An Interview with Michael Nugent: The Language Flagship

7.9.10 - Michael F.Shaughnessy - In 2007 I became the first Director of The Language Flagship, a program that was originally started as a pilot initiative by Robert Slater, Director of the National Security Education Program, or NSEP. Aside from being the Flagship Director, I am also the Deputy Director of NSEP.

Michael F.Shaughnessy

Eastern New Mexico University

Portales, New Mexico

Dr. Michael Nugent is deputy director of the National Security Education Program (NSEP), and director of The Language Flagship. Before coming to NSEP, Dr. Nugent worked on a number of international grant programs at the U.S. Department of Education. These include developing and directing the U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program and the North America Mobility in Higher Education Program at the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). He also served as Chief of Section,overseeing the Title VI funding of National Resource Centers, Foreign Language and Areas Studies grants, and the Language Resource Centers.

Dr. Nugent has served in policy positions as Vice President for Administration and Research at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) in Washington DC, and Deputy to the Chancellor for Systems Relations for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Author of "The Transformation of the Student Career: University study in Germany,
Sweden, and the Netherlands" (Routledge, 2004), he remains active in the field of international higher education policy.

Dr. Nugent has a PhD in higher education from Pennsylvania State University. He has been both a student of language and literature at universities in Germany, France, and Spain.

1) First of all, what is your exact title and what exactly would you say you do at the Flagship?

In 2007 I became the first Director of The Language Flagship, a program that was originally started as a pilot initiative by Robert Slater, Director of the National Security Education Program, or NSEP. Aside from being the Flagship Director, I am also the Deputy Director of NSEP.  As Flagship Director, I have the pleasure of working with many of the best researchers, practitioners, and innovators in language education in the United States. Though the Language Flagship provides support to over 23 institutions in the United States and 11 programs overseas, the Language Flagship is much more than a federal grant program. It is really a community of innovators. Much of what I do at the Language Flagship is to provide support to these innovators to develop effective means to teaching American undergraduates of all majors superior level language proficiency in selected languages.

2) How does the Flagship support second language learning?

The Language Flagship is about setting high expectations for American students of all majors to learn language while at the same time providing clear opportunities for them to do so.  One of the challenges in teaching undergraduates is that they only have so much time to complete their majors – and we are asking that they also learn language to a professional level of proficiency. “Professional level,” simply put, means that students can use their language skills without problem in their jobs or daily lives, not only writing reports or making presentations but also mastering the cultural skills appropriate of a polished global professional.  Reaching this level of language proficiency is particularly difficult in those languages that take longer to learn than others, such as Arabic, Chinese, or Russian. Flagship has achieved this goal first by supporting the Flagship community of innovators to establish clear standards and expectations for students, regardless of the language. Second, Flagship provides long-term support to institutions that agree to commit to changing the way undergraduates learn languages based on the shared practice, research, and outcomes of this community. It’s fine to set high standards, but students will not reach these standards unless we work together to systematically change the way we approach undergraduate studies.  

3) Why do you think it important that Americans learn a second language?

It is not only my opinion, but also the opinion increasingly of employers in government and business that if we do not radically change our educational experience to provide young Americans with the expectation that they learn languages, the U.S. workforce will not be able to keep up with the rest of the world in the ability to compete in a global market. Language learning is cultural learning. Students who develop a sophisticated ability to communicate in another language and culture are more adept at dealing effectively in a global marketplace, regardless of where they work – whether it be in the U.S. military, the foreign service, international trade or business. It is essential to our nation because the United States develops better trust and longer lasting relationships when its representatives understand the languages and cultures in which they work.

4) Now I understand you have a wonderful clip on You Tube. Tell us about it and where is it located.

The purpose of this short video is to get out the word to high school students and their parents about the Flagship opportunity. It is clear from surveys given to students before they enter college that they would like to travel to foreign countries and learn other cultures and languages. Unfortunately, most never take advantage of programs like ours  because once they get to college, language education falls by the wayside. Also students aren’t necessarily aware that they can both learn a language to a high level and study a major of their choosing. Likewise, parents understand the importance of their college bound children to distinguish themselves from others by the time they graduate from college. This helps new graduates in a very tough job market. You can find this video as well as additional information on The Language Flagship on our website at http://www.thelanguageflagship.org

5) How did this idea come about?

Flagship grew out of recognition that without radical reengineering of the way we teach languages to students, Americans will continue into the 21^st Century falling increasingly behind the rest of the world in their ability to communicate in a global world. The Department of Defense is the largest employer of Americans with language skills. Because of the lack of foreign language education in the United States, the demand for professionals skilled in languages and other areas of expertise far exceed the supply.  The same is true for other government agencies. NSEP therefore has taken the lead to raise the bar for all Americans to learn language.

6) What has been the response so far? Positive? Negative? Neutral?

The response to Flagship has been incredible. You can see the enthusiasm in the video. The students are not actors. And we have over a thousand students similar to those we see in the video who are enthusiastically engaged in developing high level language skills alongside their major. The reaction from employers has been equally enthusiastic. This enthusiasm you can also see in the video. Not only does the government need thousands of professionals in a whole variety of positions with high-level language skills, business leaders are telling us in focus groups that they need the same. In fact, the results of these focus groups were published in a report found here. We expect that as the numbers of Flagship graduates enter the workforce in all areas, the demand for them will grow as employers realize their value.

7) What seems to be the language that most individuals are interested in learning?

Aside from the most commonly taught languages such as Spanish and French, Chinese is clearly the language that is demonstrating the largest growth in interest across the country. Chinese, followed by Arabic and Russian are the languages, which currently attract the most students. However, I firmly believe that if young people are offered a chance to integrate language and overseas study into their majors, the number of students interested in language learning will increase. This will happen because we attract students who were never interested in language as a major, but are highly interested in learning a language as part of their undergraduate experience. As the program grows, I see increasing interest from institutions to develop on their own Flagship-style programs in the larger enrollment languages such as French and Spanish. I believe that we have created the model that they can adopt if they wish.

8) Do you use any specific methodology?

The Flagship community does not adhere to just one language teaching methodology. Since we have some of the best language teachers and researchers in the country, faculty and instructors use the best method available for whatever the teaching situation might be. Students learn in a variety of settings, including content-based courses – that is, courses that cover their professional or academic areas of study in the language – as well as individual tutoring, courses on modern media, overseas study, language houses, and discussion sessions. As a group, we make sure that student progress in language learning is carefully monitored through testing so we know how students are learning as well as how well they are learning.