FLES in Rural Georgia

Georgia Southern University

In September, 1989, a FLES* program was initiated in rural southeast Georgia through a cooperative effort on the part of the Bulloch County Public School System, Georgia Southern University and the Southeast Georgia Foreign Language and Culture Center. While the original program targeted the fourth grade classes in all Bulloch County public elementary schools, it has grown to include fourth grade along with fifth and sixth grade FLES* programs in the 1991-92 academic year. In many ways, it is a model of how cooperation between universities and the communities they serve can benefit all concerned.

Georgia's educational system has undergone some important changes in the past few years. Recognition of a need to internationalize the school curriculum and to educate the general populace about the state's role in the global marketplace has led to several important decisions.

A change in entrance requirements to University System colleges and universities as of fall, 1988, mandated two years of foreign language study at the high school level. This, in turn, increased demand for qualified foreign language teachers and the need for programs to upgrade teachers' foreign language skills as well as introduce them to the new methodologies in foreign language teaching. Acting in response to this growing demand for qualified foreign language teachers, Georgia Southern University, which has a long tradition of teacher education, added an MEd in Foreign Languages to its curriculum and began actively recruiting graduate students.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia convinced the state legislature to allocate funds through a Special Funding Initiative for programs in education, business, and foreign languages. As a result, southeast Georgia received monies to establish a Foreign Language and Culture Center which had as one of its primary objectives promoting the study of foreign languages and cultures. Georgia Southern University became the host institution for the Center and a member of the foreign language faculty was selected as one of the coordinators.

Previous efforts to establish a foreign language program in the Bulloch County elementary schools had failed for a number of reasons. Now, with potential funding available through the Foreign Language and Culture Center, interest was renewed. A meeting with curriculum directors for the public school system made it clear that if the funding and personnel problems could be worked out, the school system would be more than happy to incorporate foreign language study into the curriculum. However, the school system could not afford to institute a complete FLES* program and was not sure about community support for any kind of program. The local taxpayers would have to be convinced that foreign language study was worth the investment and in rural Georgia there was little evidence of the need to make that kind of investment.

Finally, a proposal was made that appeared to offer several advantages. It allowed for the introduction of foreign languages into the fourth-grade classroom as an enrichment portion of the language arts and social studies curricula. Classes would be taught by graduate students enrolled in the MEd in Foreign Languages program at Georgia Southern University. Funding would be through the Foreign Language and Culture Center by means of graduate assistantships to pay the students and additional monies to purchase materials. The program would be directed by the faculty member serving as coordinator of the Foreign Language and Culture Center in cooperation with the curriculum directors for the Bulloch County School System.

It was decided that the primary goal for the first year would be to offer a modified FLES* program that recognized the rural nature of the

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school population and worked to make the children aware of other countries, the people who live in them, the culture and the language of those people and how they are both similar and dissimilar to our own. Consequently, the cultural component of the program would play as important a role as the language component and instruction would be both in English and the target language. The hope was that the children would carry their classroom experience back into the home and create an atmosphere conducive to supporting a more extensive FLES program for the future.

Because the MEd program at the university is offered in French, German and Spanish, these were the languages selected for the FLES* program. All three languages/cultures would be offered to all fourth-grade classes. Coordination of the university and public school calendars allowed for three ten-week sessions offered on a rotating schedule that would provide each fourth-grade class with instruction in each of the three languages/cultures. Since most graduate courses at the university are offered during the late afternoon and evening, the graduate assistants could teach during the early part of the day and attend their own classes during the latter part.

A generic curriculum was designed for all three languages that included instruction in basic language content such as salutations, names and numbers, family members, body parts, colors, classroom articles and food. Information about countries where the target language is spoken included geographical location and topographical features, flags, weather, major holidays and daily customs. Cultural content served as the basis for language instruction. Thus, colors were practiced by describing flags, numbers were used in addresses and phone numbers, food was learned in relation to daily eating habits and food preparation for major holidays.

