In my lifetime of learning languages, I’ve seen languages wax and wane in popularity. When I was growing up, French and German were popular in school, and Spanish was considered the “easy” language to study. Most students at that time didn’t think about the benefits of learning Spanish because we share a continent and hemisphere with millions of speakers of Spanish. When I went to college, I ended up studying Russian. I had spent time in Eastern Europe, so I naturally gravitated toward languages like Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and Romanian. I missed the rise of Japanese in the 1980s, but I married into a Japanese-American family, so I have been steeped in Japanese (and Japanese-American) culture over the past 25 years. By the time I finished my doctorate in Slavic Linguistics in 1991, the Soviet Union had collapsed and former Yugoslavia was in a civil war. Like many linguists and language teachers, I left the language field and worked as a computer programmer and systems analyst in an IT (Information Technology) department.

As my young children grew up and I became involved in their schools, I found myself drawn once again into education. I eventually left my IT position to become Parent Involvement Director for the Washington State PTA (Parent/Teacher Association), where I had an opportunity to represent the parent perspective on many committees and task forces working on education reform. One of those was the Steering Committee of the National Assessment for Educational Progress for Foreign Languages. (Yes, there was a plan for a NAEP test for Foreign Languages, but it was indefinitely postponed.) That involvement led me to some consulting opportunities for planning, implementing, and evaluating new language immersion programs for Spanish and Japanese, two languages I’d never studied. More recently I’ve been working on expanding language opportunities for Chinese.

So, for the past ten years, I’ve worked tirelessly to promote all sorts of languages and advocate for all children to have an opportunity to learn another language. In 2008, I was hired to fill the position of World Languages Program Supervisor for the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction – a full-time position that world language advocates in our state had worked hard to get funded. (It had been unfunded and unfilled for almost 20 years.) While the position is always a little tenuous (will it continue to be funded in this challenging economic climate?), it is certainly the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Each day I get to wake up thinking about ways to make it possible for more students to learn more languages. One day my focus is German, the next French, the next Spanish, the next Japanese, Chinese, Russian, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless.

I don’t want to jinx anything, but I’m somewhat confident that Japanese will not be an easy target this year. Why do I dare to think that we will survive this year’s cuts? Years of local advocacy! Stable enrollment numbers. Motivated and achieving students. I’m taking no chances, so my fingers are crossed, for now. And my fingers are also ready to continue on with the battle on Thursday and every day after.

I’ve been asked to write this article to help Japanese language teachers learn something about advocacy and how to work with state supervisors for world languages. While I’m fairly new in the position, I’ll share what I can. It is an honor for me to have this opportunity. Advocacy is truly a journey. I hope I can help you on your way.

Discover NCSSFL
Unfortunately, not every state has a world languages supervisor position (or, at least not a full-time position). When the position exists, sometimes we’re called supervisors or program supervisors. Sometimes we’re called consultants, coordinators, specialists, or other titles. But we belong to an amazing professional organization, NCSSFL (pronounced [ne-cess-ful]): National Council of State Supervisors for Language. The NCSSFL website should be your first stop.

From the top menu, select Resource Links to find links to each of the state departments of education and often to specific world languages pages, as well as links to state standards for world languages and state world language organizations. This will guide you in contacting your own state department of education and locating the state world languages supervisor. If you visit Washington’s World Languages page (under Teaching /Learning) , you’ll find my contact information, for example.

Back on the NCSSFL website, take a look at Publications. Here you’ll find links to position papers that NCSSL has written or is making available to educators and world language advocates. These can be a great resource for planning your own advocacy efforts. For example, read “A Rationale For Foreign Language Education” to find research-based arguments for the cognitive, academic, and societal benefits of learning to communicate in at least two languages.

Next, visit the State Reports page, where you can view reports by state or by individual survey questions.

Why would this be important?

Well, if you’re hoping to advocate for something in your state, it’s helpful to know what other states are doing in that area already. For example, in 2005, world language educators in Washington State were able to advocate successfully for the superintendent to adopt the national standards, Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century, as voluntary world language standards for our state by making the case that many other states had already aligned their state standards in world languages to the national standards. Just recently, I made the same argument to the State Curriculum Advisory and Review Committee to convince them to remove the word “voluntary” in describing our standards on our state website. Nothing speaks louder than data and nothing gives an advocate greater credibility.

As you peruse the list of questions on the State Reports, you will begin to get a good idea of the kinds of things that world language supervisors are likely to be involved with in our states. Here are just a few examples from the NCSSFL Reports page:

1. There is new or proposed state legislation affecting world language study or International education.
2. World language study is a state graduation requirement.
3. The state recognizes American Sign Language as a world language.
4. Schools are required to offer world language instruction.
5. There are programs for heritage languages speakers in the state.
6. The state offers distance learning or online/e-learning programs in one or more world languages or international education.
7. Does your state have a provision to award world language credit to a student Based on proficiency?

These are all areas that I am working on, and I know that most of my colleagues around the country are working on them too. Reviewing these questions (and how states have responded to them) can give you ideas about how to craft your own advocacy messages.


You’ll notice, of course, that the questions are quite general. They don’t say anything about specific languages (except for American Sign Language – which has a protected status in many states). So, how could you relate them more directly to the language you teach: Japanese?

