German Language Teaching and Teacher Training at Colleges and Universities in the US

Transcription

1 German Language Teaching and Teacher Training at Colleges and Universities in the US Summary of Results of Online Survey Conducted Between April 7-24, 2003 By Megan Brenn-White May 2003 The survey was conducted by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in cooperation with the American Association of German Teachers (AATG) and the Goethe-Institut (GI)

2 Table of Contents Introduction...3 Key Findings...5 Respondents...6 Training...8 Additional Assistance...9 Overall Numbers of Types of Teachers...11 Types of Teachers Present Per Institution...12 Percentage of Language Classes Taught By Type...13 Native Speakers...14 Duration of Stay at Institution...16 Tenure...17 Some Conclusions and Further Questions...18 Appendix

3 Introduction Background: The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and its partner institutions the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and Goethe-Institut (GI) agree that language teaching should be treated as a serious profession conducted by trained professionals. Among the members of these organizations, there has been a growing feeling that students were receiving instruction primarily from teaching assistants, instructors, and adjunct professors who may not be at a particular institution long enough to receive appropriate training and for whom teaching is not a primary focus. It would seem to be a bare minimum to expect that language instructors would receive some training throughout their careers, but this is not necessarily the case. The two main goals of this survey were to understand better who is presently teaching German at colleges and universities in the United States and whether these people need support. By better understanding who is responsible for the instruction, we hope to be able to offer the right kinds of assistance to the institutions and individuals involved, ultimately improving the quality of language training and the training of language professionals. The survey was sent to the 1003 four-year institutions across the United States that were believed to currently offer German (based on information from the Modern Language Association and the Max Kade Institute). More detailed information about the 237 respondents can be found below. Each of the respondents were assigned a number based on the Carnegie Classification system (see Appendix for full definitions of classifications and breakdown of survey respondents), which primarily relates to their size and which degrees are offered. Group A is made up of Doctoral/Research Universities (Class 1 and 2), Group B is made up of Master s Universities and Colleges (Class 3 and 4), and Group C is made up of Baccalaureate Colleges (Class 5 and 6). By breaking down the results based on this classification system, we were trying to understand if particular programs and assistance would be necessary for different types of institutions. Survey Overview: The questions in this survey were designed to paint a complete picture of the body of people teaching German in four-year colleges and universities in the US. Survey participants were asked to focus their responses on straightforward language classes (i.e., a German film class in German would not be included in this tally, while German 101 would). While combining content with pure language instruction is a critical part of language instruction at every level, we wanted to focus on those classes where the purpose was primarily to advance a student s language skills. 3

4 The survey began with basic questions about the institutions, including whether they were private or public, how many students took German courses per semester, and how many hours per week German is taught. This led to more specific questions about teacher training which included what type of training, if any, institutions currently provide their teachers and what they think would be most helpful to supplement these efforts. The bulk of the survey contained specific questions about the types of German language teachers 1, including Teaching Assistants, Instructors, Adjunct Professors, Assistant Professors, Associate Professor, and (full) Professors. For each of these categories it was asked: what percentage were native German speakers, how long they generally teach at an institution, what percentage of the overall teaching load this category is responsible for, and, for all Professor categories, if they are tenure or tenure-track positions. 1 Note: The more-generic term teacher will be used when referring to the general category of these language teachers, as the title Instructor (which may be a more appropriate general term for someone at the college or university level) is already in use as one of the types of teachers examined in this survey. 4

