This edited volume highlights how institutions, programs, and less commonly taught language (LCTL) instructors can collaborate and think across institutional boundaries, bringing together voices ...representing different approaches to LCTL sharing to highlight affordances and challenges across institutions in this collection of essays. Sharing Less Commonly Taught Languages in Higher Education showcases how innovation and reform can make LCTL programs and courses more attractive to students whose interests and needs might be overlooked in traditional language programs. The volume focuses on how institutions, programs, and LCTL instructors can work together, collaborating and thinking across institutional boundaries to explore innovative solutions for offering a wider range of languages and levels. With challenges including instructor isolation, difficulty in offering advanced courses or sustaining course sequences, and minimal availability of pedagogical materials compared to commonly taught languages to overcome, this collection is a vital resource for language educators and language program administrators.
This book analyzes the construct of advanced proficiency in second language learning by bringing together empirical research from numerous linguistic domains and methodological traditions. Focusing ...on the dynamic nature of language use, the volume explores diverse manifestations of high-level second language Spanish, including performance on standardized proficiency assessments, acquisition of late-acquired linguistic structures, sophisticated language use in context, and individual differences. Chapters relate empirical findings to current definitions of advancedness, challenging scholars and practitioners to re-consider existing conceptualizations, and propose possible directions for future research and teaching with second language speakers of Spanish. By addressing larger issues in the field of second language learning, the volume is a valuable reference for language teachers, scholars, professionals and students with an interest in second language acquisition generally, and second language Spanish, more specifically.
This chapter sets the stage for the volume Sharing Less Commonly Taught Languages in Higher Education: Collaboration and Innovation. First, the authors showcase the various commonly accepted ...definitions of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) and some shared features and challenges of these languages. Next, the timing of the volume is discussed, especially in light of the current conversations in the academy and funding sources to spur innovative sharing initiatives. Three broad models of sharing LCTL courses across institutions (bilateral language exchange, language consortium, and asymmetrical language exchange) are then introduced to help readers better understand typical course sharing arrangements. Finally, the overall structure of the volume is explained; the volume is structured to highlight the affordances and challenges of sharing LCTLs through the lens of established consortial and sharing structures, adjustments to curricula, program capacity building, individual case studies, and recommended strategies for sharing.
