Language education in elementary schools: Meeting the needs of the nation

Abstract

This article briefly reviews the social, political, and economic context that explains the present status of elementary language education in the United States and addresses the challenges identified by recent reports on the state of language education in the United States. Different curricular models of world language education—exploratory, sequential, and immersion—are discussed in regard to their ability to meet the need, expressed by the profession, to provide universal access to language education and produce graduates who have advanced levels of language proficiency. The article argues that in order to be successful, elementary programs have to be built with support and input from a variety of stakeholders, with careful consideration of the financial and human resources needed and with long‐term articulation plans. A state‐supported immersion program is used to illustrate how the integration of all these factors can lead to successful and scalable programs.

Task-based elementary Spanish in rural Indiana: A practice-based collaboration

“…In the United States, researchers typically distinguish between three types of additional language exposure tracks available to elementary-level learners: "Foreign" 2 language experience (FLEX), "foreign" language in the elementary school (FLES), and dual language immersion (DLI) (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2016;Pufahl & Rhodes, 2011;Rubio, 2018). These tracks differ according to the amount of target language exposure learners receive and whether or not there are proficiency and learning goals (Rubio, 2018).…”

“…In the United States, researchers typically distinguish between three types of additional language exposure tracks available to elementary-level learners: "Foreign" 2 language experience (FLEX), "foreign" language in the elementary school (FLES), and dual language immersion (DLI) (Curtain & Dahlberg, 2016;Pufahl & Rhodes, 2011;Rubio, 2018). These tracks differ according to the amount of target language exposure learners receive and whether or not there are proficiency and learning goals (Rubio, 2018). For example, DLI programs range from an equal split of time in each language to 90% of the school day spent in the target language, with the goals of being biliterate and bilingual with sociocultural competence and equal academic performance in English and the target language.…”

A survey of American paired teachers in dual language Chinese immersion programs

“…This shortage is exasperated within world language programming, although it is far from a recent development. Researchers have written about the difficulty of finding qualified international language teachers for decades throughout North America (Jacobs, 2019; Karsenti et al, 2008; Majhanovich, 1990; Obadia & Martin, 1995; Pufahl & Rhodes, 2011; Rubio, 2018; Van Houten, 2009). However, with the rapid growth in language immersion programs across the United States, and Mandarin immersion programs in particular, as well as calls to expand bilingual and immersion programs (Alexander & Weise, 2018; Center for Applied Linguistics, 2011; Jacobs, 2019; Lü, 2020; Weise, 2019), many school districts have experienced difficulty in hiring qualified teachers (Chen et al, 2017; Garcia, 2017; Jacobs, 2019; Peng, 2016).…”

“…Mandarin and Arabic, for example, are two such languages, and for as important as creating this language programming is, it is difficult to fill the open positions with American‐born applicants (Haley et al, 2013). Consequently, many school districts have looked abroad for qualified teaching candidates and some state departments of education have created policies to facilitate hiring and retaining immersion teachers, both international and domestic (Chen et al, 2017; Garcia, 2017; Kissau et al, 2011; Rubio, 2018; Tedick & Fortune, 2012; Van Houten, 2009). Further, US universities and states have also created experimental programming to facilitate the recruitment and retention of both local and international teachers to meet school districts' needs at the state and national level (Chen et al, 2017; Garcia, 2017; Michigan State University, n.d).…”

Diversity and inclusion of culturally and linguistically diverse students in K‐12 Chinese language education

“…22In this article, world language education is used as an umbrella term to include various programs where a language other than English is taught as a subject or used for instruction. Thus, world language programs include traditional high school world language and AP level courses, Foreign Language in Elementary School (FLES), Foreign Language Exploratory (FLEX), and immersion programs, among others (Pufahl & Rhodes, 2011; Rubio, 2018). …”