5 Key Findings Overall Numbers of Types of Teachers: The largest single category of teachers is Teaching Assistants who made up 31% of the entire group. The next largest groups were Professors (18%), Associate Professors (18%), Assistant Professors (10%), Instructors (14%), and Adjunct Professors (9%). It is critical to note that nearly 89% of all Teaching Assistants were to be found at Class 1 institutions with over 92% at Class 1 and 2 combined. Inconsistent training: Only 58% of all institutions offer any kind of training to their German language teachers (51% of public institutions and 67% of private). Training was much more likely to be offered at larger institutions with 55% of Group A reporting they have additional training as compared to 36% and 35% of Groups B and C, respectively. Additional Assistance: The most desired methods of additional assistance are: trips to German-speaking countries (56% mentioned this as desirable), teaching materials/documents (52%), networking with other German departments and teachers (45%), and additional staff members (34%). The order in which the potential areas of support were rated did not change across the groups, except for publication assistance, which was important to Group A but hardly mentioned for Groups B and C. Types of Teachers per Institution: 46% of institutions reported the presence of one or more Professors teaching German, with an additional 42% reporting Associate Professors and 29% Assistant Professors. Interestingly, only 19% of respondents reported having Teaching Assistants, almost all of which were at larger institutions. Adjunct and Instructors were present at 30% and 29% of institutions, respectively. Teaching Load per Type: When there are one or more Professors at an institution, they teach an average of 41% of the classes, with Associate Professors taking on 40%, and Teaching Assistants accounting for 19% of the total hours of instruction. 2 Native Speakers: While 53% of all institutions reported that none of their instructors are native German speakers, 39% selected about half, most, or all. Instructors and Full Professors are the groups most likely to contain no native speakers, with 53% and 59% of institutions reporting this for those groups, respectively. 2 Note: the numbers will add up to more than 100% because not every type of teacher is present at every university. 5

6 Duration: Nearly half of all types of teachers stay at their institution for 10+ years (47%), compared with only 9% who are there for less than 1 year, 8% for 1-2 years, 15% for 3-5, and 20% for Respondents The 237 respondents represented a geographically diverse group of 4-year institutions from 44 different states. The institutions are 52% private and 48% public. That is close to the overall breakdown of institutions, which is 58% private and 42% public. 3 The survey was sent to the heads of the German language departments or a person in a related position. The Carnegie Classifications for these types of institutions overall are 18% Doctoral/Research (Classes 1 and 2), 41% Master s Colleges and Universities (Classes 3 and 4), and 41% Baccalaureate Colleges (Classes 5, 6 and 7). 4 For the survey respondents, 30% (70) fell in the first category, 39% (89) in the second, and 31% (72) in the third 5, which means that the Doctoral/Research category is overrepresented in our survey. This is important because this is the category where Teaching Assistants are most likely to be employed and where the class sizes are much larger than on average. This does not affect any of the analysis based on types of categories, but means that the overall picture will be skewed towards those larger institutions and the numbers have not been corrected to take this into account. 3 Carnegie Classification, 2000, 4 Ibid. 5 Six institutions were not 4-year colleges or universities and were removed from the survey. 6

7 Table 1: Number of Survey Respondents by Carnegie Classification Number of Respondents other Carnegie Classification The average number of students participating in German language courses per university or college per semester was 97, with 91 respondents (38%) reporting that they had 60 or less students per semester. Around 20% (47) of respondents had between 20 and 39 students, while 30% (72) had over 100. For public institutions, the average was 147, while private institutions reporting a smaller number of 52. The average for Class 1 was 235 students, Class 2 was 101, Class 3 was 63, Class 4 was 40, Class 5 was 48, and Class 6 was % of respondents stated that German language classes were offered at their institution 9 or less hours per week, although this number may be slightly higher due to a misunderstanding of the question (i.e., answering for the average number of a single German class rather than the total number of hours taught). 6 The average was 12 hours per week. 20% answered that German is taught between hours per week, with the remaining 16% reporting over 19 hours of week of language instruction. It would be interesting in a future survey to explore how many students were in an average course. This group was very responsive to this topic and medium, with 26% of the successful s resulting in a completed online survey. It is likely that the 6 We can see this potential misunderstanding when we look at the responses based on the different types of institutions. Class 1 and 2 should be much larger, given their much larger student size, unless they also have much larger classes. This is undoubtedly true, although particularly the Class 1 responses seem unusually small. They answered the total number of hours taught as follows: Class 1 reported 18 hours on average, Class 2 reported 29, Class 3 reported 10, Class 4 reported 10, Class 5 reported 9, and Class 6 reported 5. 7

