^” And do know many BS’s try to hire native speakers not just any FL teacher.”
Yes! I did notice at SMS, the French teachers are native French speakers as is the German teacher, and definitely one of the mandarin teachers. I think this definitely makes a difference!
IMO, the issue with less popular languages is that the demand is quite low, particularly since BS curriculum does not lend itself to the possibility of taking 2 foreign languages very easily if at all so kids who would want to add second language hardly ever can. But also boarding schools tend to prefer to hire jack of all trades people who can teach two different classes plus coach a sport and be competent advisor and dorm parent. That is a lot to ask. And then once you hire them you need to find job for their spouse too, more often than not. And often the kids grow up and end up working in the boarding school they graduated from. Sort of incestuous in a way but I suppose you are more inclined to seek that life if you grew up with it. But the result is that while you have some amazing teachers and coaches and administrators, you also see a fair amount of mediocrity, and sometimes downright incompetence, because few people are good at all of the things they do on campus. Which can be very frustrating from the outside when it is your child experiencing it. But that is another conversation.
Which can occur on another thread, since it has nothing to do with the OP’s question.
I agree with the above points re: native speakers and the need for teachers of less popular languages to wear more than one academic hat — especially in regards to German. I was just struck today, having perused a few websites, by how many Spanish faculty there are relative to faculty who teach other languages. There is a much greater disproportion than I had thought. I am assuming that many non-heritage students have taken Spanish in school for years before boarding school, so I do understand it. At the same time, I would think those students who are close to maxing out on a school’s Spanish offerings would greatly benefit from instead taking an Italian or Portuguese course, were advisors and general school policy to so direct them. (The obvious reason here being that it is somewhat easy to be conversant in either language if one already is advanced in Spanish.)
Between “Spanish overfill” students, and those simply wanting to take the language, there should then be enough demand for a full-time faculty member. And, in the case of Portuguese, at least, there are plenty of native speakers in the US (strangely, I guess one does not say that about Italian anymore).
Most students don’t max out their BS’s offerings though. At least not at my kids’ school.
^And maxing out with the listed classes doesn’t mean a teacher can’t work out a seminar or tutorial for a few advanced students. That’s quite different from hiring a teacher for a language that interests only a handful of kids each year and not having anything else they can do.
I don’t know what makes you think a lot of kids max out their language before graduating from BS. At least at our school, there are very few kids that start anywhere above Spanish 2. In fact many start in Spanish 1 in spite of having two or more years of middle school Spanish under their belt, or are repeating ninth grade so have taken Spanish 1 the year before. Same with Latin and French. The only kids that come with more knowledge than that are the bilingual speakers who sometimes switch to another language after taking the AP. The reason there are multiple Spanish teachers is because of the demand, there are a lot of kids who want to take Spanish. It is practical in the US and it is also the easiest language to learn for most kids.
Advanced levels of languages are about more than being conversant. They are about understanding the literature and having the vocabulary and grammar to write well about a broad range of subjects.
Most US boarding school kids are fluent in English long before 9th grade and yet they still take four years of English in high school. Why shouldn’t that be the same when it comes to foreign languages like Spanish, even if students have mastered them early?
If your goal is to be able to talk about the weather with taxi drivers around the world, then by all means take a few years of several different languages. If you want to be able to use other languages on the job or build a career abroad, it is better to go much deeper.
I said close to maxing out, not maxing out, but your point is well taken. Yes, obviously the disproportion of Spanish speakers is due to the “demand.” The next question is whether boarding schools should be merely reacting to this demand or, instead, influencing it.
In the SPS directory, there are 15 modern language faculty listed: 7 are Spanish teachers. Groton: 6 of 11 are Spanish teachers. Hotchkiss: 7 for 15. This is way too much. What’s wrong with encouraging kids to try something different?
There is a reason that some economic studies do not see the point of learning Spanish (social services aside): tons of people in the U.S. already know Spanish.
If you are making an international business argument for Spanish, it really does have to go with Portuguese to some extent (Latin America is what matters — not Spain).
With all of these Spanish teachers, I would imagine it would be very difficult for kids to max out the course offerings. What I am suggesting is that, instead of taking another Spanish class after Spanish 4 or so, kids should be thinking about starting Portuguese (or 1 out of 7 of those kids should be, thereby having but 1 less Spanish teacher and 1 Portuguese teacher; actually, 1 out of 9 or 10 will suffice, because some will want to start with Portuguese to begin with).
In any event, there is plenty of time in college to study abroad, to take more Portuguese, and even Spanish; that’s when you can “go deeper”.
