World languages teachers at Illinois State University said the state of Illinois needs to do more to support world languages education.
Illinois passed a law in 2021 requiring two years of foreign language to graduate, effective 2028. Those requirements were loosened this year to allow high school students to skip foreign language classes if they take Career and Technical Education [CTE] classes that prepare students for future careers like engineering, science or health care.
“This was enacted, and then nothing was done,” said Sue Hildebrandt, professor of applied linguistics and Spanish. “Nobody reached out to us. Nobody put any supports into place. Not to build up the cadre of world language teachers, nor to train and prepare the in-service teachers to teach all students.”
The effects of the nationwide teaching shortage are being acutely felt in foreign language classrooms. It means the almost 50 teacher education students — less than half the number that were in the program a decade and a half prior — in ISU’s world languages program will quickly find a job after graduation. But Hildebrandt said finding a good situation is the hard part.
“They're going to teach all four levels, or five, maybe, if they're in a rural district. They are an 'N' of one, and it is very lonely. If they're in a large, well-heeled district, well, then they'll have colleagues. If they're in a small rural district, they're not going to have colleagues, they're not going to be paid well, and it's very lonely, very isolated.”
Hildebrandt said state legislators must find ways to encourage more people to become language teachers, but the state law requirements being loosened may have the opposite effect.
“We need educators with multilingual skills across the curriculum, and we specifically need language teachers enabled to put this requirement into practice,” said Juliet Lynd, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Culture at ISU.
“We need students to be taking their language classes not just to check off a requirement that they don't understand the origin of, but to satisfy that curiosity and need to expand our communicative skills across cultural borders and linguistic borders.”
AI and the humanities
Artificial Intelligence has been perceived by some as a potential replacement for the need to learn foreign languages.
“As I look at the value of foreign language, it's not that I'm saying that there's no value in it, I just think that there's a much higher value in other skills that are irreplaceable by AI,” said state Rep. Travis Weaver, a Republican representing the rural area between Peoria and the Quad Cities. He supported the bill allowing for CTE courses to be taken instead when it passed through the legislature.
“Well, technology can help you with certain transactions. And it should, that's great. I think it's wonderful that we have those tools when you don't have the language skills that you need,” said Lynd.
“But the skills of genuine communication, empathy, cultural understanding, cultural knowledge, understanding how societies operate, understanding diversity within societies, within our own society, understanding the challenges of multilingual societies is fundamental, and good language teaching gets at that,” added Lynd.
Another thing AI lacks, Hildebrandt said, is the critical thinking taught and developed across the humanities. She said those who studied in the humanities will have the lived experience and consciousness that AI language models can never attain.
“They're going to have those skills that AI just can't reason through. They can't. They don't have that human touch, that human perspective, and they never will.”
Political and cultural shifts
Hildebrandt said she's "ashamed" by some of the current political attacks against cultural and ethnic diversity, which hurts her field.
“I'm saddened. I mourn. We've always had a lot of improvement to be done in this country, but the point that we're at is shameful,” said Hildebrandt.
As of July 11, 65,765 people were in ICE detention, according to a public database tracked by Syracuse University. The Trump administration has dismantled programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion through canceling grants and firing federal workers. The Department of Homeland Security promoted "remigration" — a political concept championed by the far-right advocating for mass deportation of non-white immigrants — through multiple social media posts last year.
Lynd said there is no quick fix for the rise in anti-immigrant and anti-diversity sentiments.
“That said, I still believe in education as a space that opens minds and open hearts and fosters curiosity and understanding and deepens people's knowledge about how our own societies work, how other people's societies work,” said Lynd.
“I cry every day. Children are suffering. They're seeing their parents shot. They're seeing their parents taken away. The damage that we're doing is going to ripple across generations,” said Hildebrandt.
