Not Your Parents' Language Class: Curriculum Revision to Support University Language Requirements

Abstract: Indiana State University's (ISU) foreign language requirement curriculum serves as a model for the 21st century. Unique to the program is an emphasis on integrating the common goals of general education and multicultural studies with the development of critical thinking skills to reach overall objectives of communicative competency, cultural awareness, sensitivity to diversity, and a holistic application of strategies and skills for lifelong learning. This article traces the process of curricular development (outcomes standards, statement of course pedagogy, and course requirements) and program implementation. Of particular interest is the expanded use of learning journals. A comprehensive assessment program is also outlined. Early feedback indicates that the program is meeting its goals and is favorably received by students. Introduction In the fall of 1999 the Indiana State University (ISU) faculty voted to adopt a campus-wide foreign language requirement for all incoming students. The decision was the culmination of several years of work by the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics to convince the university community that a return to a university language requirement was an absolute necessity to a liberal education in the 21st century. The battle was won with the promise that this would not be "your parents' foreign language course." We recognized that a requirement would only succeed if its goals were strategically tied to the mission of the university and the curriculum integrated into the fabric of the university's General Education Program.1 Citing the university's strategic goal of "enhancement and advocacy of multicultural and international values," we claimed that we could provide a learning experience where students would gain the basic practical skills and cultural knowledge necessary for a multicultural world through language (ISU Strategic Plan, 1994). But further, we offered to design a curriculum that would consciously complement the multicultural studies component of the university's General Education Program by preparing students to interact with other cultures with a degree of awareness and sensitivity. Our experience suggested that the challenge of the 21st century for institutions with foreign language requirements-and those who hope to keep or reinstate them-will be how to deliver a curriculum that is both responsive to the needs of a changing academic landscape and integrated into students' greater academic experience. The discussions surrounding the foreign language requirement at ISU were hardly different from those conducted historically in the United States. Since the 1960s, when university foreign language requirements were widely repealed, many have debated the efficacy of foreign language requirements.2 The importance of foreign language study to the traditional concept of liberal education has been continually defended. Recent support for requirements has expanded to focus on the pragmatic application of foreign language study for professional, business, and private use (Dusel, 1970; Rogers & Arn, 1998; Turner, 1974; Arendt, Lange & Wakefield, 1986). Detractors of foreign language requirements have not challenged the value of language study per se, but rather the "unattainable, unrealistic goals" at the basis of such requirements (Klayman, 1978, p. 236). Further, they have claimed that traditional foreign language courses have not fulfilled promises inherent in the goals of requirements: to produce internationally competent students (Pankenier, 1990, p. 1). There are other compelling critiques of foreign language requirements that must be acknowledged as well, such as claims that forcing unmotivated students to submit to requirements impedes the success of those who are intrinsically motivated (Brewer, 1998), that certain student populations are put at risk for failure by a requirement (Shaw, 1999), or more boldly, that requirements were simply a "transparent attempt to maintain enrollment for foreign language staff (Klayman, 1978, p. …