Daily Excerpt: Individualized Study Plans for Very Advanced Students of Foreign Languages (Leaver) - Preface
excerpt from Individualized Study Plans for Very Advanced Students of Foreign Languages by Betty Lou Leaver
Preface
Individualized Study Plans (ISPs) have
been used in a number of venues for at least two decades, if not more,
particularly in US government foreign-language training institutions. Sometimes
these instruments have been called ISPs; other times they have been called
learning plans. Whatever they have been called, the purpose has generally been
the same: to assist students in organizing their short-term and long-term
learning goals and activities. (In this volume, examples of ISPs and the
concepts associated with them refer, for the most part, to the planning of
long-term, even lifelong, foreign-language learning activities).
The Foreign Service Institute has long
used ISPs for its diplomats and attaches in foreign-language training during
the training period itself, which could be considered an intermediate-term type
of plan since the amount of time spent in language training and the levels
reached during the six-, ten-, or 24-month courses (depending on the language
being studied), is often greater than that of undergraduate and even graduate
programs at academic institutions. Currently, the Defense Language Institute
(DLI) uses ISPs, called Learning Plans, with students, particularly as they are
finishing their course work and heading for assignments elsewhere (see Cohen,
2003, for a description of how Learning Plans are developed at the DLI), and
recently LangNet (http://www.langnet.org) incorporated the concept of ISPs,
called Learning Plans, into its online programs.
Sometimes ISPs have been prepared by
students, sometimes by teachers, sometimes by testers and assessors, sometimes
by administrators, and sometimes by any combination of these individuals. The
information about ISPs presented in this book can be used by any of these
individuals. However, the book is addressed specifically to the student.
Although ISPs are fairly
frequently used by students and by foreign-language specialists who work with
students, very little has been written about them. Occasionally, the topic of
ISPs has been addressed at one or another professional meeting or convention of
foreign-language teachers. Otherwise, little has been shared among
foreign-language programs, teachers, and students. This book seeks to remedy
that situation by pulling together the various practices of those who use ISPs.
The goal of this book is to present the
concepts typically associated with the preparation of an ISP, provide some
examples of possible ISPs for students from varying backgrounds and with
varying high-level goals, and give the reader the opportunity to work out an ISP
for himself or herself or for his or her student.
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