In 2016 the University of Padova and its Language Centre ("Centro Linguistico di Ateneo" -- CLA) became involved in the two-year "Cultura e accoglienza" Project (see Dalziel and Piazzoli in this volume), the aim of which was to encourage around 30 refugees and asylum seekers to pursue university studies by means of a…

In 2013, the so-called Viducation project was launched at the Institute of Romance Studies at the University of Kiel4 (CAU) as a reaction to the new Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts degree programmes in order to improve students' learning skills and core competences by creating subject-related videos. Filmmaking by students is already widely…

This paper is an activity report that draws on the experience of embedding sustainability into the mainstream curriculum in the Language Centre, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds, UK. It describes and reflects on programmes that delivered the concept of sustainability and how learners developed their academic…

A research report from the University of Cambridge and RAND Europe shows that investing in languages education in the UK could return more than the investment cost. Researchers explored a gap in the evidence relating to the economic benefits of extending languages education and found that an increase in secondary-school pupils learning one of four…

The Department of World Languages and Cultures (WLAC), housed in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI, has been through a series of transitions over the last twenty years due to university structural changes, but mostly because of curricular needs. Originally there were three separate departments, French, Spanish and German, as each of these core…

This article proposes a model for integrating text-to-speech software (TTS) in students' interpreting training and practice. It shows the aims of the model, the definition of TTS, the advantages of using TTS, how to search for TTS, instructional stages with TTS, and the interpreting instructor's role. The students can use TTS software online;…

Whereas major research universities may accommodate programs of study in Arabic, Chinese, or Persian, regional universities and liberal arts colleges have struggled to adapt to a wider and more complex array of world languages and literatures in the 21st century. Many have been forced to choose between radically restructuring or closing programs…

At a time when language programs around the United States are in crisis--the University of Rhode Island's Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures is realigning its curriculum to emphasize proficiency and intercultural competence within a strong liberal arts context. The result of the department's recent initiatives? More than…

The Intercultural Competency (ICC) Program is a structured program that has been developed at the University of Adelaide's English Language Centre (ELC) to create opportunities for students to connect in a global context. This stand-alone and easily transferable program aims to create meaningful opportunities for mixed-language-ability learners to…

The University of Florence's Language Center (CLA) and the Florence seat of an American university renowned for its language programs, Middlebury College, twice intertwined their English and Italian B2/C1 foreign language courses to produce an English/Italian reciprocal learning space. In addition to disparate organizational constructs, the two…

Since its inception seven years ago, Michigan State University's vibrant Second Language Studies (SLS) Program has grown quickly under the direction of Dr. Susan Gass. Thus far, twelve students have graduated from the program and now hold academic positions in various universities in the United States and elsewhere. In 2011, the department…

In a non-immersion, preschool world language program, what learning outcomes are reasonable to expect? Since exposure to and engagement with new languages is typically limited in these so-called "low-input" programs, we should anticipate no more than modest gains in linguistic proficiency. Rather, early childhood language programs can,…

From previous research on second language acquisition and early language learning, educators know that young children have a cognitive advantage to learning a foreign language over other age groups (e.g., Garcia-Sierra et al.; Hyltenstam and Abrahamsson; Singleton and Ryan; Werker et al.). More recently, an increase in functional benefits for…

The National Resource Centers Program provides grants to institutions of higher education to establish, strengthen, and operate comprehensive and undergraduate centers that are national resources for: (1) Teaching modern foreign languages, especially the less and least commonly taught languages; (2) Disciplinary instruction to provide a thorough…

The article presents and discusses materials for a cultural lesson about Green Germany. An introductory mini-unit frames the over-all student learning objective: students should be able to respond to the questions "Where are we?" and "Where are we going?" with regard to the natural environment. Three different units then help…