			Home About us Contact

Language Curriculum (language + curriculum)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	88%

Selected Abstracts

Toward Responsive Beginning Language Curricula

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 2 2001
Larbi Oukada
An initial phase, the general education phase, would be comprised predominantly of nonmajors who enroll in beginning language courses with the premeditated purpose of satisfying a language requirement or investing on their own a modest amount of credit hours to explore or study a second language. A subsequent phase, the professional phase, would begin with courses intended for prospective majors and minors who are customarily predisposed to commit enough time to reach the necessary proficiency level required for their professional goal. This curricular distinction serves to underscore the particular situation and the particular mission of the general education phase and to propose a particular curricular model, the Indiana Model. This model provides, within the current and autonomous structure of the American educational system, a mechanism for selecting, prioritizing, and structuring the most responsive objectives for general-education foreign language teaching. [source]

An Interactive Reading Journal for All Levels of the Foreign Language Curriculum

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 4 2005
Article first published online: 31 DEC 200, Jennifer Redmann
Abstract: This article introduces an innovative approach to teaching texts at every level of the foreign language curriculum through the use of an interactive reading journal. The article describes how the journal can address the interpretive communication standard at the secondary level, as well as the challenges of integrating lower-level "skills" courses with upper-level "content" courses at the post-secondary level. The journal format itself is discussed in detail, along with examples of how it can be implemented with specific texts at the intermediate and advanced levels. The conclusion offers student reactions and suggestions for putting the interactive reading journal into practice. [source]

Turning Professional: Content-Based Communication and the Evolution of a Cross-Cultural Language Curriculum

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 6 2000
Gisela Hoecherl-Alden
Furthermore, the increasing demand for professional language classes makes it necessary to adjust the overall undergraduate program so that these courses fit meaningfully into the mainly humanities-oriented curriculum. If students are to bridge the gap between form and meaning, courses need to move from communicative training at the elementary level through an intermediate stage that combines communicative and content-based instruction. Finally, training students successfully for future careers in a global economy means that courses cannot focus only on content and form, but also must include a thorough development of cultural awareness. Applying ethnographic intercultural training methods to the language classroom ensures that the students attain not only linguistic but also cultural proficiency. The course structure presented in this paper demonstrates that professional school students can be trained alongside humanities majors by making minor but far-reaching adjustments to the elementary and intermediate language program, and without placing undue constraints on departmental resources. [source]

New Paradigms for U.S.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 3 2000
Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century
Our success in the global marketplace is directly related to our ability to understand, appreciate, value, and within foreign cultures, differing sets of social customs, diverse economic contexts, and varied political systems. The colleges and universities that prosper in the future are those that will, among other things, focus foreign language curricula on the needs of students specializing in business and other professions, while modifying their business and professional courses and programs to include foreign languages, international perspectives, and cross-cultural content. This article describes the fundamental changes in U.S. society and the world that are dictating modifications in the rules and assumptions for U.S. higher education, in general, and for instruction in foreign languages, foreign cultures, and professional preparation, in particular. [source]

Conceptions of Literature in University Language Courses

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2009
CECILIA ALVSTAD
In this article we set out to explore and discuss reasons for reading literary texts in university curricula of foreign languages. Our analysis is based on 2 sources of information: 16 syllabi of Spanish as a foreign language and a questionnaire in which 11 university instructors teaching these syllabi express their intentions. We point to a number of risks when emphasis is predominantly placed on instrumental goals such as acquisition of vocabulary and grammar or cultural knowledge. We suggest, instead, that the literary modules within language curricula should formulate their own specific goals. Rather than privileging linguistic and cultural competences to be trained, the literary modules could, for example, raise students' awareness of the facts that there are many ways of reading a text but that interpretation nevertheless remains a historically situated and constrained activity. [source]

Teaching Sensitivity to Cultural Difference in the First-Year Foreign Language Classroom

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 1 2007
Article first published online: 31 DEC 200, Dennis O. Durocher Jr.
Abstract: This article summarizes teacher action research for the teaching of subjective culture in the foreign language classroom. It begins with a literature review, followed by a description of Milton J. Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (Bennett, 1993), the theoretical paradigm upon which classroom activities and experiments were based. Bennett's model is compared and contrasted with other approaches to teaching culture, its strengths and weaknesses are discussed, and suggestions for implementing the model are presented. The article then summarizes efforts to mobilize the theory at the elementary French level, describes various culture-teaching strategies, and presents the results of evaluations of the effectiveness of the strategies using the Intercultural Development Inventory. Final remarks concern the goals of the culture component in the foreign language curriculum and suggestions for next steps in research. [source]

An Interactive Reading Journal for All Levels of the Foreign Language Curriculum

The FLES Attitudinal Inventory

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 3 2000
Teresa J. Kennedy
The primary purpose of this study was to compare attitudinal differences between elementary students (K-5) involved in a regular Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools (FLES) program with their peers who were not provided with additive foreign language curriculum. Results from the study showed that students participating in FLES programs had positive attitudes relating to school, perceived difficulty in language acquisition, perceived desirability of foreign language study, cultural views, and student self-esteem and confidence levels in relation to their academic achievement in comparison with their non-FLES peers. The conclusions of this study suggest that FLES programs provide students with improved motivation to participate, to persist, and to succeed in second language study. [source]

Development of an English as a second language curriculum for hepatitis B virus testing in Chinese Americans,

CANCER, Issue S12 2005
Gloria D. Coronado Ph.D.
Abstract Chinese Americans are at disproportionately high risk of liver cancer. A major risk factor for liver cancer in Asia is infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV): Approximately 80% of liver cancers are linked to HBV, and chronic carriers of HBV are > 100 times more likely to develop liver cancer compared with noncarriers. However, many adults, particularly those who have immigrated to the U.S., remain untested and therefore unvaccinated or unmonitored for the disease. Chinese Americans are mostly foreign born, and more recent arrivals face multiple social and health challenges. Many require special attention from public health professionals because of low levels of acculturation and difficulties learning English. It has long been established that an English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum can teach immigrant adults and their family's important life skills, such as job training and citizenship. The authors report on their plans to develop and pilot test a culturally appropriate curriculum that will motivate Chinese ESL students to obtain a blood test for the detection of the HBV. Cancer 2005. © 2005 American Cancer Society. [source]