Why all Ohio universities should offer language immersion days

Kirsten Halling, OFLA Public Relations & Advocacy Chair
Professor of French, Wright State UniversityPascale Abadie, Teacher Recruitment & Retention Chair
Associate Professor of French, Wright State University

World language instructors are up against a wall in today’s post-Covid tech age. According to a November 16, 2023 article in Inside Higher Ed, university language studies fell 29.3% between 2009 and 2021. Further, a 2017 Pew Research Center study found that just 20% of American high school students study a foreign language. As language professionals in this monolingual environment, secondary school and university instructors are highly conscious that mastering the art of promotion and advocacy can mean the difference between a successful program and a cancellation. A significant part of the world language teacher job description involves knowing how to convincingly convey why it is important to study language and culture, but we fear that our message seems to fall on deaf ears. We can attribute the fall in enrollment to many causes: the priority placed on STEM and Core classes, the silo mindset predominant during the pandemic, and the erroneous belief that translation apps can replace language skills and human communication. Fighting language apathy cannot be a lone battle. Joining language teaching organizations such as OFLA is a first step in developing community and sharing ideas. Articulation between secondary school and college-level language departments can provide another form of support for all parties involved. 

At Wright State University, we have been holding language immersion days in French and Spanish for over twenty years and have found this to be a key to our survival and strength. We firmly believe that supporting our friends, former students, and colleagues in area high schools has greatly contributed to our unlikely survival and, in the case of French, has allowed us to maintain a relatively large department given current conditions. We, four full-time language instructors, have nurtured strong relationships with the Dayton world language teacher community, and have benefited in multiple ways from this symbiotic relationship.

The jewel in our crown and the key to our long, respectful relationships with area teachers has been the French Immersion Day held every fall (except during the Covid years). We choose a theme and reserve rooms in the Student Union over a year ahead of the event and begin planning in earnest in the summer before classes resume. Each of our faculty and some of our spouses have defined roles: promotion, outreach to area teachers, working with catering, parking services, facilities management, tee-shirt design, ordering tee-shirts, grant applications, and budget (We use registration fees to pay for room rental, tech support, meals, and French-themed bling.) We work with catering or local restaurants to cater lunch, reach out to the School of Music to provide live music, and  incorporate our student volunteers into every activity.  Student volunteers set up and take down, work the registration desk, participate in the Francophone flag parade, time the sessions, and manage the jail, where those who are caught speaking English must create a poem using Magnetic poetry. On the day of the event, we all take part in the registration, opening ceremonies, and lunch entertainment. In addition, each of us plans and prepares a break-out session for the smaller, interactive activities. Twenty-minute sessions are related to the year’s theme (such as the Paris Olympics in 2024) and include a Zumba-style dance, a food tasting, a lesson followed by a trivia game, and a traditional French game.

While organizing a university-sponsored language day involves a lot of work, the rewards are countless. Each year, we host around 200 high school French students with their teachers, many of whom graduated from Wright State. Our aim is to give the students a non-threatening platform for practicing the language. They often arrive at the event feeling intimidated and leave giggling. Students have told their teachers that they were “surprised” by how much they knew and how the event boosted their confidence. Second, the college student volunteers engage with the students in peer instruction and enjoy working with their instructors to help the day go smoothly. Such hands-on learning is a true example of high-impact, experiential learning and helps students develop a connection to the language program by feeling invested. Finally, this is considered a recruiting event as it brings high school students to campus for a positive academic experience. Students who may have never previously visited campus are now potential freshmen. Given the nature of the event, sources of inside funding are usually available for support and administrators look kindly on the event, even offering to officially greet the students during the opening ceremony.

It is our belief that high school and university cooperation plays a huge role in the success of language programs at both levels. We at Wright State University would be thrilled to share our folders, expertise, and advice with any faculty from Ohio colleges and universities who are thinking of organizing a Language Immersion Day. We cannot express how important this yearly event has been for our program, our students, and our community. Our next French Immersion Day will be held on Thursday, October 24, 2024. Spanish Immersion will be held the following week, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2024.

Devlin, Kat. “Most European Students Learn English in School.” April 9, 2020. Retrieved on January 6, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/09/most-european-students-learn-english-in-school/

Quinn, Ryan. “Foreign language enrolment sees steepest decline on record.” Inside Higher Ed. November 16, 2023. Retrieved on January 6, 2023. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/curriculum/2023/11/16/foreign-language-enrollment-sees-steepest-decline-record#:~:text=%E2%80%9CFollowing%20the%20historic%20peak%20in,there%20had%20been%20sustained%20growth.%E2%80%9D