A recent UW-Madison report recommends better language education to prepare future workers for an increasingly global society.
The report is titled, “The Wisconsin Language Roadmap: Investing in Language Education for a World-Ready Wisconsin.” It was published by the university with input from the state Department of Public Instruction and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.
Gov.-elect Tony Evers, current state superintendent of public instruction, says in the report that the world is “interconnected, interdependent and fiercely competitive.”
“The best education prepares students for college and careers with our global community,” Evers wrote in the report. “Language and cultural learning are critical parts of that preparation.”
The report has three broad strategic goals underlined by more specific recommendations. The goals focus on developing: leadership and advocacy for language education; continuous and effective language programs for all students; and sustaining teacher language talent.
To support those goals, report authors recommend establishing state-level leadership to drive collaborative efforts, as well as increasing public support for learning initiatives centered around language and cultural understanding. They also say the state should expand opportunities for students to study abroad or find international internships.
It’s noted in the report that over 70 percent of the world’s purchasing power is located outside of the United States. WEDC Secretary and CEO Mark Hogan points to “tremendous shifts in middle class growth” outside of the country, that are making global trade participation a necessity, rather than a luxury.
Citing data from WEDC, report authors say some of the state’s business sectors have seen steady growth in global trade. Wisconsin was ranked 19th last year among U.S. states for total exports, up from 21st in 2016.
The report shows exports of Wisconsin goods grew 6.1 percent in 2017, with $22.3 billion in products going to 202 countries. More than 50 percent of the state’s exports go to its top three trading partners — Canada, Mexico and China — and top export categories are all strongly related to manufacturing.
“Global trade will become even more important to Wisconsin businesses as population and middle class wealth expands outside North America,” said Kurt Bauer, president and CEO of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.
He says that means world language education is “critically important” to give Wisconsin businesses a competitive advantage in the world market.
The report includes data from the 2016 U.S. Census American Community Survey, which shows over 91 percent of the state’s 5.4 million residents over the age of 5 speak only English at home. The other 9 percent speak a different language at home, and the majority say they speak English at least “very well.”
About 52 percent of those who speak another language at home indicated they speak Spanish; about 9 percent reported they speak Hmong; and about 6 percent said German is their main language at home.
Pulling from school data, over 100 different languages are spoken in the homes of Wisconsin students. Report authors say those figures show the state’s “significant” linguistic diversity, as well as the “substantial untapped potential” of those individuals’ cultural skills and various languages.
“Wisconsin’s enduring linguistic and cultural diversity is an asset to be valued and sustained,” report authors said.
Though much of the report focuses on languages spoken in other countries, one section highlights the historic and cultural languages spoken by Native American communities. Before European settlers came to the area now known as Wisconsin, indigenous groups spoke words stemming from the language families of Algonquian, Iroquoian and Siouan.
In Wisconsin today, 11 federally recognized American Indian nations and tribal communities speak six different languages: Ho-Chunk, Mahican, Menominee, Ojibwe, Oneida, and Potawatomi. Authors note those groups are “working to revitalize these languages and indeed their very ways of life.”
They say both learning and teaching such languages presents unique challenges.
“One such challenge is increasing the number of proficient second-language speakers of indigenous languages who also possess both the commitment and education credentials to teach these languages to the youngest generation and thus prevent language extinction,” report authors said.
The effort behind this report, called the Wisconsin Language Roadmap Initiative, was funded by a grant given to UW-Madison by the National Security Education Program of the U.S. Department of Defense.
See the full report here: http://wisconsinlanguageroadmap.wiscweb.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/356/2018/12/WI-Language-Roadmap.pdf
–By Alex Moe
WisBusiness.com
