Ways are discussed for making faculty assessment an integral part of a department. Suggestions relate to developing career plans, specifying goals, identifying skills, conducting regular reviews, and locating assessment within the departmental and institutional culture. Guidelines and procedures are illustrated with sample letters and third-year…

Explores the role of task and task-based assessment in a collegiate foreign language department that shifted its entire undergraduate curriculum from a form-based normative approach to a language-use and language-meaning orientation for instruction. Examines how demands for specificity that characterize task-based assessment contributed…

Addresses the foundational concerns that pertain to the existing configuration for language and literary cultural studies in collegiate foreign language departments. Outlines two areas in need of attention--creation of intellectual foundation that can accommodate all aspects of a department's work and determination of a suitable goal for…

Discussion of governance in college foreign language departments focuses on the conflicting views of faculty about: the nature of language; intellectual justification, position, and role of foreign language studies in American higher education; goals, purposes, and approaches for language learning in an instructional setting; and governance…

Five brief essays are presented in response to an earlier article on leadership in college foreign-language departments. They address issues of curriculum redesign, pedagogical change, the nature of language teaching, the professional identity of language teachers, the role of professional organizations, and the traditional departmental model. A…