Abstract
Declining language enrollments at US institutions of higher education (Looney & Lusin, 2019; Wyllie, 2018) led the German faculty at Elon University to conduct two internal studies. The first study investigated learner motivation. Students were surveyed about reasons for continuing—or not continuing—their study of German. Students who did not plan to continue named the following: lack of perceived career relevance; full course loads, i.e. German was an interest but not a priority; or scheduling conflicts. In the second study, the faculty examined 5 years of enrollment data, finding that while 100-level enrollment declined (recruitment was weak), 200-level enrollment was stable and 300-level enrollment rose (retention was strong). We attribute the strong retention to initiatives emerging from the learner-motivation study. These initiatives focus on community, curriculum, and career. In this chapter, we outline these initiatives, their planning, and their implementation, and describe future initiatives to recruit students into beginning German. The goal of our chapter is to offer innovative but manageable initiatives that can be readily implemented by one or two faculty members. These initiatives require minimal resources and administrative support but can significantly enhance program vitality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The German Program at Elon has no catalog major; students have the option to design their own program of study via Elon’s individualized major option. We graduated three German majors via this route, with two more on the way.
- 2.
We currently offer six advanced (300-level) courses, i.e. courses for students who have taken four semesters of German or the equivalent. Courses at this level either take a historical approach and familiarize students with trends and events that have shaped today’s Germany (for example: Germany Between Empire and Nazism); or they take a thematic approach and discuss fundamental concepts that have shaped Germany and Germans for centuries (for example: Heimat – Where do we belong).
- 3.
Scott Windham initiated this study in 2014, together with colleagues in Chinese, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish in the Department of World Languages and Cultures. The data and discussion in this chapter exclusively focus on the survey results from students enrolled in German courses.
- 4.
Of course, program quality has an effect on student retention. It rarely draws any new students to a program though, neither does it address the issue of scheduling conflicts that our students had identified.
- 5.
Two additional 300-level courses are currently developed, one about Germans in America, the second about Minority Voices in the German-speaking world. If approved, our program would then be able to offer 8 advanced level courses, and students could take advanced-level German courses for four consecutive years without having to repeat a course.
- 6.
We check with our university office if any of the students have a FERPA hold on their home addresses.
- 7.
If we look at enrollment data from 10 years ago, we do see a positive enrollment and a positive trend line. Still, we decided to only include the years 2017–2022 here, as that was the time period when we actively and consciously worked on recruitment and retention.
References
Ambrose, S., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. Wiley.
Berner, M. (2015). Foreign-language enrollments drop after years of increases. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Boeckenstedt, J. (2022). Will your college survive the demographic cliff. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Falout, J. (2012). Coping with demotivation: EFL learners’ remotivation processes. Teaching as a Second or Foreign Language, 16(3), 1–22.
Johnson, S. (2019). Colleges lose a ‘stunning’ 651 foreign-language programs in 3 years. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Kalliney, P. J. (2018). We reversed our declining English enrollments. Here’s how. Chronicle of Higher Education.
Kohn, A., & Blum, S. D. (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.
Kozaki, Y., & Ross, S. J. (2011). Contextual dynamics in foreign language learning motivation. Language Learning, 61(4), 1328–1354.
Looney, D., & Lusin, N. (2019). Enrollments in languages other than English in United States institutions of higher education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016: Final report. Modern Language Association. https://www.mla.org/content/download/110154/2406932/2016-Enrollments-Final-Report.pdf
MacIntyre, P. D., & Blackie, R. A. (2012). Action control, motivated strategies, and integrative motivation as predictors of language learning affect and the intention to continue learning French. System, 40, 533–543. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2012.10.014
Mills, N., Pajares, F., & Herron, C. (2007). Self-efficacy of college intermediate French students: Relation to achievement and motivation. Language Learning, 57(3), 417–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00421.x
Oakes, L. (2013). Foreign language learning in a ‘monoglot culture’: Motivational variables amongst students of French and Spanish at an English university. System, 41(1), 178–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.01.019
Paesani, K. W., Allen, H. W., & Dupuy, B. (2015). A multiliteracies framework for collegiate foreign language teaching. Pearson.
Tang, L. (2019). Against smallness: How successful language programs reimagine the humanities. The Profession, Fall.
Ushioda, E., & Dörnyei, Z. (2012). Motivation. In S. Gass & A. Mackey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 396–409). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137032829.0009
Wyllie, J. (2018). Enrollment in most foreign-language programs continues to fall. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lange, K., Windham, S. (2023). Trial, Error, and Success: Recruitment and Retention Initiatives in a Small German Program. In: Heidrich Uebel, E., Kronenberg, F.A., Sterling, S. (eds) Language Program Vitality in the United States. Educational Linguistics, vol 63. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43654-3_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43654-3_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-43653-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-43654-3
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)