Young Scholars/ world language instruction

One of the last sessions I attended at the NSBA conference addressed the issue of developing “global competency” from a somewhat different perspective. This presentation spoke primarily to the value of teacher exchange programs – both from exposing our students to teachers from other countries, as well as giving American teachers the experience of study abroad.

But the speaker really got my attention when he began by saying, “the traditional high school foreign language program is a failure.”

My response was to cry “uncle”. This was about the sixth person at the conference to emphasize the importance of foreign language instruction at the elementary level – something our own students have told us they support. And so I have come to the conclusion that the question is no longer whether this should be done, but how.

And you have to admit he has a point. How many of us took four years of foreign language in high school – primarily because college applications required it - and it’s now almost a point of pride that “we can’t remember a word of it.” 

If foreign language study doesn’t result in fluency, what exactly is the point?


Which brings me to today’s board visit to the Young Scholars charter school.

When the Pennsylvania charter school legislation was first passed, the concept was that this would provide an alternative to the “regular” school system, where these new schools – funded by, and still part of, the public system - would have the freedom to try different approaches to education. The expectation was that if these experiments worked, some of those ideas might be incorporated into the larger system.

It has not often worked out that way. In practice, the state provides very little oversight, and there is almost no insistence that these schools do anything differently from what the public school is already doing.

Young Scholars is clearly an exception. We had the opportunity to speak with a half-dozen articulate fifth and sixth graders, who told us what the liked - and didn’t (“not enough time for lunch”) about their school.

High on the list of what they appreciated was the opportunity to learn two additional languages – Spanish and Chinese. By second grade, each student receives 45 minutes of daily instruction in each. (Part of how this is accomplished within a very full curriculum is by teaching art in a foreign language.)

The school board has been sufficiently impressed by the success of Young Scholars that they were approved to expand into the seventh and eighth grades.