This study investigates the efforts towards promoting the decolonial teaching of Portuguese as a foreign language in instructional materials adopted in early Portuguese courses at higher education institutions in the United States. A framework for qualitative analysis of course materials, textbooks, and syllabi was designed based on Zavala's…

This article details the challenges and best practices of evaluating second language learners for placement into postsecondary Spanish language courses. The literature on testing for placement purposes in second language acquisition and language testing provides a great deal of insight, but language programs must make many decisions as well that…

Over the last several years, faculty have engaged students and community members in a series of collaborative projects with the goal of addressing complex issues such as identity, language, and belonging. I posit that the work we have been doing constitutes a broader innovative humanities project centered on cultural studies. To demonstrate as…

Study abroad (SA) provides a space and place for second language (L2) learners to be challenged in terms of their target language skills and intercultural awareness. In order to appropriately equip learners, a task-based approach seems ideal to identify learners' specific needs (Long 2015). The present study reports a multiphase needs analysis…

The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (DFLL) at University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) is home to a pioneer program in Spanish for the Professions and Specific Purposes (SPSP) in US higher education. For the last two decades (2000-18), its Spanish curricula have been carefully experimenting and evolving to adjust to the societal…

This essay examines the state of Digital Humanities work in the subfield of literature from the Spanish speaking world. It provides a case study of a multiyear digital mapping project conducted with undergraduate students at a highly selective liberal arts college. This project serves as a means of examining the digital state of the field and…

Portuguese is the fifth most-spoken language in the world, with about 260 million speakers (and growing to an expected 400 million by 2050), the third most spoken in the West, the most widely spoken in the Southern Hemisphere, an official language in 9 countries and other regions. It is present in Europe, South America, Africa, and parts of Asia.…

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…

Research on the language-literature divide in undergraduate second language programs documents the challenge of engaging literature learners in classroom discourse which is conducive to their developing interpersonal speaking skills as measured on the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Scale. In this study, Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) were…

In recent years, the World Languages field has witnessed an increased interest in service-learning (SL) initiatives. Many SL projects focus on the potential that Spanish-speaking communities offer students of Spanish, as a foreign language, to increase their language skills and cultural understanding of these communities. Some authors, however,…

World language classrooms in the United States have been significantly impacted by the physical and ideological disruptions experienced in recent history. Such disruptive times call for the reform of pedagogical practices to raise awareness of social justice issues and ignite real change both in and out of language classrooms. This essay outlines…

This article briefly describes Fred P. Ellison's ground breaking contributions in Brazilian literary studies in North America. Further, his key role in the development of Brazilian Portuguese language instruction is highlighted, along with the numerous scholarly connections he made in the the field of Luso-Brazilian Studies.

Based on practical reflections on the role of language educators and Portuguese language learners in diasporic communities in the state of California, this short-form article shares academic contributions from the Luso-Brazilian Studies Program at the University of California, Davis, to underrepresented groups in Lusophone communities amidst the…

Linguists are an increasing presence not only in graduate programs but at undergraduate institutions as well, and this could lead to positive interdisciplinary changes in curricula. Literary/cultural texts contain masterful examples of how linguistic features are used to communicate meaning, and learners need to notice these features in order to…

Concurrent enrollment access is expanding across the country, policies and practices are evolving, and data-driven studies examining every measurable element are being undertaken, yet the role of the relationships among concurrent enrollment partners and participants is too often just mentioned in passing. This case study of a concurrent…