The Story behind the Book: Teaching and Learning to Near-Native Levels of Language Proficiency


 

This week's story-behind-the-book post provides a look behind the scenes for Teaching and Learning to Near-Native Levels of Language Proficiency.

From the publisher - 

Well, this is a trip down memory lane! This series of books served as the proceedings of the annual conferences of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers (CDLC). There are four volumes; two more were planned, but the CDLC, the organization providing the book editors and authors, closed it doors before the proceedings from the final two conferences could be processed. 

CDLC was a unique organization in that it formed as an umbrella organization for support to language centers from a range of institutions, including ivies (e.g. Yale University), state universities (e.g., San Diego State University), and private schools. The reach was international, and member institutions came from the US, Jordan, Czechoslovakia, and Germany.

CDLC was also unique in that it focused on the very highest levels of language proficiency acquisition, teaching, and testing. Much of the knowledge and practices shared by the CDLC is still being shared as "new" today, 15 years after closure of the CDLC.

Although the CDLC did close, its website remains archived and much of the valuable information it amassed is still available here for downloading. The four volumes of proceedings also remain available online through online sellers and the MSI Press webstore.

Book Description (volume IV, but all volumes are similar in focus):

This book contains the proceedings of the 2006 conferences of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers. The spring conference was held in Amman & Irbid, Jordan. The fall conference was held in Washington, DC. The lack of knowledge about how to develop high levels of proficiency in foreign languages is a serious deficit worldwide. Experience in teaching at/to ILR/ACTFL Level 3 (Superior) and Level 4 (Distinguished) language proficiency is rare. The Coalition of Distinguished Language Centers (CDLC) was founded in 2002 for the purpose of providing support to the universities, institutions, and schools with programs that teach foreign languages to the near-native level. Indirectly through its affiliates and directly through its various services, the CDLC seeks to foster collaboration among those experienced in this field in order to improve upon the current status of high-level language teaching, the importance of which increases as the world becomes more globally interconnected.

Read an excerpt from the book HERE, a keynote address by HRH Firas bin Raad of Jordan.

 

Read more posts about this series of books (and its spinoffs) HERE.


For more book back stories, click HERE.



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