The developments in modern-language teaching have paralleled closely those trends occurring in society and education in general. The shift has been toward the individualization of instruction as the focus has been placed on self-pacing of learning and on emphasizing student responsibility for learning.
The acceptance of a pluralistic society has stimulated the establishment of bilingual education programs in areas containing speakers of a language other than English. The state of Texas, for example, now requires the establishment of such programs. Also, there has been increased interest in the Francophile world and the incorporation of French Africa and French-speaking Canada into the study of French. At McGill University, efforts are continuing to discover ways and means to improve bilingual education in Canada.
A reflection of the acceptance of a pluralistic society has been the increased emphasis on culture in the second-language class. Some leaders in the field have recommended that culture be made the primary objective in language learning. The language skills per se would be the goal only to the extent that they were necessary to acquire cultural knowledge and information.
In response to other changing student attitudes, language education has moved in several directions to stimulate interest and to counter the cries for relevance. For example:
1. Many second-language teachers have individualized their classes. Learning activity packages, which can be completed at the students' own pace, are often used. Students are permitted to go as rapidly or as slowly as they need to complete the material in each package.
2. In view of the admitted fact that many students enrolled in second-language classes cannot communicate efficiently in the language they are studying, many teachers emphasize communicative skills as the most acceptable goal in language teaching. Students must be shown that they can learn to use a second language and that they can take tangible skills away from the language class.
3. Culture has been given greater emphasis in the language class. Teachers feel that if students can relate to the speakers of the second language, they will be more interested in the language.
4. Many teachers have begun to stress the practical aspects of having a language skill. Hopeful teachers have tried stressing the career opportunities for speakers of a second language as a means of convincing the student of the practical advantages of second-language study.
5. Language teachers have sought to divorce themselves from the elite image surrounding their subject. Leaders in the field have begun to call for language courses suitable for all students in the schools, not just the academic elite.
6. Ideas from values education and group dynamics are being introduced into second-language teaching in order to incorporate content more directly applicable to the student's life and interest.
7. Summer language camps, foreign visitors and correspondence, magazines and newspapers, films, radio broadcasts, and travel abroad are seen as a means of establishing a closer contact between the student's culture and that of the language being studied.
8. Exploratory programs are being initiated in the middle schools and junior high schools to interest the students in studying language later in their schooling.
9. Mini-courses are being developed as a means of maintaining and enhancing student interest in language study and of meeting a greater variety of student interests and schedules.