Since the FLES* program was considered an enrichment component of the language arts and social studies curricula, the school system did not favor the use of traditional tests and grades for the classes. Therefore, a series of evaluations were devised by means of which the classes could be monitored and every child received a progress report at the end of each six-week grading period along with the regular report card. The six week progress report contained three positively worded assessments of the child's performance in the FLES* classroom with a gradation from most positive to least positive, the latter containing a suggestion for more active participation by the child.

Evaluations were based on oral comprehension and visual identification. For example, colors were tested by holding up a colored sheet of paper and asking the child to check the appropriate color name on the answer sheet while knowledge of numbers was measured by holding up a certain number of items, making a statement in the foreign language («There are three apples.») and asking the child to indicate whether the statement was true or false. Evaluations were graded by indicating the number of correct answers.

It should be noted that despite efforts to move away from traditional tests and letter or number grades, both children and parents constantly tried to equate the FLES* evaluations and progress reports with those traditional measures. In an attempt to combat this tendency, a statement of the goals and objectives of the program was included as part of the progress report with each six week report card and children were encouraged to read this through with their parents or, better yet, to read it aloud to them.

At the end of the year, the program as a whole was evaluated by the children, their parents and the regular classroom teachers. All three groups gave the program high marks and not only recommended continuation of the classes at the fourth grade level but also expansion into the fifth grade. When a proposal to fund a fifth grade FLES* teacher was put before the school board, it quickly approved the position. Because of the large migrant population of agricultural workers that moves through this region yearly, most residents hear Spanish spoken in their local communities and the children come into contact with Hispanic children in their schools. Therefore, the board decided that Spanish should be the language offered in the fifth grade.

Once the fifth grade program was approved, curriculum became the major concern. Whereas the previous year classes had met twice a week for twenty minutes, they would now meet (in both grades) twice a week for half an hour. While that still limited the amount of foreign language instruction that could take place, it did offer the opportunity to develop more language content than before. Again, it was decided that the fourth grade program would focus on exposing the children to «other worlds» with the goals of broadening their perspective and building parental

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support for additional foreign language instruction.

Language content for the fifth grade curriculum was written as an expansion of what had been taught in the fourth grade. Thus, fourth grade children had been taught to say «Hello», ask «How are you?» and respond to the question «What's your name?» Now they would learn several different ways to say «Hello», a variety of responses to the question «How are you?» (thereby practicing adjectives expressing physical and emotional conditions) and to distinguish between first name, last name, and why that was important in the Hispanic culture. Other areas of language content would include practice with descriptive adjectives (requiring the distinction between masculine/feminine and plural/singular nouns), the verbs ser and estar (expanding the use of adjectives), learning to conjugate some common regular verbs, and additional practice with numbers. As before, language content would be learned and practiced through cultural content so that the one complemented the other.

Cultural content also was an expansion of that contained in the fourth grade program but with the addition of historical information as well as a study of the Hispanic population here in the United States. This included identification of important figures such as artists, actors, politicians and sports people along with contributions made by Hispanics to our society such as new foods, dances, and so on.

Evaluation of the second year led to the request by children and parents to add Spanish instruction to the sixth grade curriculum. Approval by the school board resulted in the hiring of a sixth grade teacher and we now faced a third year with three graduate assistants and two full time language teachers in the elementary schools. At this point, it became apparent that a total revision of the curriculum would be required to provide for the possibility of expansion into the junior high grades and subsequent coordination with the high school language classes.

The generic fourth grade curriculum had several disadvantages, the most serious being a repetition of content from language to language, which meant that while the language, geography and vocabulary changed, fourth graders began to anticipate the content and were not as interested during the third cycle as they had been during the first. Consequently, the fourth grade curriculum was rewritten to reflect the cultural calendar for each language group. For example, in the fall, our culture recognizes Columbus Day and Halloween, while Latin America recognizes the Día de la Raza and Day of the Dead. This then becomes the cultural theme for the Spanish curriculum at that time of the year and the language content is tied to that theme.

