Gamification within courses has offered great opportunities for students to engage further into the course material. Traditionally, gamification is used with one or two elements of a course. This study investigated full course gamification of a Second Language (L2) classroom, which has not been explored heavily within research. The researchers…

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…

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…

Recent scholarship in professional development (PD) has advocated for solid conceptual frameworks and understanding of the complex process involved in how language educators may continue to develop and fulfil the current challenging teaching demands. However, specific relationships underlying departmental cultures and how language educators relate…

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…

This article presents the quantitative and qualitative results of a nationwide survey of Spanish department faculty on the components of their undergraduate Spanish major curriculum and their perceptions of these components, as well as their perceptions of recent Modern Language Association (MLA) reports (2007, 2009) and the reports'…

One of the key recommendations of the Worton Review of Modern Foreign Languages provision in higher education in England (2009) is more effective collaboration between language centres and language departments. This paper presents a fully integrated model of such collaboration and develops recommendations for language centres and language…

Investigating students' needs in three foreign language departments in a liberal arts college setting, the study discussed in this article aims to find similarities and differences in language needs among students enrolled in French, German, and Spanish and the extent to which students' perceived needs match the mission the departments have…

Describes the implementation of a first-year comprehension-based Spanish language program at New Mexico State University. Includes a discussion of the history of the program and of the problems encountered in changing a traditional curriculum. Also describes the materials, classroom practice, and testing and evaluation techniques used in the…

Describes courses that were developed for travel industry management degree programs to teach French, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin. Discusses the development of these programs, focusing on the Japanese courses. Explains the type of background information that was collected prior to developing materials for the first- and second-year Japanese…

Describes a thematic, communication-oriented approach developed by the foreign language department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County to the first-year and intermediate sequences in French, German, and Spanish. Design of the syllabus, instructional materials, and teaching techniques are discussed. (Author/CB)

The foreign language education program in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has worked with the Morgan County School System to develop a foreign language experience (FLEX) program in Spanish for that district. The program has three phases: (1) 1 year of in-service instruction in language and…

The foreign language program in the Edison, New Jersey public schools is described. The exemplary features of this program are: (1) It is not limited to college-bound students, (2) a significant provision is made for program advocacy, and (3) there are full four- and six-year sequences in French, Spanish, and German. (PMJ)

The Iowa guide to foreign language curriculum development, the result of a 1985 state mandate, is designed to help local teachers and administrators build on and improve current curriculum and instructional methods. An opening section outlines the rationale, philosophy, and goals of the guide, and subsequent sections focus on curriculum design and…

The University of Toledo's Spanish and Legal Assisting program provides two degree tracks, a twenty-five course program in the Community and Technical College and a coordinated bachelor's program in the College of Arts and Sciences. The shorter legal assisting program provides training allowing individuals to work under an attorney's supervision,…