Familiarization with the thoughts and creations of great minds, past and present, is a significant function of education. Many students, however, are effectively denied such opportunity for intellectual growth by the identification of education with job-training. Much of the curriculum neglects the past and the foreign. Humanists approach this…

This volume contains papers presented at the Kittamaqundi Conference on the Uncommonly-Taught Languages, in Columbia, Maryland, September 29-October 2, 1974. The volume has two main sections. The first contains papers dealing with conceptual issues of developing materials for uncommonly-taught languages, without extended reference to any specific…

A redesign of the basic foreign language courses at the University of Michigan--Flint, stimulated by a need for improved enrollment and retention and for more language majors, had the result of improving faculty cooperation and teaching. Before the curriculum development effort, the program reflected individual faculty preferences and…

One of the most pressing problems in foreign language education concerns the financing of foreign language instruction and foreign language associations. Alternatives that the profession may have to consider in this regard are discussed, and some possible courses of action are suggested. The chances of future survival of discipline-oriented…

This paper discusses the crisis in the teaching of foreign languages brought on by the willingness of higher education institutions in the United States to discourage the study of foreign language as a general educational requirement. A questionnaire recently administered to the graduating class of a major university found that the courses…

For many years, the modern language enrollment at Butler University included many students with a second major in education, and the language curriculum served this population. As the number of teacher trainees diminished, foreign language majors increasingly indicated second majors in business. To serve this population, the foreign language…

The current growth in language study for business-related communication should be viewed as a two-fold opportunity: to extend the ideals of a liberal arts education to a broader base of students and at the same time allowing humanities students to gain skills useful in today's world. Just as the study of humanities can help create a more balanced…

The Northeast Campus of Tarrant County Junior College (TX) experienced a foreign language enrollment increase of 196% between 1973 and 1983, compared to a collegewide enrollment increase of only 91%. The program's success is due largely to the number and variety of curricular offerings. In addition to a 6-course sequence of 3- and 4-hour courses…

The foreign language teaching situation in community colleges is discussed. Foreign language teaching in community colleges tends to be demanding due to the limited curriculum of such institutions, limited enrollment in foreign language courses, and the heterogeneity of the student population in terms of career goals, educational preparation, and…

Many junior college foreign language teachers work in schools which serve a large proportion of nontraditional students. A primary reason for low language program enrollments is that these students often believe that foreign language study is difficult, or uninteresting, or they actually fear participation; their cultural and travel experiences,…

A permanent national publicity and public relations campaign for learning foreign languages is necessary to the well-being of this country, of its youth, and for the growth and stability of the profession of language teaching. Nine major factors have contributed to the decline in language enrollment: (1) the dropping of foreign language…

This paper examines the question of language loyalty in the United States and explores the implications that the institutional teaching of modern languages may have for ethnic language maintenance. The education of United States ethnics has always resulted in the loss of the ethnic tongue as a resource. However, although negative attitudes toward…

The Upper Arlington, Ohio school reorganization, in 1983, to include a middle school resulted in the development of a seventh-grade foreign language exploration course. The course provides nine weeks each of French, German, and Spanish, and relates the languages to content areas using an interdisciplinary approach. The fourth nine weeks would be…

This collection resulting from a workshop on language teaching methodology contains the following papers: (1) "The Role of Culture in Foreign Language Learning," by N. Brooks; (2) "Guidelines and Ideas to Boost the Enrollment in Foreign Language Courses," by L.F. Gonzalez-Cruz; "Cooking in the Classroom," by K. Boykin; (4) "Performance Based…

This paper reports on the techniques developed by Valdosta State College's Department of Modern Foreign Languages to promote interest in the study of foreign languages and culture. The techniques are divided into two major categories: internal and external. External activities include those for the benefit of high school students and teachers and…