SE Michigan: Found In Translation

Most preschoolers – much less a reasonably well-educated adult -- can produce a friendly "bonjour" or "hola." But ask for a more complicated interaction than that in another language, and you’ve moved beyond the ability of even your average American college graduate.

If Michigan hopes to plug the state's next generation into the emerging global economy, a greater commitment to foreign language training needs to start soon and start early. The old paradigm of basic French and Spanish just doesn't cut it in a world where Chinese and Arabic are becoming the lingual linchpin in an our increasingly interconnected world.


Germany, for example, requires students to begin studying one foreign language in elementary school and another at the high school level for the university-bound, and 200 million Chinese children study English (compared with only 24,000 American children studying Chinese). In comparison, most Michigan school districts offer little in the way of foreign language instruction until high school. And even those that offer foreign languages at the elementary level rarely go beyond the Eurocentric model of French, German or Spanish.

New state standards for high school graduation, which require two years of foreign language at the high school level, will go into effect with the class of 2016. Compared to neighboring states Ohio and Illinois, Michigan is breaking new ground with the requirements. But many educators believe that high school is too late to truly achieve fluency in a foreign language.

"The research is very clear that it takes a long sequence of study to really be able to develop a strong proficiency in a second language," said Irma Torres, system-wide world languages department head for Birmingham Public Schools and president of the Michigan World Language Association. "While a highly motivated student can certainly achieve that [fluency], it's much easier when children are initiated into language instruction at a younger age when they are excellent little sponges and mimics."

According to the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages, Torres says, it takes 7 to 15 years to achieve proficiency in a foreign language.

Some districts, such as Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and Dearborn do emphasize foreign languages at a very young age. And a few even offer classes in what are expected to be the highest-demand languages of the coming years – Arabic and Mandarin Chinese.

Not surprisingly, Dearborn has been particularly aggressive in starting programs in non-traditional languages and offering them early. With nearly 30 percent of its residents being of Middle Eastern descent (according to the 2000 census), many native speakers want their children to have formal instruction in such programs.

While the community's strong Arabic program has its genesis in the city's large Arabic-speaking population, Dearborn also has a longstanding tradition of attracting people from other countries in order to work at Ford. Exposure to Arabic speakers in their daily lives has lead to non–Arabic students developing an interest in expanding their language skills.

A recent federal grant allows Dearborn's schools to offer Arabic instruction starting in kindergarten at Becker elementary school and in middle grades at two others. The local high schools offer four years of Arabic classes along with an advanced placement course – which is extremely rare in the US.

As the United States economy becomes more entwined with China, demand for Mandarin Chinese speakers has increased. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson has launched an initiative to get every school district in the county teaching Mandarin, and Michigan State University has partnered with the Confucius Institute to offer online instruction to grades K-12.

According to Patterson, the county now has five Chinese-speaking teachers, recruited from China by Oakland Intermediate School District officials during a trip there last year. Half of all school systems in the county now offer Chinese, and all are expected to have added it by next year. Also, all schools in the county are teaching Chinese history and culture in social studies classes. "We're the first county in America to undertake this approach," Patterson says. "I think it will pay dividends as Chinese businesses are looking to expand here. I think it will result in economic investment."

One district that’s ahead of the curve is Bloomfield Hills. Along with Spanish offered as young as kindergarten, and French beginning in middle school, high school students can study Mandarin. Last November, a group of students from Lahser High School accompanied a delegation from Automation Alley’s International Business Center to China.

Both sides said it was a wonderful experience, with the kids acting as an icebreaker, explains Noel Nevshehir, director of the International Business Center. "It was kind of disarming to have the kids there," he adds. "The Chinese government officials we met with were flattered that American kids were actually studying Mandarin and learning about Chinese history and culture, their social structure and economy."

Nevshehir is a strong advocate for improving language instruction in schools as well as breaking out of the traditional Eurocentric French-Spanish-German model, although he says those languages are still valuable to know.

"One-sixth of the world population speaks Mandarin," he notes. "For us to be able to not only compete but do business with China, we need to have people with the ability to speak the language."

Students exposed to other languages, and the mores of the cultures that speak them, can position themselves to take better advantage of the opportunities that will come their way, he adds. For example, many of the students who went on the China trip have decided to pursue international business as their major in college. Having experience with business travel in China will be invaluable to them and make Detroit a more attractive place to do business.

"We’re not doing this for altruistic reasons," he says. "We’re creating a pipeline of future workers who are trained and qualified to work for multinational companies here in Detroit. We’re making the economy that much more globally competitive."

Susan Corey, workforce development director of the Southeast Michigan Community Alliance (SEMCA), says that while she thinks Mandarin would be the most marketable language to study now, it’s not the biggest demand they see from employers. More important is for people to understand the need for constant education and retraining as the nature of work in the state changes.

"The underlying thread suggests it would be a good thing to help the population understand the need to retrain in current skills," she says.

Detroit Public Schools offers an entire school dedicated to the study of foreign languages. The Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies Academy, a kindergarten through 8^th grade school located on the city’s northwest side, draws students from throughout the city and carries a waiting list. Their philosophy is language immersion — students are taught all subjects from Day One in their chosen language. They can choose Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, or French. Graduates are expected to be fluent upon finishing the 8th grade.