In 15 years or so teaching at the postsecondary level, I became convinced that World Languages departments are ill-equipped to deal with the L2 illiteracy epidemic that plagues the U.S. This issue is somewhat complex insofar as departmental capacity continues to be built upon the hiring of professionals with wrong dispositions for the job. After all, most of teachers working in L2 instruction are trained as literary analysts and not as second language acquisition instructors (SLA).
Given the problematic nature of our curriculum, it is not surprising that we literature professors charged with teaching L2 are frustrated when dealing with problems stemming from English's ideological dominance. Literature may understand L2 literacy quite differently from linguists. Consequentially, different curricula arise as literature professionals understand the role of a second language differently.
By and large literature trained professionals are the ones charged with curriculum and instruction. Valdés et al. have argued that these professionals, rather than training their students in important socio-cognitive aspects of language learning, in fact train them to read major literary works. As a consequence, students may not be heuristically developing their skills to their full potential.
In a recent White Paper, Van Patten has weighted in on this matter by arguing that there is, indeed, a lack of language acquisition "expertise" in language departments across the nation. According to him, this has been a contributing factor to the current lack of success in L2 education. As Van Patten States:
… a focus on literature and culture does not make for expertise in language… Nowhere in contemporary cultural and literary studies is language the object of research. That is, the nature of language, its representation in the mind-brain of humans, and how language is processed, acquired, and used do not constitute the center (or even periphery) of research in cultural and literary studies. Cultural and literary scholars are not experts in language.
The assumption of most language programs is roughly that students do want to read Cervantes, Moliere, etc. when all they want is to order a café in Spain. If the latter is a good or bad educational aim is a quite different conversation, of course.
Let me be clearer here. I do believe that there is nothing wrong with studying the "classics" in L2 classrooms. I also think that there is nothing wrong with studying a language to be able to order a café in Spain either. Both gestures are communicative of something, whether of a cultural patrimony of humanity or of a basic traveler's need. However, it is my belief that we ought to articulate these goals ethically, as historical and aesthetic products of our human doing. “Why does one want to learn a L2? For what reasons?” are questions that we must constantly pose in our classrooms. Beyond the the social capital that languages represent — although this social capital is tied to one's social location — why do we want to encourage the study of a language other than a first? Because we believe it is good, useful, moral, necessary, professional…?
We do have a disturbing issue to deal with in our L2 curriculum, as Van Patten acknowledges, which is the empire of literature and the curriculum it breeds. In this scenario, instructors often spend two years in postsecondary programs teaching pupils how to ask permission to go to the bathroom only to require an epistemological jump from them into the next levels. At that time, instructors request that their students read Dostoyevsky because, you know, it is good for them. It is, after all, tradition, and a second language will help with our learning overall, our intelligence, etc.
Articles on the cognitive benefits of learning a second language abound around the web as well as in some specialized journals. The assumption is, of course, always the same. Our students are living in our learning time and not in theirs; students are invested in learning Dostoyevsky — which they may or may not be — and therefore are able to perform this epistemological jump with us from the bathroom to the Russian novelist.
We think we know better. We are teachers who have read the major works of literature and passed qualifying exams and wrote many articles and dissertations on major literary works. I also think we may be wrong about a lot of things, including what we frame as science.
Let me return to what I think is the main problem I have raised thus far, which relates to the fragmentation of second language studies. Most professionals acting in the fields of languages other than English (LOTE) are trained as literary analysts and not as second language learning and development professionals. Theirs is not the question of why speakers of different languages learn the way they do. Literature professionals deal with texts and why they come into being and not with why they are "languaged" in the ways they are — although some scholars do venture into this area, and kuddos to them for their brave work. Yet, the traditional literary framework dominates L2 curricula.
Literature-trained professionals' goals indeed differ from those of second language acquisition professors. The focus is on another aspect of language, from what is produced to how it is produced, as problematic as this epistemological separation may be.
Yet, when we arrive at times of financial distress, when programs begin to be cut left and right, professionals working in academia go in protective mode. This is to say, they try to safeguard the little territory left to them in the Humanities. It becomes, in many ways, everyone for him/herself. And consequentially, opportunities for the curricular alliance of many related disciplines — such as second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and literary studies — into a second language studies area are missing from the political agenda of many departments. The irony is that these fields could do better together than if working in isolation, because their chief objectives overlap. Individuals working within these disciplines just can't or don't what to see what is in front of them: the need for inhabiting the same spaces.
Let me reiterate here that I am not advocating against reading Cervantes, Dostoyevsky, etc. in L2 courses. Quite the contrary. What I am arguing here is for something to be done a priori, the reevaluation of the University curriculum that trains PhDs. These programs forego a critical reflection of the L2 professional holistically. This call for broadening the horizons of Humanities beyond academia, particularly, is nothing new, of course. An MLA report from 2014 stressed the need for a broader PhD training — something that I am not entirely sure about given the report’s response to market demands. It was a pragmatic call, however, which merits attention.
There are many solutions to the problem of a narrow training ground for Humanities PhDs and LOTE studies. These solutions depend on the institution, the population universities serve, and so on. But I do believe that improving second language studies in general, not matter the subfield, requires a fair amount of SLA/linguistics training along with the many tensions existing in the discussions on the language/discourse divide — i.e., can language really exist without discourse, and if so, aren't these terms somewhat interchangeable?
I do believe that no matter what solutions we try out, we ought to involve a willingness to re-purpose and re-cohere what it means to teach in/a L2 and what literature means today beyond the functionality that is attributed to it in L2 courses. We need to re-align our goals constantly, to return to a progressive curriculum where one can choose the course of one's development. The success and development of LOTE is also about fostering opportunities for PhD candidates to learn and reflect more about what they may not like to teach, which is the prescriptive 100–200-level courses that they often must teach in lieu of tenure-track faculty, who often teach "literature" at R1 institutions — except for Liberal Arts colleges and other types of universities where one teaches at all levels.
Most LOTE literature professors will not end up in R1 institutions that focus on literary research and thematic seminars. They will be teaching introductory language courses and occasionally upper level courses that will feel like intermediate courses due to most students’ still developing language competency. Surely this is not an either or scenario that I am painting. You either focus on literature or linguistics, which is a silly divide. But I do think it is important that PhD programs reevaluate their purpose in society as gatekeepers of tradition. It is also important that the needs of the general population that literature professors serve be taken into account. For these needs may not involve studying literature.
As Derrida insisted, we can't analyze language today without accounting for the power of the written word. The issue, then, is not to eliminate canonic literature, but rather to frame it differently and respect equally other forms of linguistic manifestation. Some professors may say, "but I include paintings, movies, graffiti in my syllabi." My question, however, would be: how much and in what context and for what communicative purpose and with the approval of whom?
