Less Commonly Taught Languages Survey
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction recently conducted a statewide survey to collect stakeholder input on Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL). Over 1,800 people across the state shared their opinions, with the majority coming from K-12 students and educators. Business people, university faculty and staff, and community members also joined in. The results indicated the following:
• Arabic, Japanese, and Russian were the languages that were considered to be the most important to be offered to North Carolina students. The other languages included in the study were Farsi, Hindi/Urdu, and Korean.
• Students chose the top three languages because they were curious about the language, felt that knowledge of the language would give them a competitive edge in the job market, and thought that studying the language would help them get into college.
• The six languages in the survey are spoken by customers, employees, local citizens, other professionals, and students of all ages.
• Respondents felt that it was important to have people available who could speak these languages:
o to greet visitors and customers and engage them in simple conversations,
o to understand basic replies and requests, and
o to read short passages or messages.
• Many of those surveyed knew that after just two years of studying a language, an individual can:
o converse about familiar activities,
o ask and respond to questions about everyday topics, and
o read and write short sentences and messages.
• It takes approximately three years of study of a new language to be able to write descriptive paragraphs and understand longer conversations and lectures. Writing reports and giving presentations usually requires four years of study.
• Respondents noted that the two most important reasons for North Carolina students to study Arabic, Japanese, or Russian were:
o To operate effectively as individuals in a global society, and
o To improve life for themselves and others in our state and in our communities.
The results of this survey were combined with information from the National Security Language Initiative and the North Carolina home language survey data, and it was determined that two levels of Arabic will be developed as online foreign language courses to be made available to all high school students through the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS).
This project is funded by the North Carolina General Assembly under Funds to Teach Critical Foreign Languages. Mandarin Chinese is also considered to be a critical foreign language but it is already being made available to our students through a combination of a Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant and an Advanced Placement (AP) grant. For more information on the Mandarin Chinese program from NCVPS, go to www.marinegrafics.com/chinese/promo.htm
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