Ray Clifford

Language Teaching in the Federal Government: A Personal Perspective

Historically, communication between foreign language schools in the federal government and academic foreign language programs has been extremely limited. Typical government and academic programs are compared on the 11 significant program characteristics of instructional goals, student characteristics, class size, curriculum, instructional staff, assessment criteria, program length, skill modalities emphasized, instructional methodology, results attained, and supporting empirical research. This series of comparisons reveals a striking contrast in instructional objectives and procedures that has served to reduce cooperation between government and academic foreign language programs. It is argued, however, that these significant differences should be viewed as complimentary, rather than divisive. The combined assets of both foreign language teaching communities provide heretofore untapped resources for empirical research into national foreign language issues. Options are then described for cooperative research ventures to address these issues.