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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