Long Island Association (LIA) board member Spencer Ross, president of the National Institute for World Trade, will receive the Senator Paul Simon New York State Friend of Foreign Language Award at the New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers, Inc. (NYSAFLT) Annual Conference Awards Banquet on October 16, 2010 in Rochester, NY.

 

The award is presented annually to a person or organization demonstrating exemplary support for foreign language education. With a 50-year career in international trade, Ross emphasizes the need for the U.S. future workforce to be able to speak the languages and understand the cultures of its customers, in an increasingly competitive world. Ross mentioned our major markets are shifting toward such areas as Asia and Brazil.

 

“Our emphasis in our public schools has been on the romance languages but our programs must be expanded to include the languages of these emerging markets. Our private schools are doing a reasonable job at K-12 levels, but our public school students are far behind,” Ross said.

 

The objective, which Ross supports, is for students to speak at least three languages upon graduation from high school, with an emphasis on “new trade languages” such as Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese. Even the European nations, where many secondary school graduates can speak several European languages, have realized that they must achieve competence in those new languages if they are to be competitive.

 

The initiative suggests fast-track certification for “heritage teachers” for K-12 education. Heritage individuals, desirous of embarking on teaching careers and fluent in many of the new languages, may require a fast-track certification process and a system which will permit practical training under the guidance of already certified language teachers.

 

Ross emphasized that this is a long term program, not terribly appealing to politicians whose constituents are now clamoring for short-term results.   

 

“There are examples of model public schools across the U.S. which have recognized the problem and have added these new languages, but these are rare. New York, despite its depth of multi-cultural citizens and a long tradition of excellence in education, is surprisingly well behind other states in adapting to the new realities. We hope we can play a role in changing that situation,” Ross said.

 

Ross chairs the LIA World Trade Committee which meets monthly at the LIA headquarters in Melville. For information on joining the World Trade Committee, or any of the LIA strategic committees, contact Claire Fratello: CFratello@longislandassociation.org.

 

For more on NYSAFLT, visit: www.nysaflt.org.


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