. These efforts are supported by MSU's African Studies Center, directed by Professor Dave Wiley, which, as a Title VI National Resource Center in African Studies, is required to support the teaching of African languages.

On-demand, learner-centered tutorials supervised by faculty have been the key to the success of the African Language Program at MSU. Individuals or small groups study with a trained tutor who is a native speaker of the language. The tutor works under the guidance of a faculty language supervisor who has a structural knowledge of the language and an understanding of the language learning process. This highly individualized approach has been shown through external review to result in language learning that is at or above the level of the teacher-fronted approach. Recently, the tutorial approach has been extended at MSU to a few non-African languages, including Haitian Creole, Hindi, and Korean.

High-quality support materials for the tutorial approach have been developed by MSU's Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR), directed by Professors Susan Gass and Patricia Paulsell. CLEAR has produced the African Language Tutorial Guide and related video, which provide background material on language teaching and lesson plan modules. On the basis of this model, a tutorial guide was developed for Thai, and CLEAR also plans to develop guides for Arabic, Czech, Hindi, Korean, and Nepali.

The Internet and other distance learning modes will be important to the success of nontraditional approaches to language study. A number of MSU departments and programs are involved in developing materials. Examples include:

• The Webbook of African Language Resources, developed at MSU in consultation with the African Language Teachers Association, provides information about African languages and resources available for the study of those languages.
• The Department of Romance and Classical Languages' first-year Latin course is the first MSU language class to be taught through MSU's Virtual University.
• A distance-learning second-year-level Portuguese class for students at all Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) universities is currently under development at MSU. The "hybrid" Portuguese course will integrate on-line materials with assignments to be completed in conjunction with local conversation partners who are native speakers of Portuguese. Students will learn about Brazilian popular culture as they develop their spoken and written language proficiency. Students taking the class from their respective CIC campuses will proceed through the course in tandem and be linked to the instructor and each other through an array of electronic devices, including e-mail, bulletin boards, and chat rooms.
• CLEAR and MSU-CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research) are collaborating on the development of interactive software tutorial programs on CD-ROM for Business German and Business Russian, building on the successful Business Chinese (Mandarin) product. The software is targeted primarily at business people who need basic survival skills in the language and culture. These two centers have also recently developed the Internet Sourcebook for Business German and the Internet Sourcebook for Business Spanish.
• MSU's African Studies Center and MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online, directed by Associate Professor Mark Kornbluh, along with two African partner institutions, are collaborating on the African Digital Library: West African Digital Resources project. This project will make available through the Internet a vast array of multimedia digitized materials in multiple languages. These materials, and a related set of tailored language-learning materials being planned by CLEAR, will be of great use to teachers and learners of African languages, as well as other scholars and students.

Meeting the university's responsibility to offer a broad range of languages, many of which attract only small numbers of students, requires cooperation among the language departments, area studies centers, CLEAR, and other thematic centers. In 2000, Margo Glew filled the newly created position of LCTL coordinator to facilitate such cooperation. (See p. 16.)

MSU involvement in LCTL issues is extending into the national arena. A recent grant to MSU from Title VI, U.S. Department of Education, is helping to fund a new initiative titled "Strategic National Planning and Coordination of Priorities and Distance Learning in the Less Commonly Taught Languages" for 2002-2004. The first component of this initiative was a national conference, "Distance Learning of the Less Commonly Taught Languages," held in Arlington, Virginia, in February 2002. (See p. 17.) Other project components include creating a Web-accessible database of LCTL distance learning courses that are being offered, are under development, or are being planned; and fostering nation-wide agreement on priorities for the development of courses, materials, and distance learning opportunities for LCTLs.

Michigan State University exhibits its commitment to fostering the learning of less commonly taught languages on many levels and beyond the campus by offering traditional classes for a robust set of languages, developing alternative approaches for a more extensive set, producing LCTL support materials that can be used by teachers and learners in many contexts, helping language professionals outside the university come to grips with the challenges of teaching LCTLs, and taking a leadership role in coordinating national LCTL policy and priority setting. Summer 2002 will see significant LCTL -related events at MSU. (See sidebar, above.) MSU looks forward to a time when more Americans will have achieved a greater level of fluency in a wider range of languages. - Jay Rodman