8 familiar names attached to the survey that helped achieve the 42% click rate on the and the over 50% rate of people who then went on to complete the survey. Results in Detail Training As mentioned above, there is only a slight majority (58%) of institutions that reported offering any additional training to their teachers. The private institutions fared much better (67%) than the public (51%), likely reflecting greater financial and other resources. Table 2: Do you offer training to German language instructors? When we look at this question with the Carnegie Classification taken into consideration, we can see that the larger institutions are much more likely to offer training. 8

9 Table 3: Percentage by Type of Institution that Offer Training Percentage Offering Training Carnegie Classification In an open-ended response section, the institutions that did offer some form of training for their instructors primarily mentioned the following forms: travel grants for conferences, standard ongoing faculty development support, and methodology or pedagogy courses. Additional Assistance Respondents were asked which kinds of additional outside assistance would be most beneficial to improve the quality of German language teaching at their institution. Respondents were able to select multiple types of assistance so the numbers will add up to more than 100%. 136 participants said that trips to Germany for faculty or students would be welcome (57%), with additional teaching materials (126 participants or 53%) and increased networking opportunities (114 participants or 48%) being the next most-selected options. 9

10 Table 4: What would help your department improve the quality of German language teaching? 6. What would help your department improve the quality of the German-language teaching? Publication Assistance 13.9 % Further training 20.3 % Additional staff members 35.0 % More netw orking w ith other German departments and teachers 47.7 % Teaching materials/documents 51.9 % Trips to Germany for teachers and/or students 56.5 % 0 50 Percent As you can see from Table 2, the general category of further training and publication assistance were less desirable although they were still mentioned by 20% (48) and 13% (32) of respondents as being helpful. This may be due to the fact that many of the teachers are not in the academic category that would be most concerned with publication and that the link between publication and quality of teaching may not be perceived as being as strong in foreign languages as it is in other areas. Additionally, we ve seen that the institutions that do offer some form of training seem to provide general faculty development that they may see as similar to the category of further training. Interestingly, the order of the type of additional assistance desired did not change significantly based on Carnegie Classification. With the larger schools, a higher percentage said that they would like publication assistance (32% for Group A, 19% for Group B, and 8% for Group C), but there are not many other large differences across types of institutions. Other support that respondents also mentioned they would find helpful included: general classroom materials such as movies or DVDs, travel opportunities for 10

11 both students and teachers, funding for a language lab, a Teaching Assistant coordinator, and general funding for additional training, workshops and networking. Many of these options are currently offered by the DAAD, the GIIN, or the AATG, but we cannot be certain if the respondents are already aware of and taking advantage of these programs or if they just make up part of their wish list. As a first step, it is important to determine awareness and make certain that it is clear to as many institutions as possible that the DAAD, GIIN, and AATG offer travel grants, teaching materials, networking opportunities and many of the other categories that these universities say would help improve their programs. In the section for open comments here, people also took advantage of the opportunity to express their fears about major budget cuts for their departments, with several saying that German was no longer (or would soon no longer) be offered at all. On the other hand, there definitely seems to be a need for additional staff members which would indicate that some departments are unable to provide adequately for student interest in the topic. Overall Numbers of Types of Teachers As you can see in Table 5 below, the Teaching Assistant was the most common single type of German language teacher, representing just under one-third (281 or 31%) of the 910 total teachers reported by the respondents. This fact is not surprising, considering that most graduate students teach to gain experience and in exchange for funding. When Teaching Assistants were present at an institution, there were, on average, six of them currently teaching German. That is a much higher number than Instructors, Associate Professors, and Professors (each with an average of 2) or Adjunct and Assistant professors (average 1). That said, 47% of the total staff members teaching German was some type of Professor, with 18% being Full (likely tenured or tenure-track, see below) Professors. Adjuncts and Instructors, who are generally part-time, made up about a quarter of the staff. 11

