International Education and Foreign Languages Keys to Securing America's Future (2007) / Chapter Skim
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5 Reducing Shortages of Foreign Language and Area Experts
5 Reducing Shortages of Foreign Language and Area Experts
Pages 113-139
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From page 113... ...
As outlined in Chapter 2, we have not conducted a systematic assessment of the extent to which shortages exist, but instead acknowledge that the significant demand for people with foreign language, area, and international skills for government service, academia, K-12 education, and business suggests that there is a significant unmet need. The Title VI/FH programs can help to address this unmet need in at least three ways: (1)
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From page 114... ...
The programs promote international coursework, foreign language study, and overseas experiences as important parts of education in their own right. Consistent with several other recent national reports (Committee for Economic Development, 2006; Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program, 2005; U.S.
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From page 115... ...
For FLAS recipients, the percentage is based on only the FLAS Ph.D. students who graduated in the year in which they received a FLAS award.
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From page 116... ...
Local Foreign Graduate Granted Education Government Military Government Government Study Russian and East European Studies (2,452 records of student placement)
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From page 117... ...
(0) Middle Eastern language and area studies programs, based on a more detailed analysis of EELIAS data. These are summarized in Table 5-1.
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From page 118... ...
Heydemann (2004) points out that "more graduates of Middle East Centers go into some form of government service than those who study any other world region except East Asia" (the data include a world area code for individual university reports)
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From page 119... ...
focuses on the percentage of all graduates entering federal government or military service and concludes that there is an "astonishingly low rate of job placement in the federal government and the U.S. military for grads who've taken foreign languages in Title VI centers." In his view, placements should be closer to at least 10 percent, the percentage he reports that Title VI contributes to the university area studies programs.
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From page 120... ...
About 7 percent worked for the military or other government positions. These results reinforce the general trends identified using EELIAS data for NRC graduates, although the number reporting government or military positions is higher than in the NRC data.
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From page 121... ...
Although the committee views the Title VI/FH mandate as legitimately calling for it to address a larger set of needs than just those of the federal government, in this section we review issues related to meeting demand at the federal level, because of the attention it has received. Although the current data available from ED suggest that few NRC graduates obtain government positions, these data have numerous limitations, as discussed above, and may not accurately reflect the number of graduates whose jobs include an international component.
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From page 122... ...
He and others point to anecdotal evidence that many experts in government attend or have attended NRC institutions (Interagency Language Roundtable, 2006b; Heydemann, 2004; Merkx, 2006)
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From page 123... ...
. A recent Government Accountability Office report on progress made by the State Department in meeting its language needs calls on it to produce a prioritized assessment of language skills and then act to meet these needs, particularly in countries of strategic importance
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From page 124... ...
points to a similar issue and, while recognizing efforts to improve recruitment and retention, calls for a "government-wide assessment of needed language skills." Recruitment Issues The federal government has in general faced recruiting problems, and there is no reason to think that recruiting students who have participated in Title VI/FH programs is easier. Indeed, one of the most significant problems has been the clearance process and the difficulty of students who have studied critical languages in countries of concern to then get timely clearances or get cleared at all, given the challenges involved in conducting background checks.
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From page 125... ...
As discussed in Chapter 2, the State Department and the FBI both have unmet needs for people with critical language capabilities, but language ability is not a formal criteria for hiring people at these agencies. The State Department, for example, hires not on the basis of foreign language competency, but rather on the basis of a wide range of skills that are required of diplomats, to do a range of jobs and be competitive to progress to senior levels.
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From page 126... ...
A study by a group of Title VIfunded NRCs (e-LCTL, 2005) concludes that Title VI/FH institutions help respond to the need for foreign language instruction based on descriptive information on LCTL enrollments: • During the 2001-2002 academic year, the 55 NRC/FLAS institutions taught 128 less commonly taught languages, with the capacity to teach 98 more if needed.
