It is an honor to be invited by the China Institute to share my experience as an advocate for language and culture programs. A language teacher by trade, I have been working since 2006 to create a Language and Culture Resource Center (LCRC) within the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), located in upstate New York. The mission of the LCRC is to increase the language proficiency, language diversity, and cultural awareness of the students and teachers within the 31 districts that we serve.(Visit www.wswheboces.org/lcrc for more information.) While the LCRC provides broad support for many languages and cultures, it has focused its diversity initiatives on China. The ultimate goal of the LCRC is to empower students to become responsible global citizens.

I invite you to follow the links below to learn more about my experience creating the LCRC. By sharing this experience, I hope to inspire fellow educators to reflect on the role that they can play in internationalizing their district’s curricula.

Professional Background
Personal Narrative
Lessons Learned
Resources
Rural Study Tour to China
Why Chinese?

Professional Background

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I grew up in a diverse neighborhood near Chicago, where I began learning Spanish as an elementary student. In my high school, advanced Spanish courses were not available so my teacher created an independent study course for me that focused on short stories from Latin America. Reading in another language helped me begin to explore cultural perspectives that were very different from my own. As my reading skills improved, my worldview expanded. No longer satisfied with relying on my imagination to travel, I became interested in visiting other countries. In college, I spent my junior year studying in Barcelona. After receiving a B.A. in Spanish and an M.A. in TESOL from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, I returned to Barcelona, where I spent five years teaching English. I spent three more years teaching English in Japan before I returned to the United States with my husband to raise our family.

Since moving to New York, I have taught ESL and Spanish. In 2006, I successfully authored a federal grant, the Foreign Language Assistance Program. With the support of this grant and others, I have been able to create a Language and Culture Resource Center, a model that I hope will eventually be part of a statewide network of service providers.

Personal Narrative

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In my community, which is located north of Albany in upstate New York, I play the role of a language teacher (ESL and Spanish). I bring to this role more than 10 years of experience working and traveling overseas, a period in which I observed the extensive infrastructure that exists to support language learners in other countries.

When I returned to the United States, I soon realized that this type of infrastructure did not exist in my region. In fact, LOTE (languages other than English) teachers in New York State often lack even the basic support mechanisms. Leadership positions at the state level and in New York City do not receive consistent funding. In addition, LOTE requirements are minimal. LOTE is the only core content area that is not an integral part of the elementary curriculum. It is ironic that required language courses do not start until puberty, the period of time in which language learning is most difficult for the average learner. At the most rudimentary level, it is not uncommon for LOTE teachers in our region to travel from classroom to classroom with only the support of materials that can be easily transported on a cart.

In 2006, as an administrative intern for the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), I realized that the shared services provided for students with special needs in 31 surrounding school districts could be expanded to meet some of the needs of language learners and their teachers. After overcoming the first major obstacle to providing these services, my own self-doubts and self-imposed limitations, I decided to share my vision with colleagues and author a federal grant.

As a result, the Language and Culture Resource Center was created. The LCRC supports districts that would like to offer Chinese courses by hiring shared itinerant teachers and offering distance learning options. It supports individual students by offering extracurricular Chinese programs such as options available during the summer and online. The LCRC supports Chinese teachers by providing teaching materials, conference travel, workshops, a listserv, and media resources.

Lessons Learned

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1. Start by clearly articulating your vision and sharing it with others. Do so with both words and pictures. Websites and PowerPoint presentations are excellent communication tools.

2. Seek partners that share your priorities. Parents, parent organizations, fellow teachers, professional organizations, school administrators, local businesses, non-profits, and institutions of higher education may be natural matches. Networking electronically makes it easier to build networks that are interlaced.

3. Work from all angles, from the bottom up, the top down, and anything in between. On the one hand, parents are a significant advocacy group because, in addition to experiencing the direct effects of educational policy via their children, they pay taxes and vote for school board members. On the other hand, advocacy by leaders at the state and national level is essential in order to move beyond the limitations of a district-by-district approach to internationalizing educational opportunities.

4. Understand the organizational culture of each partner. What can each institution offer? What benefits would each institution value? Partnerships should be clearly defined and balanced.

5. Do not hesitate to write a federal grant or ask a local business person for funds. It is easy for teachers to underestimate their ability to raise funds. You might be surprised by the support you receive as others recognize your passion and want to share in the process of making your dream a reality.

