This article reports on a series of carefully curated professional development (PD) activities with the secondary purpose of building and maintaining a positive school culture. The study took place in a school of foreign languages (SFL) at a state university in Turkey. Twenty-five Turkish and international teachers participated. The researchers…

Chinese as a world language has gained popularity in US K-12 education over the past two decades. However, little attention has been paid to diverse populations in Chinese language classrooms and how the students' diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds influence their experiences in Chinese programs. This article presents a research synthesis…

Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the United States and Sweden that serve newcomer students exceptionally well, we identified the strategies they implemented across sites that served to meet the educational needs of these students. We found that these schools provided a comprehensive approach to support the…

The U.S.-China relationship is "the" most consequential bilateral relationship in the world. As the U.S. and China engage, even if both sides do not see eye-to-eye on all issues, it is extremely important to find areas of cooperation that are able to have a positive influence on the world. In its role as a superpower, the U.S. is…

This paper shares the work and observations from a task-based 6-week email exchange project between participants in Spain and the US. Though small in scale, the study offers insights for those interested in telecollaboration but face constraints on multiple fronts. Close examination of the exchanges reveal participants' engagement on multiple…

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…

The Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund faculty to maintain and improve their area studies and foreign language skills by conducting research in other countries for periods of three to 12 months. This program holds an annual competition. Institutions of higher education in the United…

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students to conduct research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of six to 12 months. This program holds an annual competition. Institutions of higher education in the…

As the U.S. population grows more varied, public schools are faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of an increasing population of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Schools in the United States are often the first point of contact for new immigrant students as they work to facilitate their integration and socialization into…

In this article, the author critiques the MLA Report. His first response to the MLA report is that it clearly identifies a number of the problems facing modern languages departments today. Enrollments and majors are declining in most modern languages departments throughout the U.S. Other academic departments do not strongly enforce language…

Language educators argue that foreign language learning in the United States should increase students' intercultural competence (IC), which will allow them to see relationships among different cultures, mediate across cultures, and critically analyze cultures including their own. Qualitative research investigating students experiences with such…

Portal: Your Door to World Languages and Cultures was a series of public cultural events, in a variety of formats, created through a new partnership between the credit and continuing education (noncredit) foreign language programs at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Portal was designed to cultivate interest in foreign languages…

The Federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II: Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) provides funding for states and territories to provide instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL), Adult Basic Education (ABE), and Adult Secondary Education (ASE) to adults in need of these literacy services. California State Budget Act…

The purposes of this study were to identify the essential dimensions of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and to establish a framework for assessing the ICC level of high school students that included a self-report inventory and scoring rubrics for online interaction in intercultural contexts. A total of 472 high school students from…

While "internationalization" has become a buzzword in composition scholarship and teaching, our discourses tend toward fuzzy uses and understandings of the term and its multiple implications. We tend to focus on how our U.S. experience is being internationalized: how English and its teaching are spreading; how other countries, different…