This study investigated the following research question: What is the landscape of medical Spanish offerings in undergraduate, 4-year universities in US states with large Spanish-speaking populations? Forty-four percent of institutions responded to the survey, which explored institutional characteristics, medical Spanish programs and individual…

There exists a dearth of textbooks for teaching medical Spanish and Spanish for law, justice, and human services through a social justice lens. In addition, many texts do not meet the needs of learners with disparate language proficiency levels of Spanish and varying depth and breadth of knowledge about these topics. The literature has identified…

The all-encompassing term "Medical Spanish" references the Spanish used by healthcare professionals. Medical Spanish courses have gained traction as the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S. continues to grow. Consequently, demand for courses in Medical Spanish and other areas of Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP), a subfield of…

Obtaining higher vocational education, mastering the practical aspects of the chosen profession, and later work in the specialty are the goals of everyone, who seeks to find their niche in the modern society. Taking in consideration the above, the aim of the scientific article is to study the main aspects of professional foreign-language training…

Though the empirical findings of the past studies in the literature have offered strong support to the significant role of language knowledge and background knowledge in reading comprehension, this issue has not been explored with regard to specific purposes tests in the Iranian higher education context. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring…

The paper reports on the quantitative data resulting from the questionnaires designed by the authors (language for specific purposes instructors) addressing both graduate students' range of abilities, skills and competences and tourism employers' expectations. Language proficiency and communicative competence (understood as specific purpose…

Needs analysis (NA) has been a core component of language for specific purposes (LSP) research and curriculum development for the past half-century, and within the past decade has seen significant methodological advancement. Specifically, certain LSP NA research has adopted task as a unit of analysis (e.g., Youn, 2018; Malicka et al., 2019), and…

Tourism is a service industry that demands well-trained professionals with internationally accredited skills including English language proficiency. Meeting such demands has been one of the foremost concerns of the ASEAN ministries of tourism and education. In collaboration with ASEAN member countries and the Australian government, Indonesian…

The United States Military Academy at West Point is a four-year, undergraduate institution that educates and trains its students (cadets) to become future leaders in the US Army officer corps. The Department of Foreign Languages (DFL) at West Point plays an integral role in developing cadets' cultural and linguistic competencies in preparation for…

Using open educational resources (OER) in post-secondary settings has shown to reduce costs for students, advance accessibility and equity, generate motivation, boost enrollment, and improve academic outcomes. This article details innovative coursework and assessment tools for a Spanish for the Professions course designed around OER content…

Educational institutions with world language requirements face increasing student demand to offer Spanish Language for Specific Purposes (SPSP) courses at lower proficiency levels to fulfill language requirements. Language for specific purposes courses are designed to fulfill the communicative needs of students within a specific professional…

The present study examined the impact of a service learning activity on students' perceptions of language, identity, and community in an advanced Spanish for the Health Professions course. Forty-five advanced Spanish heritage learners (SHLs) participated in health fairs as assistants to health-care providers as part of the curriculum requirements.…

Objects that sit between intersecting social worlds, such as Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) tests, are "boundary objects"--dynamic, historically derived mechanisms which maintain coherence between worlds (Star & Griesemer, 1989). They emerge initially from sociopolitical mandates, such as the need to ensure a safe and efficient…

This talk is about finding "unity in diversity". I ask how we can best focus our research efforts and then design our teaching for those of us involved with teaching language for specific business purposes in the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East. In parts 1 and 2 of the presentation I discuss how we need to (i) refer to empirical…

Introduction: Nowadays, language and intercultural competences have become core employability skills in many fields, supporting the development of other skills which emphasizes the necessity for specific pedagogic approaches in developing online learning materials and courses that would develop learners' language competence and other relevant 21st…