12 Table 5: Percentages of Overall Numbers of Teachers by Title 18% 14% 9% Instructor Adjunct Professor Teaching Assistant Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor 18% 10% 31% Other titles mentioned by respondents as being responsible for German language instruction were Professors Emeritus, Language Assistants, native German speakers, Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Preceptor, and Tutor. Types of Teachers Present Per Institution Interestingly, although we ve seen that nearly one-third of all teachers were classified as Teaching Assistants, only 19% (45) of the participating institutions reported having any Teaching Assistants currently teaching German. This is primarily because, as stated above, the institutions that have Teaching Assistants generally have several due to the structure of their graduate programs resulting in this greater overall number of this category of teacher. In regards to the prevalence of Teaching Assistants, 28% of Group A institutions reported having Assistants, around 1% of Group B, and 15% of Group C. The first number seems rather small for research institutions while the number for Group B (Master s Institutions) also seems surprisingly small. Additionally, the assumption had been that Baccalaureate institutions (Group C) would not have Teaching Assistants as they are normally graduate students, so the fact that 15% of them do have Teaching Assistants actively teaching language classes is also interesting. This is an area that would certainly merit further research, especially 12

13 as the assumption has been that Teaching Assistants receive less support and training than full-time faculty members. The categories of teachers that are much more likely to be represented in a typical department are Associate Professors and Full Professors, which were each reported as present by 42% and 46% of the institutions, respectively. 30% of all the respondents reported having at least one Instructor, at least one Assistant Professor, or at least one Adjunct Professor. Table 6: Percentage Reporting Presence of Certain Types of Teachers Instructor Adjunct Professor Teaching Assistant Assistant Professor Associate Professor Professor The fact that the types of teachers are relatively evenly spread across the institutions may present a challenge when it comes to providing support. Instructors and Adjunct Professors, who rarely have much contact with an institution and may be more difficult to reach, make up a full 25% of the entire total number of teachers. When combined with the Teaching Assistants, who may or may not be interested in language teaching as a career and who are certainly at an institution for a finite period of time, this group of more transient employees tops 54%. It is very likely that the types of programs that may appeal to this group will be different than the ones that should be designed to assist the probably tenured or tenure-track Assistant, Associate, or full Professors, and is certainly something to be taken into consideration. Percentage of Language Classes Taught By Type To get an idea of who is actually standing in front of the classroom, we can look at respondents replies to the question: What percentage of German language classes are taught by (category X i.e., teaching assistant, instructor, etc.)? These numbers will not add up to 100% as not all categories of teacher are present at every institution. 13

14 Table 5 gives the overview of responses, which were filtered to exclude institutions reporting that a certain category was not present. This means that all responses of 0% from institutions that do not have a particular type of teacher present will not affect the results. As we can see from the chart below, when Teaching Assistants are present at institutions, they are responsible for an average of 19% of the overall teaching. Associate Professors and Professors are each responsible for an average of over one third overall teaching 40% and 41% respectively). Table 7: What percentage of German language classes overall are taught per category? Category of Teacher Average Percentage of Hours Taught Per Institution Instructors 29% Adjunct Professors 28% Teaching Assistants 19% Assistant Professors 23% Associate Professors 40% Professors 41% It is interesting that the Teaching Assistants are responsible for so little of the overall teaching when they are present, although one explanation would be that the institutions that are large enough to have Teaching Assistants (generally Group A) probably have more staff amongst which the teaching load can be divided. Instructors and Adjunct Professors are each responsible for a fair amount of the teaching and are present at a large number of institutions, which again brings up the challenge of how to best support this non-attached group. Native Speakers A slight majority of respondents (53%) reported that they had no native speakers teaching German at their institution. This means that students studying German at over half of the colleges and universities in the US will never take a course with a native speaker. Hearing the language spoken by and learning about the culture from a native is something that offers its own particular benefits, and it would be interesting to see how the other foreign languages would stack up in this area. The categories where it was most likely that all of 14

