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Columns::March 11, 2002
Civil rights scholar will deliver annual Holmes-Hunter Lecture
New partnership chronicles ‘unsung foot soldiers’
Multicultural studies pioneer will give Tresp Lecture
Annual Nunn Forum focuses on commercialization of the academy
$16,000 in prize money awarded at first marketing research competition
National search gets under way for new grad dean
Veterinary Medicine students take part in Spay Day
Looking for the cheese
‘Taste’ of research whetted library director’s appetite for archival work
Health center earns JCAHO accreditation
Retirees
Newsmakers
Tenor of the matter
Campus News
To understand us, others must learn English. . .
. . . to understand others, we need to learn their language
By Lioba Moshi
One of the outcomes of 9/11 is the expanded knowledge we have acquired about nations in far away places that the media have described as living in the Stone Age. While the television pictures may have shocked us with respect to the primitive living conditions of some of these nations, we have also learned that perhaps these nations know more about us than we know about them. It has also been determined that our security depends on an extended knowledge about these places in addition to finding a realistic formula that can provide these nations the hope for a better tomorrow. Many of our students have already started thinking about their world of tomorrow in relation to these events. They are making an extra effort to find out about other cultures. However, most of what they want to know is not written in English.
As an institution, we try to open the unknown worlds to our students through the curriculum. Courses in anthropology, sociology, history, literature, and political science enhance our students’ quest to know more about the outside world in relation to their own. Some of these courses are required for a general graduation objective. Additional levels are required for a major in a particular discipline. In the same pool of requirements is language learning, but not all disciplines require a language for graduation. In the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, students are required to do nine credit hours of the same language for graduation. Interestingly, though, the college does not require that these hours be consecutive. In fact, a student can spread the credit hours across the three or four years of an undergraduate degree. As such, language learning is treated the same way as content courses whose basic objective is to impart knowledge.
But what we are missing is that language learning has a dual purpose, to impart knowledge (all forms of knowledge: cultural, historical, geographical, social, political, environmental, scientific, etc.) and to train an individual in communication skills (speaking, reading, writing).
This is why I want to take issue with the arts and sciences language requirement. How do students view this requirement and why is it a “chore” rather than a “core” even though it is needed for graduation? Why are there so many people today who had language instruction in high school or college and honestly say that they did not develop sustainable communicative skills in that language?
The answer to these questions lies in the fact that while we know what the rationale for requiring a language is, students are never told explicitly why they have to take a certain number of hours of a language of their choice. If there were a clear articulation of the rationale to students, they would take language learning more seriously and would want to take enough language to develop sustainable communicative skills. They would also be motivated to be lifelong learners. The incentives for individuals from other countries to learn English, the world’s most common and widely spoken language, are both to acquire knowledge about the speakers of English and to develop sustainable communicative skills that will allow them, first and foremost, to interact with English speakers and secondly to communicate with those who do not speak their language.
The events following 9/11 have made it quite clear to us that we should encourage our students to learn a language (or several languages) as part of their degree requirement. Because there is no clear mandate for the requirement (some students are exempted from the requirement), students interpret a language requirement as a “chore” that has to be completed to free up time for content courses. This contributes to the attitude students have towards learning a foreign language. The “chore” attitude inhibits motivation to learn.
I therefore ask, after 9/11, can we afford to continue with the language requirement as currently set? Should we evaluate the language requirement policy to ascertain the rationale and to determine whether it serves the needs of the nation? Can we assume that there are other people out there who will fulfill the nation’s need to know more about our friends and enemies? If the security of the nation depends on every single one of us, it would serve us well to have the tools necessary to protect ourselves. Since our lawmakers, after 9/11, have recognized that language is the most important tool in national security, it would serve us, as an institution, to have a serious talk about language instruction, especially the Less Commonly Taught Languages
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(LCTLs that constitute 99 percent of the world languages).
The plan to make everyone else in the world speak English has served others well but has deprived us of the ability to know well those who know so much about us. It is refreshing to find CNN and BBC in the countries UGA faculty and students visit, but not knowing the language of the target country deprives us of the opportunities to make the most of the goals and objectives of the visit--whether it is to study, work, or simply to have a vacation. We need to know about others as well as they know about us. Language is the tool.
Lioba Moshi is associate professor of comparative literature and director of the African Studies Institute at UGA.
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