World Leaders Establish Plan of Action for U.S. Language Policy
By Linda Baucom

More than 35 leaders representing academic, business, government and humanitarian organizations convened in Chapel Hill on Jan. 10 and 11, 2005, for the "National Language Policy Summit: An American Plan for Action" to set priorities and establish a plan of action for U.S. language policy for the upcoming decade.

 “Our students are dangerously uninformed about the world,” said former N.C. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., setting the context for the summit.  “For example, in a recent study of college-bound students in high school, only 25% could name the ocean between the United States and Asia.” 

Hunt cited recent events -- the 9-11 terrorist attack, the weakening of the dollar and the tsunami disaster -- that remind Americans of our global interconnectedness and our need to communicate with people around the world.  “We must commit our educational system to teaching languages and to international education broadly,” Hunt noted.  “Our students must learn about the world.  We can’t go it alone.”

Hunt emphasized that international education and language learning are essential for peace and international relations, defense and national security, human relationships and people.  Furthermore, he noted, “This focus on languages is also about jobs and it’s about the economy.  For the future, if we have a well-educated workforce that knows the languages, that is fluent, that understands the people, understands the countries, can get out and sell across the world, get customers for us and make jobs here, I think that can be one of the most powerful advantages of a state, of a community and of America.”        

The summit’s keynote speaker was Dr. Bernard Spolsky, professor emeritus at Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem, scholar at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Study of Language and editor-in-chief of the international journal, Language Policy.  He explained that much of the world has had to develop language policy because people speak various languages and dialects at home. “In most of the world today, there’s the pressure of learning English,” Spolsky said. 

In the United States, there is neither a language clause in our Constitution nor a language law.  Spolsky identified two major forces that affect language management in the United States.  First, there is a well-established tradition of civil rights through which people in our society are entitled to use their own language and have access to government in their own language until they develop control of English.  Second, U.S. defense and intelligence agencies have recognized the security need for language learning. 

“But that leaves a gap,” Spolsky said.  He emphasized that there is a clear need for a fully articulated, well coordinated language policy in the United States.   Spolsky urged the audience to begin by developing modest expectations, focusing on a few important changes and building on them.        

Working in small groups, the summit participants identified priorities for action to promote language learning in the United States over the coming decade, including the following:

• raising the American public’s awareness of the need and value of learning languages and understanding cultures, 
• establishing at the federal level a National Language Advisor,
• surveying businesses to identify their language and cultural needs,
• partnering with CEOs of corporations to advocate for the importance of language and culture, 
• creating a fully articulated Chinese language program for students in grades kindergarten through college and subsequently expanding this model to other languages, 
• developing effective assessment strategies for measuring students’ language learning, 
• implementing a civilian language corps and
• advocating for expanded language legislation.

For all the priorities, participants listed deadlines and identified individuals who will accomplish the tasks.  The summit participants will produce a white paper specifying the plan for implementing the priorities.  The white paper will be presented to the public for additional input this spring on the ACTFL Web site at www.actfl.org.

In addition to the onsite participants, thousands of people connected to the summit by videoconference or live Webcast.  Hundreds viewed the summit by videoconference from more than 50 remote sites in more than 20 states.  These individuals communicated interactively with the onsite participants during selected segments of the program.  An additional 2,500 people watched portions of the summit as it was broadcast live over the Internet.  Many of them submitted comments and questions for the onsite participants by telephone or email.   

Summit participants included representatives of several government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of State, National Security Agency and Foreign Service Institute.  Chantal Manès, Cultural Attaché for the French Embassy to the United States, participated as did U.S. Ambassador Michael Lemmon, dean of the School of Language Studies in the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute, and Renee Meyer, senior language authority with the National Security Agency-Central Security Service.  Gail McGinn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Plans in the Department of Defense, participated via videoconference. 

Business representatives included M. Rafiq Bengali, chief executive officer for the Americas and Europe of the National Bank of Pakistan in New York City; Juana Rosa Daniell with Alcon Laboratories of Fort Worth, Texas; and Joshua May of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International in Vance, Alabama.    

Dr. Thomas James, dean of the School of Education at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led an academic working group which included representatives of colleges and universities in California, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Utah as well as representatives of public schools in Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico and Wisconsin. 

The summit was sponsored by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).  The School of Education hosted the summit at the Carolina Center for Educational Excellence and videoconferenced it internationally.

"Multilingual skills are increasingly important in today’s global community," said Dr. Audrey Heining-Boynton, summit organizer and UNC-Chapel Hill School of Education professor of foreign language education and English as a second language. "Following 9-11, there has been a growing realization in the United States that relying solely on English is not in the best interest of our country or the world. We absolutely need to commit ourselves to language learning."

Heining-Boynton is president of ACTFL, which is guiding a yearlong series of events on language learning and policy.  For more information about those events or ways of becoming involved in The Year of Languages, go to www.yearoflanguages.org.  The year 2005 has been officially designated the Year of Languages nationwide and in many states and communities.

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Linda Baucom is communications coordinator of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.