But might I suggest that 1/2 of boarding school’s modern language offerings should not be allocated to a language that already has more native speakers in the United States than the entire country of Spain? Just my opinion…
Why view the offerings as too much? The goal should be fluency. Very few Americans reach the stage of fluency despite learning another language throughout middle school, high school and college. Very few. Become fluent in one language. Much better, IMO, than a smattering of a couple, which is pretty useless for anything other than being a tourist. If one wishes to become a polyglot, better and easier with fluency in a similar language.
I doubt offering Portuguese would be a case of if you build it, they will come. It’s even fairly limited as a college option, isn’t it?
@doschicos I am all for fluency; but I think more kids should be developing their fluency in languages other than Spanish. That’s all I am saying: 1/2 the kids developing fluency, or beginning to, in Spanish is too great a proportion. I would say that about any language, no matter how “important” or “useful” it is perceived to be. (There’s nothing otherwise wrong with advanced offerings in any language, including Spanish.)
Academic diversity is a good thing— and this should be encouraged by schools. In that sense, it is not “if you build it, they will come,” but instead “we want students who have non-typical academic interests”.
I really don’t know about Portuguese in LACs. I would think those more known for Latin American studies would have it, but I am speculating. I think most larger universities have it, though…
I was just using Portuguese as an example which I thought would make for an easy resource allocation for schools. From what I am hearing, that’s not so. So be it — pick any modern language you want, but I think more academic diversification for language study is needed, and many schools have more than ample resources to accomplish it.
Re: ample resources to accomplish more languages – they do (have ample resources) and they don’t. There are MANY competing needs. A higher priority than more languages for sure is the ability to be more generous with financial aid, let alone be need blind in admissions (99% are need aware), or have the resources to allow middle class kids to attend.
I am not sure that boarding schools have ample resources at all, yes some are sitting on rather healthy endowments but, much like colleges, they are also engaged in the never ending facilities upgrades that are costing a small (or not so small) fortune. Plus they are faced with other curriculum demands, such as more robust STEM offerings. In the parent meetings I have attended, there always seems to be a question about more STEM in some form, I have yet to hear one about adding Portuguese or any other language. Several schools have added Arabic as a new exciting language option, but it seems to have fairly niche appeal at least at our school. So I just don’t see that to be a priority unless there are boarding schools that are focused on languages as a speciality.
Yes, this is definitely about prioritization, that is, prioritizing the use of finite resources. In terms of languages, though, we might only be talking about creating a budget line for one new faculty member (or none at all, if the school says, no, half our kids are not taking Spanish, and a couple Spanish faculty members/fellows are simply replaced for other faculty over a few years). Compare that to the often significant capital and other outlays for STEM. But I do know you are right, in terms of sentiment: everybody wants their kid to build a robot.
Faculty/staff salaries are the largest line item in a school’s operating budget . . .
Don’t other options already exist, though? Chinese, Japanese, some Arabic, some German, Russian, Italian.
This comment reminds me that my kids’ Spanish classes were often among their largest, usually right at the school’s maximum class size (speaks to demand) where some other classes could be just 8 or 9 kids. I don’t see a school telling kids/families “no” on their language instruction choices. I’m confident that the schools are factoring what works and what families want into their curriculum decisions.
In what is certainly a long laundry list of wants, more language selection is probably not in the top 10 list.
I will note that for a while, I did quite a bit of business in Latin America. It was the only place where the business was done in Spanish. In fact, English was not an option. Just anecdotal. (But the literature is great!)
Agreed. In many other countries, the English spoken by many in business will be far superior to the American’s second language.
The other thing about Portuguese is that is far easier to pick up if you are proficient in Spanish, as in beyond the level 5 Spanish at most boarding schools. Those relatively few colleges that offer Portuguese usually offer a Portuguese for Spanish Speakers track. So if a student is really interested in Portuguese, they are better off getting as close to near-native fluency in Spanish and tackle Portuguese in college.
The Field of Dreams approach to curriculum development has demonstrably failed at most schools that tried to offer Russian, Japanese, Arabic, so I don’t see other languages being added in the near-future.
And just a plug for Spanish. It is by far the most useful foreign language for anyone living/working in most parts of the US. Plus the literature/theater/cinema canons have a much greater breadth than many other languages.
And French, while demand is down from its glory days just about every boarding school still offers it, at least all the ones we looked at.
Plus, if anyone has a child who is interested in Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hindi, Turkish, and Indonesian look into the State Departments’ Critical Language programs: NSLI-Y for high school students and CLS for college students.