15 that category of teacher were native speakers were Associate and Assistant professors with 33% and 28%, respectively. Table 8: What percentage of teachers are native speakers? 24% None Some About half Most All 5% 10% 8% 53% 63% of institutions reported that at least some of their Teaching Assistants were native speakers, with 25% reporting that most or all of them were. 60% of respondents reported that none of their Professors were native speakers, with only 24% reporting that most or all of this entire category were. Associate Professors were also a category where over half of the institutions (55%) reported that none were native speakers, but, interestingly 33% of the institutions reported that all were this is the highest percentage seen of a complete category of native speakers. Looking at the other categories, 47% of institutions reported that there were no native speakers among their Assistant Professors, while that number was 59% for Adjuncts, and 53% for Instructors. Table 9: What percentage of each type of teacher at your institution are native German speakers? None Some About half Most All 15

16 Instructor 50.90% 5.50% 11.80% 11.80% 20.00% Adjunct Professor 55.70% 5.20% 9.30% 5.20% 24.70% Teaching Assistant 26.30% 29.80% 12.30% 5.30% 26.30% Assistant Professor 48.10% 7.60% 13.90% 1.30% 29.10% Associate Professors 52.50% 5.00% 6.90% 1.00% 34.70% Professors 58.80% 7.00% 11.40% 1.80% 21.10% Interestingly, the percentage of schools reporting that none of their teachers are native speakers rises as the school size decreases, as you can see in Table 10 below. Categories 4 and 6 are quite small (with only 9 and 26 institutions, respectively), so this graph may overemphasize the general trend. It is clear, however, that Class 1 colleges and universities are the least likely to have no native speakers teaching the language. Table 10: Percentage Reporting No Native German Speakers Carnegie Classification Duration of Stay at Institution Although there is a general sense that German is taught by part-time teachers (especially Teaching Assistants) who do not stay very long at any particular institution, over 43% of all the types of teachers stayed for 10+ years at their respective institutions. Table 7 below shows that the overwhelming majority of instructors (68%) will actually be present at any one institution for at least 5 years. Table 11: Average Duration of Employment of All Types of German language Teachers 16

17 Less than Avreage Number of Years of Employment Looking at the different categories of instructors, there is a fairly clear progression in terms of level of staff and the amount of time they spend at an institution. Around 94% of the respondents reported that their Professors were present for 10+ years at their institutions. 84% reported the same for Associates. By the time we get to the Assistant level, however, that number of 10+ years drops to 23% and 38% of the institutions report that the average Assistant is present only 5-10 years (still a significant amount of time). Teaching Assistants, as expected, are rarely employed as teachers for longer than 5 years (98% reported that their Teaching Assistants stayed an average of 5 or less years, with 63% reporting that it was 2 or less years). Adjunct Professors had a bit more longevity with 30% staying 5+ years and around the same number remaining for 2 or less. The category Instructor is one that is reported to have a surprisingly long duration of employment with a full 26% of institutions reporting that Instructors remain 10+ years and only 18% staying two or less. Tenure The percentage of tenured professionals in this group also provides information about the duration of their employment, as well as an idea of their rank and status within their institutions and departments. Because they are, by definition, non-tenure track positions, the question of tenure was not asked of the teaching assistants, instructors, or adjunct professors. Professors, unsurprisingly, were the most likely to be reported as tenured or tenure-track with a full 94% of institutions reporting that 100% of their 17

