Language requirement: Seat time or fluency?

Pat Bassett, head of the National Association of Independent Schools, has been writing a series of blog posts about the concepts of 21st century skills.  This month he looked at the concept of communication, which is one of particular interest to world language teachers.  This excerpt seems to be particularly compelling and a much more in line with my own thoughts about language learning than some of the other opinions out there about the benefits of being able to communicate in more than one language.

[...] sadly, spoken fluency is not yet the outcome of foreign language instruction in the American educational system (while fluency in English is the outcome of instruction in all of the 32 countries I’ve visited and spoken in over my years at NAIS), it soon will be in the independent school of the future. How do I know this? Because I learned from the president of Stanford on that panel we served on that Stanford’s new expectation of it students is to demand spoken “fluency” in order to test out of the foreign language requirement: almost no one (who is not already a native speaker of a language other than English) passes it — and enrollments in upper level foreign language courses beyond the proficiency requirement are growing at Stanford.

I join Bassett in his lamenting the lack of spoken fluency as an outcome (or even a stated aspiration) in our schools.  Opportunities for secondary schools to look to university instruction and policy as an inspiration for emulation is rare.  But the concept of required spoken fluency is an interesting one.  I wouldn't want to institute some sort of standardized testing at my school (or any school), but perhaps a shift in philosophy about what is required.  Currently we require two years of the same language.  Why?  Why not require a conversation? Or a simulation?  We have challenging grammar heavy courses with no clear goal (that the students understand) or purpose or desired outcome.  Some students will continue on to the third year and beyond, but many will not, and will leave the program with a bitter taste for learning a language.