Colloquium Neerlandicum 5 (1973)

Verslag van het vijfde colloquium van hoogleraren en lectoren in de nederlandistiek aan buitenlandse universiteiten

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Vergadering van de docenten in het Engelse taalgebied
Voorzitter : Prof. Dr. Seymour L. Flaxman
(Graduate School, CUNY, New York)

Omdat de agenda van deze vergadering een tamelijk groot aantal op zich zelf staande lezingen vermeldde, is het niet goed mogelijk een samenvatting te geven op de manier van de andere vergaderingen per taalgebied. Volstaan wordt daarom met het afdrukken van de agenda en van drie voordrachten, die ons door de sprekers voor publikatie beschikbaar gesteld zijn.

Agenda
14.30-14.40	Korte inleiding van de voorzitter
14.40-15.10	Audio-visuele cursussen, Peter King (Cambridge)
15.10-15.40	Zelfstudieprogramma's Nederlands, Walter Lagerwey (Calvin College, Grand Rapids)
15.40-16.00	De rol van directe vergelijking van het Nederlandse en het Engelse tijdssysteem bij het onderwijs aan Engelstaligen, Robert S. Kirsner (University of California, Los Angeles)
16.00-16.30	Taalexamens en taalfouten, Michael Rigelsford (Liverpool)
16.30-16.50	Nieuwe benaderingen van het Nederlands onderwijs aan Amerikaanse universiteiten, Johan P. Snapper (University of California, Berkeley)
16.50-17.30	Discussie

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National Conference on Self-instruction in Critical Languages held at State University of New York at Buffalo, N.Y., december 7-9, 1972 door Prof. Dr. W. Lagerwey
Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.

In the 60's the U.S. Government, through its Office of Education, developed many programs to stimulate the teaching of foreign languages in our country. Special attention was given to the so-called critical languages, sometimes also spoken of as the neglected languages, because they were not commonly taught, if at all. Most of these were non-Western languages: oriental languages like Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, but there were also African languages like Swahili, and a semitic language like Arabic, and last but not least a western language like Dutch. It was deemed in the national interest to develop up to date dictionaries, audio-lingual courses, and readers for these critical and neglected languages. The writing of these courses was supervised by linguists. A serious attempt was made to assure that linguistic principles and insights informed the organization of these new language courses. After all, public servants whose tasks took them abroad needed to develop proficiency in the language of the host country. These language courses were taught at the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department, at the Army School at Monterey, and at several large universities. Many of these courses were carefully programmed and, as it later turned out, were most suitable for self-instruction purposes.

In the interest of determining the efficacy of self-study courses in foreign languages The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the U.S. Office of Education Institute of International Studies supported research which had as its goal the assessment of such programs. The national leader of this research program was Dr. Peter Boyd Bowman who began his research at Kalamazoo College in 1964. He moved on to the State University of New York at Buffalo where be hecame the Director of the Center for Critical languages. His booklet: Self-Instruction in the Non-Western languages, a manual for Program Directors has been the definitive statement on these programs. It was published in 1965 by the National Council of Associations for Inter-

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national Studies; a revised edition appeared in 1969. The National Council of Associations for International Studies has been sponsoring a nation wide program of self-instruction in critical languages. Federal support for this program was continued through 1972, but not before one final conference could be called in Buffalo December 7-9, 1972, was it terminated. The primary purpose of that conference was ‘to evaluate the progress achieved over the past nine years, to discuss current innovations, and to chart the direction our efforts should take in the future. A second objective of the conference was ‘to form a National Association of Self-Instructional language Programs (NASILP) to provide the organizational framework our constituent programs need now that outside support is terminated’. This conference was attended by your reporter. At the conference several program directors made statements about the self-study programs at their institutions; several examiners addressed the members as well. The self-instruction manual was revised, and a national organization of institutions and individuals interested in self-study programs in (critical) languages was created.

The progress made in self-instruction programs during the past decade may be judged by the statistics provided in Appendix B of the Annual Report for the Academic Year 1971-1972 of the Council for Intercultural Studies and Programs. Forty-two colleges reported 1024 students enrolled in 113 individual language programs, all of them self-instructional, for an average of nearly three programs per college. The languages taught and the enrollment in each are as follows:

1. Chinese	204
2. Hebrew (mod)	200
3. Japanese	189
4. Portuguese	92
5. Swahili	59
6. Arabic	53
7. Italian	36
8. Hindi	30
9. Persian (Afghan)	28
10. Greek (modern)	24
11. Yoruba	18
12. Russian	14
13. Yiddish	8
14. Erse
15. Amharic	7
16. Polish	7
17. Ukrainian	7
18. Danish	6
19. Serbo-Croatian	6
20. Thai	6
21. Dutch	4
22. Hungarian	4
23. Norwegian	3
24. Vietnamese	3
25. Indonesian	1
26. Korean	1
Total (all langs.)	1024

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The essential ingredients in these programs are as follows for each language:

a)	one or more highly motivated students of proven linguistic aptitude
b)	commercially available, audiolingually-oriented course materials (such as those prepared by the Foreign Service Institute or the Yale Institute of Far Eastern Languages) together with complete sets of accompanying tapes
c)	a portable tape-recorder for loan to each participating student (unless the student happens to have his own or has easy and frequent access the the language lab)
d)	one or more native-speaking exchange students or other native informant(s) to serve as pronunciation drill masters (not as instructors)
e)	regular academic credit

The cost of a self-instruction program is minimal, as is clear from the following budget:

Set of tapes for the course (a 1 time purchase)	$ 150.-
Cassette player (1 per student)	50.-
Tutor (4-5 hours per week $ 10.) 30 weeks (2 semesters)	300.-
Examinations - each semester	200.-
Travel expenses examiner (State Universities)	50.-
	_____
	$ 750.-

If one deducts $ 150.- for the tapes (investment in language library), the cost is $ 600.- for two semesters. Two or more students can be accomodated in the same program without additional cost. Assuming two students the cost is $ 300.- per year per student.

