Tim Goodell believes that his fluency in Japanese will give him an edge in job-hunting after he receives his master`s in business administration next year from the University of Chicago.
Goodell, 25, plans to live in Japan for a while to pursue a career in international banking. In his field, ”you can still be a genius and not speak Japanese and get by,” he said. ”But it (knowing the language) is no longer the icing on the cake. It is the cake.”
His interest in Japan was sparked when he decided to travel the world after completing his bachelor or arts degree in English literature at the U. of C. in 1985.
”I started in Japan and my money ran out in a few weeks, so I took a job as an English teacher,” he said. ”I stayed for a year and really fell in love with the country and the culture.”
Goodell said he considers himself part of a new wave of future professionals who will acknowledge the advantage of knowing a foreign language.
”We think we`re a great big melting pot, but America is really very much introverted when it comes to business,” he said. ”You can go to a company like McDonald`s and say, `I don`t know the food business, but I know Japanese so maybe I can help you over there,` and they will look at you twice. I view it as leverage.”
Goodell is among a growing number of college students who have included a foreign language in their academic study. Enrollment in foreign language courses is on the rise, according to triennial statistics compiled by the Modern Language Association of America, a professional organization of language teachers, in New York City. In the 1986-87 school year, a little more than 1 million students registered for foreign languages in the country`s two- and four-year colleges and universities. Some students are studying two or more languages.
”This was the first time the enrollment went above 1 million since the peak of 1.1 million in the 1970s,” said Richard Brod, director of special projects for the association. He added that the 1980-81 survey revealed the lowest enrollment in the last two decades: 925,000.
With the enrollment increase is a shift in the languages being studied. Chinese, Japanese and other Asian languages, once infrequently studied, are gaining in popularity over Hebrew and ancient Greek.
The increases and decreases are attributed to a variety of socioeconomic factors. The denunciation of required coursework by student activists in the 1970s placed pressure on many institutions to lower standards or drop foreign languages and other traditional courses, Brod said.
”My feeling is today students have more interest in Asian cultures-politically, economically and as a lifestyle-than they did 15 to 20 years ago,” Brod said. ”Also they perceive the economic power of Japan as a major force in world trade and world economics. They see knowledge of a foreign language as useful and valuable, and students appear to be translating these perceptions into a sense of jobs.”
At the University of Illinois-Urbana, business students can sign up for commercial French and German courses. The courses place emphasis on vocabulary and customs relative to commerce instead of literature.
”In the last four or five years our offerings in Asian languages have gone up considerably, and we`ve added Korean,” said William Prokasy, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. ”We`re stabilizing our offerings in selected African languages too; we`re offering them more regularly.”
Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, which is adding Burmese to its foreign language program in the fall of 1989, offers majors in Spanish and German with emphasis on business and translation. Department chairman Marilyn B. Skinner estimated that 70 percent of foreign language majors opt for the business degree and 30 percent for the literature degree.
Some schools, such as U. of I. at Urbana and Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., require coursework in a non-Western culture for liberal arts degrees. ”This general education requirement has resulted in students going on to take courses in lesser-known foreign languages,” Prokasy said.
Martha Selby, who plans to teach Sanskrit after completing her doctorate in the language at the U. of C., has seen the university`s Asian studies department grow since her admission to the doctorate program in 1982. ”The year I came in, there were three graduate students. This year there are seven,” she said. ”The enrollment in first-year Sanskrit classes is now 22 or 23 students, up from maybe 6 to 10.”
Selby, 33, studied French in high school and German in college. While taking a humanities course, she read an English translation of a Sanskrit epic.
”I wanted to read the text in its original version,” she said. ”Then I wanted to be able to read all the classical literature of India, so I studied Tamil also.”
Another indication of the rising trend in foreign language study is the growth of programs offering a year or semester of study abroad.
In the Education Abroad program at the University of California, 1,212 students are expected to attend 82 schools worldwide in the 1988-89 academic year. In 1982, 696 students spent a year studying in 46 institutions around the world.
Several Chicago-area schools offer similar programs. Loyola University`s program for study in Rome had grown to a capacity of 210 in 1985-86 from 92 when the program began in 1962.
NIU has added Chinese and Japanese locations to its education abroad program during the last five years. About 600 students participate in the program each year.
”Spanish continues to be the No. 1 foreign language studied,” Brod said. ”It has been No. 1 at the college level since 1970 and at the secondary level since 1948.” He cited Mexico`s close proximity, the large Spanish-speaking populations in American cities and the simplicity of the sound system as possible reasons for the language`s popularity.
According to the association`s most recent survey in 1986, French is the second most popular language, followed by German, Italian, Russian and Latin. Since the 1983-84 survey, Japanese moved from 9th to 7th place, and Chinese from 10th to 9th place.
Another reason for the increased enrollments in foreign language classes is the general upgrading of required coursework at the college level and in secondary and elementary schools, educators said.
NIU`s Skinner noted that freshmen are coming into the foreign language department with greater proficiency, reflecting increased interest at the high school level. Since 1983 the number of freshmen taking junior-level courses has risen by 16 percent. Sophomore and junior enrollments at the same level have decreased by 7.5 percent and 14.5 percent respectively because many have taken tests that exempted them from lower-level courses, thus completing language requirements during the first year or two.
”We expect these freshmen figures to go up even further,” she said.
In 1966 college language requirements were at a peak, Brod said. ”Nearly 90 percent of colleges had foreign language requirements for a bachelor of arts degree. In 1970 it was down to 75 percent, and in 1983, down to 53 percent.” In 1986 the figure moved up to 58 percent.
Students seeking college entrance also are finding tougher admission standards. In 1986, 25 percent of American institutions required some proficiency in a foreign language, Brod said. In 1982 the figure was 14 percent.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at U. of I.-Urbana, wasn`t one of many that lowered language requisites in the `60s and `70s.
”Our minimum admission requirement of two years of foreign language has been in effect for decades at least,” Prokasy said. ”Within two years we plan to restrict the College of Education to juniors and seniors. All others
(education majors) will first apply to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where they must complete or show proficiency of four semesters of foreign language.”
At the high school level, 16 states require some form of foreign language proficiency to graduate, according to a survey by the Joint National Committee for Language Study in Washington.
Recent legislation in North Carolina mandates that by 1993, pupils in kindergarten through 5th grade must study a second language; students 6th through 12th grades must be given the opportunity to continue their study.
In Illinois all high schools must provide foreign language study to receive accreditation. By 1993, state law will require secondary students to have completed two years of study in music, art or a foreign language for admission to a state university. A law that went into effect in 1985 requires high school students to have one year of music, art, a foreign language or a vocational study to graduate. Before 1985 Illinois had no foreign language requirements for high school students.
”Foreign language has a slight predisposition in the selection process because art and music require some talent,” said Paul Griffith, educational consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education. ”Students say, `I can`t sing or draw so I`ll take a foreign language.` ”
Nationwide, 87 percent of public and private high schools teach a foreign language, according to a survey by the Center for Applied Linguistics, a federally funded clearing house for materials, resources and general information on language programs in Washington. Of those that don`t, 69 percent say they hope to add it to their curriculum, according to Nancy Rhodes, research associate.
”There is definitely an increase in schools offering foreign languages,” she said. ”The New York State Board of Regents has mandated that by 1992 every student in grades 1 through 9 must have one year of a language, and by 1994 two years. Louisiana and California are two states that have traditionally offered extensive language courses in their schools.”
Nationwide, 22 percent of all elementary schools have foreign language programs, Rhodes said.
