Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (Jan 2007)
Foreign Languages Surviving and Thriving in Conventional University Settings: Implications for Less Commonly Taught Languages
Abstract
We are at an important crossroads in the history of foreign language learning and teaching in the United States. While the Federal Government has been involved in the project of language learning (or lack thereof) from its inception (Bernhardt 1999), it currently exerts an extraordinary influence on which languages can be and are taught in the United States. In fact, contemporary federal policy decisions have had an unprecedented impact not only on the curricula of universities and colleges that are funded for their language teaching efforts, but perhaps more interestingly, on the curricula of conventional universities. Conventional institutions are those post- secondary institutions that offer language instruction as part of the regularly taught liberals arts/humanities/arts and sciences curriculum without federal funding for those endeavors.
