The Foreign Language Curriculum Committee proposed the name change for the title of the district program to the World Language Program. In view of the changing community, local and international foreign language programs, particularly in the United States, are selecting more appropriate titles. World Language is the official program title for the Alaska Department of Education.
The Anchorage School District serves an increasing population of students whose home language is not English, but in fact, Spanish, Russian, German, French, or Japanese, languages which have historically been referred to as “foreign” in the district Program of Studies. These languages are taught in our schools as second languages and are no longer considered “foreign” to all students. Over 80 languages are represented by the students served in the district’s bilingual program. The true definition of the term “foreign” according to Webster is: “1. situated outside one’s own country, province, locality. 2. of, from, or characteristic of another country or countries.” The word “foreign” itself connotes the unfamiliar, the unknown, and to some, a feeling of us and them. No longer are the languages taught in our district foreign to our total school population.
In addition to the increasing number of bilingual students in our district are those students whose heritage language is Y’upik, Inupiaq, Athabascan, or Tlingit. The Alaska native languages and other Native American languages are obviously not “foreign” languages and would be more easily included, rather than excluded, with the use of the term “world language.”
As second language educators who value and respect the languages and cultures of peoples around the world and within our own very global community, we propose this important name change which appropriately addresses the changing community in which we live and work.