The advantage of such an approach is that children are given an opportunity to compare and contrast cultural events and activities that are especially meaningful because of their timeliness. Also, as the year progresses, each ten-week cycle is able to incorporate the same language content while varying the cultural focus to relate to real time activities, resulting in a more interesting curriculum for the children. Most important of all, the cultural content can be coordinated more effectively with the language arts and social studies curricula, thereby integrating the foreign language study more thoroughly into the overall school curriculum. This latter cannot be stressed enough because it is only by its complete integration into the regular school curriculum that foreign language study will be accepted as a must component in early child education.

The fifth and sixth grade curriculum was written as a series of personal interest cycles focusing on the child and the world around her/him. The first cycle begins with the child and language structures relating to identification, telling one's emotional and physical condition, and relating everyday activities. From there, the series moves to the classroom and school, home and family, community and state, country and hemisphere and finally, the world. As with the fourth grade curriculum, the cultural calendar provides thematic structure so that during the month of October the celebration of Columbus Day is related to the study of Columbus and the upcoming Quincentennial in 1992 while in the spring focus is on Semana Santa and Easter as well as the world-wide recognition of Earth Day and efforts to improve the environment being made in Hispanic countries.

Language structures are keyed to each personal interest cycle and its cultural theme. For example, the second personal interest cycle -the classroom and school- is coordinated with October's cultural activities -Columbus Day- and language content dealing with the identification of classroom items (maps, globes, notebooks, charts and so on) as well as information contained in those items (cardinal directions, longitude and latitude) along with verbs used to talk

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about them (estar for location, ser for description, and regular verbs dealing with writing, reading, and drawing). The language structures thereby have direct relevance to daily classroom activities and are practiced in a content meaningful to the children.

In addition to rewriting the curricula, other changes have been made in the program. General evaluations will continue to be provided for the fourth grade children but fifth and sixth graders will receive a grade modelled on those received in physical education, music and art classes. A system of Satisfactory (S) and Needs Improvement (N) will allow for feedback to both children and parents while avoiding the stigma often associated with number grades. A space for the grade in foreign language will be included on the six week report card which eliminates the need for a separate progress report and underscores the addition of foreign language study to the regular school curriculum.

A newsletter highlighting what has been studied in the foreign language classes and containing some type of game, exercise or recipe will be sent out with every report card so that the children and their parents can share what has been learned in the classroom. FLES* teachers will present a workshop for the high school foreign language teachers at the October in-service day to demonstrate teaching methods and course content. Also discussed at that meeting will be ideas for coordinating the curriculum from elementary through secondary school. During the winter, several of the classes will be videotaped and copies of the tape distributed to the schools for viewing by parents-teacher organizations and others interested in seeing what actually goes on in the foreign language classes.

Another vital change is the implementation of an internship program through the cooperation of the Georgia Southern Foreign Language Department and School of Education and the Bulloch County Board of Education. Through this program, graduate assistants are able to fulfill their student teaching requirements with the experience they receive teaching the FLES* classes. Regular observations and evaluations by Foreign Language Department faculty and supervisory teachers assigned by the Board of Education plus fulfillment of course requirements for fifteen credit hours in the School of Education's internship course will ensure that the graduate students complete the full student teaching experience. Providing such an opportunity for graduate students will allow the recruitment of excellent assistants in the future, which should benefit both the program at the university and the foreign language program in the county schools.

This third year will be a critical one for the future of the FLES* programs because the Bulloch County School System must decide whether or not to commit to continuing foreign language classes into the junior high grades. If that is done, then the curriculum and foreign language offerings at the high school level will be affected and changes will have to be made in the manner that students are placed in foreign language classes as well as the course content and teaching materials used. Once again, it is a question of convincing the taxpayers that foreign languages are an essential part of the school curriculum and foreign language programs warrant the investment of money and personnel from school system resources. That is the challenge. It is one that we need to win if we want to provide this next generation the tools for success in the new century, a century in which the United States will need to communicate effectively with others all over the world.

Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 75, Number 2, May 1992