The Foreign Language in Elementary Schools (FLES) program in Florida provides funds for foreign language instruction in elementary schools. Although the teaching of foreign languages at the elementary level had been established in a few districts, the state-funded program started in the 1982-83 school year. Local school districts match state funds on a one-toone basis for this program. Twenty-seven school districts, out of a total of sixty-seven in the state, are participating in the FLES program this school year. Spanish is the language taught in most of the programs. Two school districts are teaching French, one district is teaching German and another Latin. There are approximately 215 teachers and 47,000 students involved in the program, which is implemented in 185 public and 28 private schools throughout the state. These are only the teachers and students included in the state's FLES program. There are more participating in FLES programs implemented with local funds only. The total number of elementary students taking foreign languages, including Spanish for SpanishSpeakers, which is not funded through the program, is 111,151. The FLES program has been considered a pilot program since its creation. Every school year participation is open to all school districts and funds are prorated to every school district that wishes to participate up to the amount appropriated by the state legislature, which in 1989-90 was $2,939,396. The planning and implementation of the programs are left to school districts, with a few programmatic issues addressed by the state. These issues include: 1. That the program is designed to provide instruction in foreign languages to Englishspeaking students. 2. That the instructional delivery method, the frequency and intensity of instruction, and the instructional materials are consistent with basic principles of human growth and development. 3. That the program is integrated into the scho l district's scope and sequence for fo eign language instruction. 4. That the instructional program is delivered by teachers certified in the language(s) of instruction or by teachers certified in elementary education with proficiency in the language(s) of instruction. These criteria do not address the type of program to be offered. Therefore, school districts accommodate their programs to their individual needs. Most of the programs are of the FLES type with instruction ranging from three to five times a week and a variety of minutes per period. There are a few FLEX programs, usually at the sixth grade level, and one school district conducts a summer program that may be considered total immersion. An instructional TV program, Saludos, was produced by the Broward County School District and it is now used in many other school districts. This program is distributed free of charge to Florida school districts by the Florida Department of Education (DOE) Instructional Television. Certification coverage for all foreign languages was changed from 7-12 to K-12 levels in 1988. At that time, there were no courses in foreign language methods in the elementary school offered at any of the nine universities in the state system. That same year, the University of Florida (UF) was awarded a DOE grant to develop a syllabus that could be used both by universities and school districts to provide preservice and inservice training in this area. UF undertook national and state searches and surveys for the development of the syllabus. One of the terms of the grant required that the university conduct meetings with teachers, supervisors and teacher educators prior to the writing of the syllabus to receive their input and, after the syllabus was developed, to review its content. The one-semester syllabus, although perfect for preservice, was difficult to implement with foreign language teachers because many
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May 31, 2023
Bolajoko Margaret Tunde-Awe + 1
Open Access