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From page 127... ...
stated that 80 percent of graduate students in languages that the national security community deems critical are at Title VI centers. While these data do not address the issue of what levels of language proficiency are achieved by students in these programs, it is clear that Title VI institutions support training in a significant number of less commonly taught languages, and they have an ongoing capacity (in contrast to the "on demand" capacity of the Defense Language Institute and the Foreign Service Institute)
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From page 128... ...
Several programs, including NRCs, Language Resource Centers (LRCs) , and IRS, provide indirect support to increase students' language proficiency by maintaining the capacity and infrastructure to teach languages, particularly less commonly taught languages.
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From page 129... ...
Presumably most, if not all, of those pursuing these advanced degrees have acquired some language competency, but the focus of their professional interest is not foreign languages or linguistics. The committee can suggest a number of possible reasons, other than a shift in federal funding, for the preponderance of dissertations being completed in area studies rather than languages.
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From page 130... ...
(See Box 5-2 for examples of Title VI/FH funds being used to expand instruction in Arabic language and culture.) Heritage Language Speakers Heritage language speakers represent a valuable national resource for developing and strengthening proficiency in less commonly taught languages, including languages currently defined as critical languages.
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From page 131... ...
By the end of 2006, NYU had four full time Arabic language instructors and one part-time Arabic instructor. In the past decade, NYU has hired 12 tenure/tenure-track faculty positions in Middle Eastern studies.
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From page 132... ...
For example, the ED Foreign Language Assistance Program and the DoD National Flagship Language Program have provided funding to the Dearborn Public Schools and Michigan State University (also an LRC) , to collaborate with one another and the local Arabic heritage community to expand and strengthen Arabic instruction in elementary and middle schools.
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From page 133... ...
Other than the DDRA Program that funds doctoral research abroad, FLAS Fellowships are the main vehicle through which Title VI/FH programs fund foreign language and area study by individual graduate students. The statute currently restricts eligibility to graduate students.
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From page 134... ...
Recipients are required to rate their speaking, reading, and writing proficiency based on six language levels in each of these three areas, ranging from no ability to that of a native speaker. The language levels are intended to approximate an approach to proficiency assessment that has been used by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
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From page 135... ...
This wide variety and inconsistency of methods for assessing language proficiency and the concerns about ED's self-rating method made it difficult to assess the language proficiency component of Title VI/FH success in "reducing shortages of foreign language and area experts." It also underscores the need to develop consistent and valid assessments of language proficiency, as discussed in Chapter 12. Given the considerable interest in assessing the language proficiency of FLAS students, one might well ask why these assessments are being done so inconsistently.
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From page 136... ...
In addition, a consortium of two LRCs (Brigham Young University and San Diego State University) and three other institutions (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, the Center for Applied Linguistics, and the Defense Language Institute)
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From page 137... ...
National Resources Title VI/FH programs assist in providing needed services and resources to the nation in other ways that cannot be measured by job placements or language proficiency. The programs teach a large number of less commonly taught languages, reach a large number of students, maintain the capacity to teach less commonly taught and other languages that may be crucial in the future, and produce resources that can be drawn on by the nation as a whole.
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From page 138... ...
The ED has for several years relied on self-ratings to assess the proficiency of FLAS recipients, even though there is no available evidence of the reliability or validity of their approach. ED has also encouraged the development and use of other standardized instruments, partly by including as a competitive priority in its last competition "activities designed to demonstrate the quality of the center's or program's language instruction through the measurement of student proficiency in the less and least commonly taught languages." The oral proficiency interview is the most widely used standardized approach in the United States and, among the few who use such an approach, appears to be the most commonly used standardized approach with FLAS recipients.
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From page 139... ...
inadequate capacity for ongoing research and development of language assessments. In Chapter 12, the committee urges the federal government to support targeted research and development on language assessment to address this shortcoming and develop new approaches to foreign language assessment (Recommendation 12.3)
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