18 Professors teaching German fell into this category. 87% of respondents indicated that 100% of their Associate Professors were tenured or tenure-track, while only 68% of Assistant Professors were reported as such. A recent MLA Newsletter stated that, slightly more than one-third of the faculty is full-time tenured and tenure track, 7 which roughly corresponds to the findings for German departments in our survey (given that 46% of all German teachers were full, Associate, or Assistant Professors.) On a subjective basis, tenure may mean that full Professors at research institutions many of whom have had years to develop their own distinctive teaching styles may have less incentive to continue to improve their teaching skills while they focus on their research. On the other hand, they will almost certainly have more of an impact on the direction of the department and could create real positive changes in how the language instruction is perceived within this setting. For the tenured faculty members at the smaller, non-research institutions, one can assume that they are actively engaged in the language instruction and may be able to take more personal advantage of some of the services offered by the DAAD, AATG, and the GIIN. Some Conclusions and Further Questions It seems as if this survey revealed some facts that may be surprising to many working in or with foreign language departments colleges and universities. Firstly, there are fewer institutions with Teaching Assistants than expected and they are responsible for less overall teaching time as well. The Professors and Associate Professors really come out as the major factors in German education, representing both large absolute numbers of teachers as well as a large percentage of teaching time. Secondly, the group as a whole stays longer at these institutions than may have been predicted, likely also a result of the larger percentage of tenured and tenure-track professionals teaching German. Thirdly, further teacher training is not something that is offered as a matter of course. It is only a narrow majority of public institutions that offer their German faculty any additional training, something one may think would be fairly standard. An overall finding seems to be that while experiences and needs of larger schools with graduate programs is likely different from those of smaller schools where the focus is on undergraduate education, their perceived needs for additional assistance were quite similar. It would be extremely interesting to complete additional research into just how different they really are and what they may be able to learn from each other. If they could actually use similar types of assistance (thus implying that they may face similar challenges), networking groups might be an excellent place for them to share information and best 7 Trends in Faculty Staffing and the Future of the Academic Workforce, MLA Newsletter, Summer 2003, page 5. 18

19 practices that would be more relevant to institutions of all sizes and types than one would initially believe. To explore the issue further it would be important to follow the results of this group over time to see how much of these findings were affected by the currently poor economic situation and/or general trends in language education or teacher training. It would be interesting to survey the actual teachers, as opposed to a department head, to gain a better understanding of what may be needed on an individual level. Questions that arose during this study for inclusion in future surveys would be: percentages of full-time/part-time employees, numbers of students per course, whether or not institutions offer majors or minors in German, correlations between the level of language classes and the type of person teaching it, pay rates, general qualifications of the teachers including highest degree earned, what kinds of programs/resources are offered for language teacher training, and in which department German teaching is situated. Appendix Definitions of Carnegie Classifications from The 2000 Carnegie Classification, The 2000 Carnegie Classification includes all colleges and universities in the United States that are degree-granting and accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education. The 2000 edition classifies institutions based on their degree-granting activities from through (Group A) Doctorate-granting Institutions (Class 1) Doctoral/Research Universities Extensive: These institutions typically offer a wide range of baccalaureate programs, and they are committed to graduate education through the doctorate. During the period studied, they awarded 50 or more doctoral degrees per year across at least 15 disciplines. (Class 2) Doctoral/Research Universities Intensive: These institutions typically offer a wide range of baccalaureate programs, and they are committed to graduate education through the doctorate. During the period studied, they awarded at least ten doctoral degrees per year across three or more disciplines, or at least 20 doctoral degrees per year overall. 19

20 (Group B) Master's Colleges and Universities (Class 3) Master's Colleges and Universities I: These institutions typically offer a wide range of baccalaureate programs, and they are committed to graduate education through the master's degree. During the period studied, they awarded 40 or more master's degrees per year across three or more disciplines. (Class 4) Master's Colleges and Universities II: These institutions typically offer a wide range of baccalaureate programs, and they are committed to graduate education through the master's degree. During the period studied, they awarded 20 or more master's degrees per year. (Group C) Baccalaureate Colleges (Class 5) Baccalaureate Colleges Liberal Arts: These institutions are primarily undergraduate colleges with major emphasis on baccalaureate programs. During the period studied, they awarded at least half of their baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts fields. (Class 6) Baccalaureate Colleges General: These institutions are primarily undergraduate colleges with major emphasis on baccalaureate programs. During the period studied, they awarded less than half of their baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts fields. 20