6. Keep up with trends related to your initiative. Attend conferences, join professional organizations, and take advantage of electronic resources.

Resources

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The following organizations and resources have been especially helpful to me.

Federal Funding

The National Security Language Initiative provides federal funding at all levels to support language initiatives. The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) targets K-12 programs. StarTalk provides funding for summer programs.

• National Security Language Initiative (http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/nsli/nslibrochure.pdf)
• Foreign Language Assistance Program (http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/grants/view/flap/)
• StarTalk (www.startalk.org)

Professional Organizations

Professional organizations offer invaluable support by providing opportunities for educators to keep up with current trends and collaborate with others. While the organizations listed below focus on national outreach, state and local organizations are equally important.

• American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (www.actfl.org)
• National Network for Early Language Learning (www.nnell.org)
• Chinese Language Organization of Secondary-Elementary Schools (www.classk12.org)
• Chinese Language Teachers Association (http://clta-us.org/)

Advocacy Organizations

Advocacy organizations provide such support as expertise related to China, educational programs, and teaching materials. Collaborating with such international organizations strengthens local initiatives.

• China Institute (www.chinainstitute.org)
• Asia Society (http://www.asiasociety.org/education/)
• Hanban (http://english.hanban.edu.cn/)
• Confucius Institute (http://www.confuciusinstitute.net/)

China Institute’s Rural Study Tour

Thanks to the generosity of the China Institute, I was privileged to travel to China with seven educators from our BOCES region during spring break 2009. During our ten-day trip, we met students and families from rural areas, including migrants from Beijing, elementary students outside of Xi’an, and refugees from last year’s devastating earthquake in Sichuan.

We also met college students that were preparing to become teachers. Many of these college students had excellent English skills and devoted their free time to activities sponsored by their 2000-member English club. In fact, even though the results of their college entrance exams prevented some of them from following their dreams of teaching English, they found time to tutor others. Many of the students that we met shared a common dream: to connect with their distant neighbors in the United States and create life-long friendships.

It meant a lot to me to share pictures of students in the United States who were participating in a summer Chinese program sponsored by a federal grant called StarTalk. The Chinese students enjoyed seeing pictures of students from upstate New York learning about Chinese language, calligraphy, dance, cooking, and opera. I wanted the Chinese students to know that American students share their dream of connecting with distant neighbors and creating life-long friendships.

Why Chinese?

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Stated simply, China is the elephant in the room that can no longer be ignored. In the span of one generation, China has undergone a breathtakingly rapid transition from an isolated nation with a closed economy to a world power. The size of China’s population and GDP underscore the need for students to learn more about its languages and cultures.

A comparison with other countries reveals the significance of these numbers. While the population of India (1.2 billion) rivals that of China (1.3 billion), its primary language group, Hindi (500 million), is much lower than that of Mandarin (900 million). In addition, India’s GDP (3.3 trillion) is less than half that of China’s GDP (7.8 trillion). While Japan similarly experienced rapid economic growth (a generation earlier), its population (127 million) and GDP (4.3 trillion) are much lower.

The percentage of Chinese-born immigrants living in the United States has been growing, especially since the liberalization of emigration policies that began in the 1970s. In 1960, this population ranked 21 among immigrants by percentage. In 2006, this population ranked 3rd, when the 1.6 million immigrants represented 4% of the foreign-born population. According to the 2006 American Community Survey, there are approximately 3.6 million residents of Chinese descent in the United States.

Enrollment trends in Chinese classes reflect the growing realization that China is at our doorstep. Consider a chart provided by the MLA that tracks foreign language enrollment in higher education between 1960 and 2006. It is evident that the growth rate in Chinese may eventually outpace that of Italian and Japanese. It is also evident that the decline in German may increase the rank of Chinese. Even the possibility of eventually surpassing French may not be out of reach for the Chinese programs.

Since 2006, Chinese programs have also been experiencing growth in primary and secondary schools throughout the United States. One reason for this growth is the National Security Language Initiative and two of its grants: the Foreign Language Assistance Program and StarTalk. The Asia Society estimates 200% growth in the number of Chinese programs in the United States between 2004 and 2008.

The demand for Chinese programs is outpacing the infrastructure that is available to support their growth. In addition, it is likely that the economic crisis will negatively impact some of these new programs. Despite these challenges, Chinese programs will be needed to meet the global needs of the 21st century.

References

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http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=685

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbrank.pl

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

http://www.mla.org/pdf/06enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf (See page 10.)

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