Stress on Foreign Language Study Urged by Governors

A governors’ task force on Saturday urged that all college graduates be conversant in a foreign language as part of a broad effort to make the United States more competitive in world trade.

Task force chairman Gov. Thomas H. Kean (R-N.J.), who next year will become president of Drew University in Madison, N.J., personally recommended that proficiency in a second language be a requirement to graduate, although his group’s formal report did not go that far.

“Obviously, you do these things gradually,” Kean said at a news conference launching a four-day meeting of the nation’s governors on a wide range of issues.

Suggests Numerous Ways

The task force, suggesting numerous ways to beef up the teaching of languages and geography, urged that “an international focus” be incorporated in “the entire curriculum.”

Gov. Gerald L. Baliles (D-Va.), chairman of the National Governors’ Assn., asked during an appearance with Kean: “How are we to sell our products in a global economy when we neglect to learn the languages of the customer?

“How are we to open overseas markets when other cultures are only dimly understood? How are our firms to provide international leadership when our schools are producing insular students?”

The task force report suggested that states:

--Require elementary and high school students to study world cultures and history.

--Include geography and world history in statewide tests of school and student performance.

--Offer foreign languages as early as first grade.

--Offer foreign languages during the summer, after school and on weekends.

--Provide in-service training for teachers in both international studies and foreign languages.

--Have teacher certification programs test for international awareness.

--Augment textbooks with other materials, such as maps, travel books, newspapers, videotapes and even stamps.

--Use technology innovatively, such as linking U.S. students by telephone with those in other countries.

--Increase language and social studies requirements for admission to college.

--Require an international element in all college majors, particularly in business school.

Cites Progress

While generally bemoaning the lack of what it called “international education,” the report did note some recent progress.

Two-thirds of four-year colleges require graduates to meet a foreign language requirement, it noted, although only one-sixth of these schools require a language course for admission.

Also, more than half of the four-year institutions report that they have hired more faculty with international expertise and are offering more courses with an international focus.

Among signs of progress cited in the report was the California International Studies Project, consisting of nine regional centers funded by the state. The centers offer teacher training in foreign languages, geography, economics, the environment and regional studies.

A Lesson in Chicken

The report noted that “learning about other nations’ resources and cultural patterns may open up new opportunities for American exports.” It said that Baliles learned this lesson on a recent trip to Hong Kong, where he discovered that chicken feet were served as a delicacy--but were in short supply.

The governor immediately called several poultry producers in Virginia and found that they routinely threw chicken feet away.

“A match was made and his state is now a supplier of chicken feet to Hong Kong,” the report said.