FLEX: The Acronym and the Entity

Abstract

In the early seventies Wilga M. Rivers called for the development of two-stage foreign language programs. Her first stage was to an end in itself and not merely the elementary stage of Two and certainly not pre-anything with four components: 1. an introduction to language itself through a specific foreign language; 2. an introduction to another people through language; 3. an experience of being another people; and 4. an experience of communicating with another people.' Other influences in the seventies gave impetus to the evolution of the kind of Stage One Rivers defined: foreign language teachers' desires to recruit greater segments of their schools' total student population into second language study, the emergence of the middle school with its strong emphasis upon the special characteristics of adolescent learners and their needs for exploratory learning experiences, and the needs to strengthen the early phases of foreign language study and to reduce attrition. FLEX, not to be confused with FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary School), is the acronym used to identify the self-contained pre-sequence foreign language exploratory course offerings or programs which have evolved.