On December 21, Terra Linda principal, Ms. Dunlap made an announcement that the French program at Terra Linda would be coming to an end. For the 54 students currently enrolled in French, this decision was met with sadness and disagreement. “Honestly it’s kind of disappointing because I’ve worked so long [in French],” shared freshman Sebastian Diaconu, a French 2 student.
In the email, authored by Ms. Dunlap, the reason cited for the removal of the French program was low enrollment. Dunlap explained there are several reasons for the decreasing enrollment in French, one of them being renewed interest in taking other languages. “It’s really been students looking at taking Spanish, so the numbers have just gotten smaller and smaller in French,” Ms. Dunlap said.
Interest in Spanish, however, is not the only reason enrollment in French has been so low. A few years into Dunlap’s career as principal at TL, Miller Creek Middle School lost their French program. According to Dunlap, once feeder elementary and middle schools stop offering language programs, it becomes harder to recruit students to take those classes in high school.
“When that happened about seven or eight years ago, we really saw the decrease,” Ms. Dunlap said. Which leads us to today, where only 52 students are enrolled in French compared to the 349 students enrolled in Spanish. “Despite everything we’ve done to try and get students more interested in French, it seems the pull to Spanish is so highly desired.”
So what does this mean for the students currently enrolled in French? At the moment, they have two options: either continue their French journey online or take another language and halt all current progress made with French. Both options have their share of disadvantages.
If students decide to continue taking French, their only choice is to enroll in online classes through a community college or a different approved program. To many, this option is not as desirable as in-person classes due to the lack of opportunity for speaking and collaboration. “The classes online don’t work very well, and they especially don’t work well in language,” Mr. Gasquy, TL French teacher, said. “You lose so much in terms of communication when the person is not physically in front of you.”
French is a language that has a strong component of body language and hand gestures. “You interact with not only words, but with the body as well,” Mr. Gasquy explains. This means that students who decide to continue French online will not be learning in the same immersive way as those who are taught in classrooms.
Alternatively, TL French students could choose to pivot from learning French and start over with either a Spanish or ASL course offered at TL. However, because graduation requirements cite two years of a consecutive language, current freshman French students will have to take at least two semesters of ASL or two years of Spanish. Following this path would mean losing all current progress made in French. For most, this isn’t an option.
“I have been in the French program for 3 years, and it’s really frustrating,” freshman Linden Levy said, explaining how the French program throughout middle school was rocky at best. “The program was shut down, the teacher left…it was a really awful learning experience. Then I came to high school, and I was so excited that there [was] finally going to be a stable French program for me.”
Even with the disappointment surrounding the French program’s closure, there is little to no chance of its revival. “I have never, as an administrator, seen a program go away and come back,” Dunlap said, reflecting on her experience as an administrator with the removal of school programs. This is sad for many, but especially incoming and current Spanish speaking students. Once French is removed, Spanish and English bilingual students will have no opportunity to learn a new spoken language at TL. “It’s an absolute tragedy for me,” Dunlap said.
Even though the end of the French program was an overdue inevitability, it was met with sadness from staff, teachers, and students alike.
