Daily Excerpt: Practices That Work (Garza) - Introduction


 

The following excerpt comes from Practices That Work (Thomas Garza).

Introduction

            This volume represents a revised and expanded version of the 2008 first edition titled What Works: Helping Students Reach Native-Like Second-Language Competence and includes, in addition to all of the excellent original contributions,[1] eleven new pieces from language practitioners with experience in Language Flagship Programs and/or university programs with established records of success in bringing learners to Professional-level proficiency in languages. Like its predecessor, this new edition seeks to offer the reader a broad selection of tested, successful models of practice from classrooms in both government and post-secondary institutions that have attested results of professional proficiency among its learners. Its intended audience is the language practitioner who understands that the goal of attaining high-level proficiency is possible and is looking for new or additional ways and means to enhance their courses with field-tested “formulas” for learner success.

The 2021 edition, Practices That Work: Bringing Learners to Professional Proficiency in World Languages, adds to the combined practices of our colleagues with experiences garnered over the last decade from varied and diverse programs and institutions. What is common in their experience, however, is the commitment to bring their learners to high-level professional proficiency. Many of the newer contributions to this volume are from instructors in university language Flagship programs: federally funded programs the support the attainment of high-level proficiency for undergraduate and graduate students for all academic disciplines.

The inauguration of the Language Flagship program, a federally-funded component of the National Security Education Program (NSEP) at the U.S. Department of Defense, in 2002 marked the ambitious reset of the goal of a four-year college or university language program from “functional” to “professional” proficiency, i.e., from the ACTFL Intermediate to the Advanced High level and beyond. Through proficiency-oriented, standards-based training, combined with an in-country capstone and internship program, Flagship programs began producing graduates with the desired results. The sea change that the Flagship experience brought to the post-secondary language teaching community is reflected not only in the attainment of high levels of proficiency among learners but also in the professional experience of the instructors in these programs, showing promising progress from the situation described in the comment in the 2008 edition of this volume, “Teachers with high-level proficiency teaching experience are, indeed, a nearly microscopic subset of the body of foreign language teachers in the USA and abroad” (x). Today, more programs boast faculty who are either instructors in or alumni of Flagship or Flagship-like programs. In short, the field of language teaching has benefitted from the increasing focus on attaining professional proficiency and, in turn, our students have profited from the expanded offerings of high-level courses.

The volume is divided into five sections which group the practices by their focus: Learner, Instruction, Instructor, Skills, and Assessment. Section I: Focus on the Learner offers models of learner-centered practices that can promote autonomous learning and proficiency gains. Section II: Focus on Instruction and Section III: Focus on the Instructor provide, respectively, models of classroom practices that have produced Superior-level speakers of the language and share recommendations for instructors in these courses to help them create the kinds of materials and learning environments that will foster ever-higher proficiency gains. Section IV: Focus on Skills gives concrete examples of teaching strategies and techniques that have succeeded in producing high-level proficiency outcomes in a variety of settings and with various languages. Finally, Focus on Assessment demonstrates formats and techniques to measure and evaluate learner progress during our courses of study. Each “formula” ends with a list of readings that includes any works cited as well as other works that can reflect greater insight or more information on the topic of the “formula.”

Together, these “formulas”—some short, some longer, depending on topic and experience with the topic—comprise a kind of go-to handbook for instructors looking for new ideas, techniques, or inspiration to help their learners attain professional proficiency in a world language and culture. Most of the “formulas” are language-generic, but they come from experience with Arabic, Chinese, English (ESL/EFL), French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, representing one or more languages from each of the US government four language categories (based on observed and tracked difficulty of acquisition).

The 2008 first edition of this book stated its two-fold purpose as: 1) to show that bringing learners to professional proficiency in world languages in U.S. program could be done; and 2) to show how these results could be attained. This 2021 revised version reiterates these original purposes and adds one more: 3) to demonstrate why world language education must be part of every educational curriculum and part of every U.S. citizen’s consciousness. The attainment of professional proficiency in world languages is a game changer for international relations and diplomacy, global business, medicine, education, and a host of other fields for which communication and mutual understanding is paramount. Let us seize this opportunity to change the timbre and tone of the U.S. presence abroad through cadres of well-educated and fully proficient global professionals through high-level language and culture education.

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      This 2021 revised edition, Practices That Work: Bringing Learners to Professional Proficiency in World Languages, is dedicated to the memory of two colleagues whose contributions to language education and advanced proficiency is dwarfed only by their generosity of spirit.

 

Boris V. Shekhtman (1939-2017)

Madeline E. Ehrman (1942-2015)

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