At Kalamazoo College, the annual budget for the self study program is about $ 1200.-

The Program Director of a critical language program is generally a member of the foreign language department, one who is acquainted with the problems of foreign language learning. The director is responsible for the selection of students and of course materials, of the tutors, and schedules the examinations. At a small college like Kalamazoo these activities require very little time; the task might be compared to being on a special committee. The selection of students and of the tutors is very critical in this program. The student must demonstrate verbal

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aptitude and linguistic competence, he must be highly motivated, and well disciplined. Good directors are very exacting in their demands, requiring a high level of performance for entry into the program and continuance in it. In the judgment of program directors, careful screening of students has contributed much to the undoubted success of the self study program. Dr. Joe K. Fugate, Director of the Neglected Languages Program at Kalamazoo College, says: ‘All data and information which we have been able to collect in regard to results of this program have thus far been positive’. Your reporter, who has examined students in Dutch at Kalamazoo College, Pennsylvania State University, and at the State University of New York at Buffalo has repeatedly been amazed at the results attained by students in the independent study programs. He enthusiastically recommends the introduction of such self-study programs at Calvin College. The program, it should be pointed out, need not be limited to the so-called critical or neglected languages. One can also introduce independent study courses for the commonly taught languages such as French, German, and Spanish.

Given the availability of a programmed course of instruction, language tapes and a language laboratory (or alternatively cassette recorders and perhaps even listening posts in library and/or dormitories), we still need a native informant to assist the student in drill work in the foreign language. Locating and keeping good informants, it appears, is one of the major difficulties in this type of program. At the larger universities with large numbers of foreign students it is easier to find informants. At the smaller college one must seek informants from within the local ethnic groups. When you have an informant he must be carefully instructed in his task. He is primarily a drill master, and even that, it became obvious to your reporter in observing tutorial sessions, is a skill, and not all tutors have it. A film, created and produced by Prof. Eleanor Jorden of Cornell University, seeks to instruct the informant in his or her proper role, that is, to speak the foreign language and to drill the student, ideally, with imagination in a creative manner. The program director should select his informant with care and carefully instruct him.

At Kalamazoo College the program which is typical works as follows. The student is expected to devote 15 hours per week to language study, 4 to 5 with his tutor. Half way through the semester the student takes a test, recorded on cassette. His responses are returned to the examiner for evaluation and correction. Comments are made on pronunciation

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as well as on grammar and syntax. At the end of the semester the student takes his final examination. Generally, the author of language course, if he or she is readily available, comes to the institution in question to give the oral examination. Since this involves considerable expense, we have experimented last year with taped final examinations as well. These have proven to be successful, as may be judged by listening to student responses given in Dutch examinations given by the reporter. Such recorded examinations, in which the student has only a verbal meeting with his examiner, must be prepared with care. Attempts to give examinations over the telephone, it appears, have not been altogether successful. The examiner must create a positive response in the student from the outset. The psychology of such an examination is a challenge to the examiner.

Although the program emphasizes aural-oral competence, institutions can of course augment this by adding the skills of reading and writing as objectives in the learning situation. For most self-study courses materials are in the Latin alphabet and even for a language like Chinese Professor William Pang of Chico State University has developed a programmed course to teach the Chinese script. At Penn State University, where your reporter has had students taking three semesters of Dutch, the third was devoted entirely to literature. The requirements obviously had to be carefully formulated. The self-study programs are, in general, most effective at the first year level of language study; at the second year level it is already much more difficult, also for the reason that very few programmed audio-lingual materials are available at this level.

To develop that oral competence the student needs besides the tutor or drill master the text book and the recorded course. Generally, the student can work at a language laboratory, but more ideally he should have a tape- or cassette recorder of his own. One of the best cassette recorders, one that is for playback purposes only, is the Audiotronics Cassette 145 which sells for less than $ 50.-, and which, your reporter was told, functioned well for two years with much and heavy student use. Some institutions are introducing listening centers at different parts of the campus: whether in the library or in the dormitories, an arrangement which appears to be working satisfactorily.

The Buffalo Conference on Self-Instruction in Critical Languages formed a ‘National Association of Self-Instructional Language Pro-

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grams’. Your reporter recommends that Calvin College join this organization and that we undertake the introduction of a program of self-instruction in the uncommonly taught languages. Independent study, as professor E. Coffin, examiner for Hebrew, from the University of Michigan, pointed out, is no substitute for the classroom, its usefulness is pretty much limited to the first and second year. Nor, as Lamarr Kopp emphasized, is the self study program a panacee for individualized instruction. But it does make available to interested individuals the opportunity to study these languages at a minimum cost factor. And your reporter agrees with J. Fugate that ‘this not only provides for an enrichment in the program of the individual student, but also adds an important dimension to the overall academic program of the college’.