What, exactly, is a foreign language? Relatively speaking, it's any language other than the main (official?) language of a country. After all, most of you know the difference between ESL and EFL. What is Spanish in the context of the United States? Is it correct to refer to it as a "foreign" language, since nearly 10 per cent of the population speak it as a first language, not to mention the citizens of the Common-wealth of Puerto Rico? But this article is not going there. And how come no P.C. monitors have jumped all over the term, foreign language. Shouldn't it be "L.O.T.E." (languages other than English), or some such thing? So, what does an ESL guy know about foreign language (FL) teaching? You'd think that these two professions would be much closer than they actually are, being about languages and all, but they are not. The same is true about ESL and FL publishing.

FL is the established class act, ESL is Johnny-come-lately. ESL to FL is like Reform Judaism to Orthodox Judaism, Protestantism to Catholicism, Shiism to Suniism. I know, this is stretching it a little, but what the heck.

This country has always recognized FL as a legitimate subject, accepted and made it part of school and college curricula. FL teaching has been around since the establishment of the country.

It wasn't that long ago that they were even teaching dead languages like Latin and classical Greek. Career FL teachers, though often joked about or maligned in the media, are generally tenured members of their respective faculties. Not so with their ESL counterparts, except for the jokes.

ESL, as a profession, came into its own mostly in the 1960's. There were waves of legal and illegal immigrations, the return of many Peace Corps volunteers to the US, and the proliferation of Master's and ESL certification programs at universities. Nevertheless, to this day, ESL teachers remain on the fringes of the education establishment, both in schools and colleges, rarely achieving tenured status.

Practitioners in both fields have skewed views of each other. Many FL teachers do not view their fraters and sorors in ESL as being part of a legitimate profession. After all, they reason, ESL teachers do not have to master or know a language other than English. Furthermore, FL teachers pride themselves on their technophilia, having used videos, CD ROMs and the Internet long before their technophobic ESL cousins. On the other hand, many ESL teachers see FL teachers as being light years behind in pedagogy and too stuck in their high level lit. courses. They accuse FL teachers of not caring if their students ever speak the language they are learning. Grammar translation is the rule and Audio-Lingual is seen as an innovation in some FL circles.

These are all stereotypes, not to be confused with reality. However, many FL texts reflect these stereotypes. Amazingly, very few beginning level, or intro FL textbooks, teach using only the target language.

Almost all use English in varying proportions, whereas, ESL texts virtually never use the native language of the students. If the books do, then they are bilingual and not ESL texts.

Time and again, I've heard FL teachers and publishers insist that American students can't handle, don't want or don't like textbooks without English. Gee, these American kids must be really dumb compared to immigrant kids, who have to learn English from ESL books which use only English as a medium of instruction. Hey, California has acknowledged ESL students' superior intelligence by passing Proposition 227. Those wise politicians understand that it only takes one year of ESL to learn the language.

Ironically, one publishing house I've known consistently operated with this kind of double think about ESL and FL, without batting an eyelash. They keep publishing texts in both fields in the above formats. Go figure.

A word about selling FL as opposed to ESL. I have been a sales manager of reps who sold in both disciplines. I've learned that working an FL adoption is more like a large Psychology or Engineering adoption, than an ESL adoption. FL, Psych. and other required introductory courses, have very large enrollments. Textbooks are hardcover, have a cadre of ancillaries which must be given away, and have a basic package (book/workbook) price in the $80 range. Decisions are mostly by adoption committees and last for three to four years, when the next edition comes out. ESL classes at colleges, tend to be smaller. Beginners don't outnumber higher level students.

Books are soft cover and usually don't have workbooks. They cost from $15-$25. Decisions are made by individual teachers, and a book may only be used for a semester or two. The revision cycles are much longer, if any, since only best sellers are revised. What I have just described is the ESL skill book market. There are, basal or core series markets, consisting of multiple books, and ancillaries which go through a committee adoption process. Let's talk about the FL markets. There are two major markets and several minor ones. The two big ones are, colleges and schools (K-12). The smaller ones are private language schools such as Berlitz, continuing ed. classes, and trade. The latter refers to teach-yourself French, Spanish, etc., books, audio/video tapes and CD-ROMs. Publishers do not have as much trouble pigeon-holing FL as they do ESL. FL is clear cut because it's either a school or a college program and their reps will call on one or the other. ESL, by contrast, drives most big publishing houses nuts because it has a vertical market, whereby the same title can sell in schools, colleges, adult ed., wherever. The publishers are not organized that way and neither are their sales forces. Pity.

College FL has huge introductory and intermediate courses.

After these mega courses, all that's left, usually, are the "serious" lit courses for majors. We all know what great language lovers Americans are.

Consequently, many colleges and some schools had dropped FL requirements in the 70's and 80's. They are now, slowly, making a comeback. A few educators are awakening to the possibility that it might be helpful, in the shrinking global economy, for American kids to speak something other than English only. Here is one of my favorite ironies: as English becomes the Lingua Franca of the planet, I'm sure some business and bureaucratic types (in Kansas?) are saying, "Well, shucks, why don't we just wait until all those fer'ners learn English. After all, since the Bible is in English, clearly that's the way God meant it."

Let's compare the motivation of kids taking a college intro FL course, say, Spanish, to beginning level ESL students. The intro Spanish students, with their English-Spanish textbooks, are in class to meet a requirement, and unless they plan to become Spanish majors, most slide by with C's and crib notes. ESL students, in contrast, are learning English as a matter of survival in a new country. Or, they may be trying to learn enough English to be able to attend regular college classes, earn a degree and succeed in their own countries. Yeah, this is a gross oversimplification, but it smacks of some truth.

In K-12, it's a similar story. Most FL is taught in middle or high school, to kids already past puberty. Here too, students are in class because they have to be rather than because they want to be. ESL kids, suffering no less from puberty, tend to be more motivated. They do understand the necessity of learning English in American schools while many English speaking students, as well as their parents, do not believe it's important for them to speak another language. I apologize in advance for insulting readers whose children are already on their fifth language.

On the plus side, FLES (foreign language in elementary school) and immersion programs are growing. These programs recognize that the best age to learn a second language is between 5 and 10, when everything is new and exciting and there is little self-consciousness about sounding or looking bad. Immersion programs are one of my favorites. They are often modeled on the Quebec experience whereby parents agree to let their children receive most of their total school instruction in a language other than the one they speak at home.

Then there are the bilingual and dual language programs, with both approaches in good shape.

These are first language maintenance pedagogies, whereby students can become literate in their native languages while continuing to learn English and other academic subjects.

In the minor markets, the stress is more on conversation. Students are adults who want to learn another language for business or personal reasons. In continuing education classes and private language schools students have the opportunity to converse with each other. There are even FL programs where students converse by telephone. But it's the teach-yourself stuff that is interesting. Assuming that most students do have conversational goals, it's fascinating that marketers have convinced people that they can learn to communicate without communicating.

Face it, when you buy a book, tape or CD, to teach yourself, you are alone. It's kind of like sex, you can do it by yourself, but it's not nearly as much fun as with someone else.

Of course, with speech recognition software making great strides, it won't be long before an FL student can converse with HAL. But to me, it's still like an electronic inflatable doll!

Andy Martin is Publishing News Editor, American Language Review