Consider question #6, for example, regarding online or E-Learning programs. As you may have noticed, the market for online language learning programs has expanded in the past few years. To be an advocate, you would probably want to know what is happening with online learning in your state high schools (perhaps even middle and elementary schools). I imagine that very few Japanese language teachers in Washington State are aware that students can go to the Digital Learning Department and access online courses, such as Japanese. See http://www.digitallearning.k12.wa.us/online_courses/. Yet online courses are a potential pathway for building (or expanding) a language program when a district lacks funds to hire full-time teachers. Could Japanese teachers in Seattle, for example, advocate for students in rural Eastern Washington to get access to Japanese language courses online and perhaps build sister-school relationships across the state?

Take a few minutes to peruse the reports and see if you can identify issues that are important to you that are also likely to be important to your state world languages supervisor. That’s a good place to start building a relationship.

How Your State World Languages Supervisor Can Help
The good news is that your state world languages supervisor is there to help you. As state employees, we must answer our phone calls and emails in a timely fashion. Seriously, though, we get all kinds of questions every week, and it’s not just that we desire to answer them; it’s a requirement of the job. In my experience, state supervisors have a wealth of information available to them. In addition, with the network we have with NCSSFL, we can almost always find someone in some state who knows the answer to things that we don’t know.

The bad news is that as state employees, we are not in a position to advocate with the Legislature or other elected officials. Generally, we are not even allowed to contact elected officials unless we go through our government relations staff at the agency. (And if elected officials contact us, we must report it.)

Therefore, if you were to call us and ask “Could you please tell the Legislature that they should pass a bill to have a high school world languages requirement of two years,” we could not be of help to you. However, if YOU, as a citizen of the state (and constituent) wanted to contact your local representative to make the case for a high school graduation requirement, we could certainly provide you with research data, reports from other states, etc. And, if your legislator decided to follow up on your request by “dropping a bill” (that’s the expression… it means presenting a bill to the appropriate legislative committee), then it’s likely that the Legislature would contact our agency and ask for a briefing on the topic, possibly from the world languages supervisor. It’s a bit circular, but that’s how the system works.

When you ask for information from the world languages supervisor, realize that just because we work in the state department of education (or, in the case of Washington, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction), it doesn’t mean that everything regarding education falls under the purview of our agency. For example, I get many questions about teacher certification, but that is not my responsibility, and it mainly falls under a separate agency, the Professional Educator Standards Board. Similarly, graduation requirements are the responsibility of the State Board of Education. While I make great efforts to work closely with these two “sister” agencies, my influence and access to information are somewhat limited.

Defining the Problem
Most people, especially teachers, do not get involved in advocacy unless (or until) they perceive that there is a problem. So, what is the problem? That is something you could discuss with the world languages supervisor.

For example, suppose that you were concerned that Japanese language programs were being cut in the schools. In our state, through a project at the University of Washington called “Mapping & Enhancing Language Learning” (MELL), we have been collecting and reporting on data about what languages are taught where in our state. If you were to read national reports, you would see that the number of schools offering Japanese has been shrinking in recent years. In Washington State, our MELL data show that Japanese offerings have maintained their “market share” over the past six years. (See http://depts.washington.edu/mellwa/Reports/MELL_policy_brief_06.pdf.) The percentage of high schools that reported offering world languages and offering Japanese, specifically, has been around 23-24% from 2004 to 2009. Although some programs are being cut, apparently, some have been added.

In that case, the issue may be more: Why is Japanese being cut in a specific school or district? As world languages program supervisor, I can help you research that question a bit. For example:

• What are enrollments like?
  If the Japanese classes typically have under 20 students and other classes in the high school have 35, then the principal is going to look at cutting the program. It simply uses up more “resources” (teacher time) than the school can justify.
• Has anything happened with feeder schools?
  Did the middle schools start offering another language (such as Spanish) that articulates into high school? In that case, the highly motivated students might start their language study early and choose Spanish because it’s available.
• How effective is the Japanese teacher?
  This is a touchy question, but if you want to be an advocate, you have to be brutally honest. If the students do not feel that the teacher is adequate, they will flock to other languages (or other subjects) rather than waste their time.

In summary, to be an effective advocate, you need to be willing to do some research. Simply advocating for an opinion you have will not take you far.

Tips for Advocates
Here are a few tips I would offer for budding advocates.

• Advocate for all languages, including your language.
  Don’t let people play “divide and conquer” by pitting one language against another. You don’t need to accept the argument that some schools make that if we want to add language X, we have to drop language Y.
• Know your success stories and don’t be shy about sharing them.
  Consider posting pictures and quotes from students (or parents or community members who have met your students) on the school website. Make a brochure or PowerPoint presentation that you can share with people whose support you want to garner.
  
• Partner with other groups and organizations that have experience in advocacy. Contact the PTA (Parent/Teacher Association) or other education groups. (In Washington, we have the League of Education Voters, for example.) Attend their workshops and learn the tricks of the trade. Make your cause visible to them so they can support your efforts. (By the way, parents can be some of the most powerful advocates when it comes to language programs. And don’t forget the students themselves!)
• Don’t give up.
  Most advocacy efforts take multiple years. Use each “failure” as a learning experience and come back the next year. You can outlast the naysayers. (It took many trips to our state capital for the world language advocates in Washington State to convince the Legislature to fund the position of World Languages Program Supervisor in our state.)