ACTFL Affiliation

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages http://www.actfl.org

The first CLTA annual conferences were held in December, in conjunction with the Modern Languages Association (MLA). The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) formed out of MLA in 1967, and officially established a separate November conference in 1969. CLTA chose to collaborate with ACTFL, and has been a dues-paying member since. CLTA has voting representation at ACTFL's annual ACTFL Assembly and Business Meeting.

ACTFL, headquartered in Yonkers, New York, is a large, national organization that is dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction; it is the only national organization representing teachers of all languages at all education levels. ACTFL's annual Delegate Assembly meetings focus on professional initiatives at the national level and projects in collaboration with other language organizations. These meetings, which receive input from well over a hundred delegates from affiliated organizations, are held in conjunction with ACTFL's annual convention, where CLTA also holds its annual meetings.

Special projects at ACTFL that impact the Chinese language teaching field include the maintenance of statistics on foreign language enrollment¹, and the National Standards Project, a collaborative project responsible for the development of national content standards for foreign language education, including Chinese; and the New Visions in Foreign Language Education Project (see below the report by Prof. Cynthia Ning (Immediate Past President, 2000), published in the December 2000 issue of the CLTA Newsletter). These and other ACTFL projects will continue to have impact on the foreign language teaching field at large.

This is a collaborative effort between The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at the Iowa State University, that I urge you to learn about and support.

Led by an eight-member steering committee, the New Visions project first convened some fifty participants representing different levels and languages, in summer, 1999, to focus on the question, "(Ideally), what COULD we do (to promote foreign language education in the US)?" This group generated an initial set of possibilities, that was honed and expanded by the ACTFL Delegate Assembly at the November, 1999, annual conference. The following summer, in 2000, an expanded group of nearly 100 foreign language representatives came together to reconsider the possible foci for the field, and to try to answer the question, "(Ideally), what SHOULD we do (to promote foreign language education in the US)?" The priorities developed by this second group were again presented to the ACTFL Delegate Assembly at the 2000 Boston conference just past, for further input and refinement. The next step for 2001 will be to develop answers to the question, "What WILL we do, and WHO will do it?" so that foreign language education is carried forward and upward into the next millenium.

The priorities as currently articulated include the following:

• Architecture of the Profession. The foreign language community should create a national agenda, perhaps in the form of a document or series of documents, as well as a clearinghouse to clarify roles and profiles of participating organizations, perhaps reconfiguring conferences or modifying the relationships among organizations, to improve participation, collaboration, and communication.

• Curriculum, Instruction, Articulation & Assessment. New Visions assumes an approach for Levels Pre-K - 16+ that is standards-based and student-centered, with an emphasis on purposeful language learning that is assessed through performance. We should articulate pre-K through 16+ by establishing and disseminating criteria for effective program models; identifying, collecting, evaluating and disseminating models of effective instruction; and redefining existing instructional levels in terms of performance.

• Research. The field continues to face questions about instructed second- and foreign-language acquisition, delivery systems, classroom practice, assessment, and professional development. The research agenda aims to present empirical evidence from well-designed research studies that directly address these issues. This goal requires the establishment of a national research agenda, with an expanded vision of research to include all levels of foreign language educators working in a collaborative mode; the establishment of a national searchable database of research materials; and the dissemination of research results to wider audiences.

• Teacher Development. New Visions assumes an approach to teacher education that is learner-centered and standards- and performance-based, and that every teacher has an essential role to play in the preparation of foreign language teachers. We should reconceptualize pre-service programs by integrating content, peda-gogy, and field experiences; promote on-going teacher development through mentoring, workshops, institutes, and information delivered via print and technology; encourage and enable teachers to engage in self-reflection and sharing with colleagues; and link teacher development to certification, licensure, or advancement. We also need to create a database of information on model teacher development and certific ation programs.

• Teacher Recruitment. The field should establish a national task force for recruitment and retention, that would develop and disseminate "best practices" models via a national clearinghouse. Attention should be given to providing models for redefining and enlarging the candidate pool, providing alternative certification for teachers, providing innovative and collaborative ways to give incentives to teachers, and collaborating both with K - 16+ and with the public to meet the needs of the field.

For personal contact, email Marcia Rosenbusch at <mrosenbu@iastate.edu>. CLTA members who have participated in the project include Lucy Lee (CLASS), Scott McGinnis (NFLC), Su Chih-wen (Amherst Regional HS), Galal Walker (OSU), and myself; you are also welcome to contact any of us. Again, we encourage your support and personal involvement.