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A 1984 study comparing foreign language achievement of elementary school students in three kinds of programs was reported by Rhodes and Snow.' The three types of programs were: immersion-in which the language is used throughout the school day to teach subject matter, although the language itself is not taught as a subject; partial immersion-in which the language is taught as a subject for at least 70 minutes a day; and FLESin which the language is taught 20-45 minutes daily. Results of this study show that immersion students outperformed all other students on listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills and that the FLES students performed least well. Partial immersion students performed better than FLES students on all four skills, although these differences were significant only on the listening and speaking skills. Clearly, the immersion program is the best kind of program for children when overall language proficiency is our goal. Indeed, as language teachers or as parents we would want our children to have the opportunity to participate in an immersion program. Yet, should language proficiency be the first goal of all elementary school foreign language programs? There are regions in our country where children grow up never personally knowing anyone who speaks another language. These children have no need for another language, so would it even occur to them that they could learn to speak another language? Would they have any concept about how another language might be learned? In situations such as these there are two important goals which take precedence before the goal of proficiency. These goals are: 1. To introduce children to other languages and cultures. With the availability of television, children are naturally more aware of the world now than some years ago. But they often cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy in what they view on television. They need our help in discovering the reality of other languages and cultures. 2. To show that they can learn to communicate successfully in another language. How important it is for children to know that they have the potential to learn to speak another language. Both of these goals are achieved naturally in some areas of the country. But in others, they will not be achieved unless they are addressed directly. Iowa is an example of a state in which these goals are important. It is one of the few states without a foreign language consultant in the Department of Public Instruction.2 The attitude of Iowans toward foreign language education was described in the report of the Governor's Task Force on Foreign Language Studies and International Education:'

Linguistics · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Philosophy · Second Language Learning and Teaching

• Decisions! Decisions! Decisions! Foreign Language in the Elementary School

  Open Access•Myriam Met•Foreign Language Annals•1985

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