Big Education Ape: CAL: Projects: National K-12 Foreign Language Survey

CAL: Projects: National K-12 Foreign Language Survey

National K - 12 Foreign Language Survey

Funder: U.S. Department of Education, International Research and Studies Program

September 2006 – August 2009

The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) conducts a national survey of foreign language instruction in public and private elementary and secondary schools every decade to provide an updated national and regional portrait of foreign language instruction in the United States. Working with Westat, a leader in survey research, CAL analyzed results from the third survey to be able to show trends in foreign language education at three points in time (1987, 1997, 2008).

Survey questionnaires were mailed to a stratified random sample of more than 5,000 elementary and secondary schools across the country in October 2007. Data collection was completed in June 2008. The response rate was 76%.

The survey was designed to help us understand, among other issues, current patterns and shifts over time in these areas:

Foreign language enrollments
Number of schools offering foreign languages
Types of foreign language programs offered
Foreign language curricula and methodologies in use
Teacher qualifications and training
Effects of No Child Left Behind legislation on foreign language instruction

Survey data were examined and presented according to various factors that may affect language instruction, including these:

Type of school (public or private)
Location of school (urban, rural, or suburban)
Socioeconomic status of students
Percentage of minority students enrolled in the school
Geographical region (e.g., Northeast, Pacific Northwest)

The survey results present national and regional data; state-by-state data were not an outcome of this survey. Answers to the following questions are presented in the final survey results:

How is students’ language proficiency assessed?
Do teachers integrate national and/or state foreign language standards into their instruction?
How much do teachers use the foreign language in the classroom?

The overarching theme in the analysis was how the data can be used to help our country increase and improve language teaching in elementary and secondary schools over the next decade.

Read the executive summary
(PDF, 3 MB)