New Directions in Foreign Language Study

The Report of the President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies concluded that "Effective leadership in international affairs ... requires well-trained and experienced experts. But the hard and brutal fact is that our programs ... are both currently in adequate and actually falling further behind. This growing de ficiency must be corrected if we are to secure our national objec tives as we enter the twenty-first century." There is an aware ness on the part of the education leadership of this country that the study of foreign languages has been neglected, and that there is no longer any place for the posture that English is sufficient to conduct the bilingual business of an inter dependent world. The results of a number of studies that out line the relevant policy questions confronting us are presented and discussed. From the myriad of recommendations con tained in the several recent reports three first steps are suggested: (1) encourage every elementary and secondary school in the country to offer a full sequence of instruction in at least one language; (2) from this broader base begin a process of "winnowing" whereby the students with superior talent are identified and (3) encouraged to pursue further serious study in bilingual schools or international high schools.