LANGUAGE LESSONS: HIGH SCHOOLS RESPOND TO GROWING DEMAND FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE SKILLS

Carmen Shah, left, told the Mexican legend of "El Sol y La Luna" as part of a class presentation.

Donna Ellis used flash cards to work on the students' food vocabulary before a cooking project.

For most of its existence, America has been largely isolated from countries which speak languages other than English. With the exception of areas on the southern border, geography made it unnecessary for most Americans to be able to communicate in other tongues.

However, with advances in global communication and increased foreign trade, greater emphasis is being placed on development of foreign language skills.

"It's a high priority item in the sense that foreign exports are one of the biggest businesses in the state," said Dr. Dieter Jedan, chairman of the foreign language department at Southeast Missouri State University. "In 1994, Missouri pulled in $5 billion-plus for exports and did business with 170-plus countries."

In foreign language instruction, the U.S. has lagged behind many European countries which require even grade school students to take classes in languages other than their mother tongue.

"I'm from New York and traveled quite a bit and what I've found is we, the United States, are the only big power that does not speak other languages," said Sergia Pecaut, Spanish instructor at St. Vincent's High School in Perryville.

To change that, many colleges and universities are starting to require applicants to have a minimum of two years of foreign language for admission. As a result, high school foreign language teachers report that not only are more students enrolling in foreign language classes, but more are taking advanced courses.

"You are finding more students are taking it longer," said Mary Ha, foreign language teacher at Notre Dame High School in Cape Girardeau.

"We have always had a high percentage of students here take foreign language, at the very minimum 90 percent of freshmen. Now you find more students taking third and fourth years."

Taking advanced courses can also give students a head start on college language requirements.

"A policy many colleges have now is if you have four years of foreign language in high school you can waive the foreign language requirement at the college level," said Donna Ellis, head of the foreign language department at Cape Girardeau Central High School.

At Southeast, for example, students who start with an advanced college foreign language course and earn a "C" or better can earn 12 credit hours -- three hours for the class itself and nine hours in retroactive credit. Ellis said many students take advantage of that as an "easy way" to pick up credit.

At area high schools, Spanish and French are the foreign language courses offered most, and some offer German.

In the past, classical languages, particularly Latin, were commonly included in the curriculum. However, in this area only Cape Girardeau Central continues to teach it. The disappearance of Latin instruction, many teachers said, is related to the fact that most students are interested in learning a language with direct practical use.

While offering enough classes to meet college entrance requirements and beyond isn't a problem for larger schools, for smaller districts it's more of a burden.

Kelly High School, for example, offers both French and Spanish, but only two years of each. St. Vincent's has four years of Spanish, but that is the only language it offers.

Leopold High School doesn't even have a full-time foreign language instructor. However, it offers two years of Spanish via satellite instruction.

Leopold subscribes to a class taught out of Kansas State University, geared for smaller schools without a foreign language teacher. Video taped instruction is received twice weekly while the other three days of the week students do workbook assignments and other activities.

Carolyn Helderman, who holds a minor in Spanish, teaches the Leopold classes. She said the satellite program works exceptionally well and provides a different perspective than students get in a traditional Spanish class.

"It almost exposes students to more than a normal, regular class that just has a text and workbook to go with," Helderman said.

The tapes, she said, do not just feature the KSU instructor giving a lecture. Instead it is presented more like a documentary, offering sights of other countries and cultures and interviews with native speakers. Samples of a foreign media such as Spanish language music videos and television commercials are also included.

"It's not just turn to page seven, read it and we'll read page eight tomorrow," Helderman said.

At Southeast only students whose majors specifically mandate some foreign language are required to take such courses. However, the school still has an active program. Currently about 30 Southeast students are majoring in a foreign language and another 60 are seeking minors.

Southeast's Jedan said Spanish is the most popular with German a close second. The school also offers French, which like Spanish and German is a four-year program, and a two-year Japanese program.

Occasionally single semesters of other languages such as Mandarin, Dutch, Russian and Vietnamese are offered. "If there is interest, we can offer other languages," Jedan said. "If the community feels there is a need, we will do it."

Foreign languages offered at some area high schools

Cape Girardeau French I-IV

Latin I-III

Spanish I-V

Chaffee French I-II

Jackson French I-IV

Spanish I-III

Kelly French I-II

Spanish I-II

Leopold Spanish I-II

Notre Dame French I-III

Spanish I-IV

Oak Ridge Spanish I-II

Oran German I-II

Spanish I-II

Perryville German I-III

Spanish I-IV

St. Vincent Spanish I-IV