Curricular Changes for Spanish and Portuguese in a New Era: The College and University

Introduction

In the past two years, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has produced two significant proposals for curricular change in foreign languages. The first, "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World," was authored by an ad hoc committee of language professionals charged with addressing the post-9/11 awareness of the U.S. language deficit. This committee argued persuasively that a "… deep cultural knowledge and linguistic competence are equally necessary … to understand people and their communities" (236). This report addressed the foreign language curriculum with specific suggestions for programmatic transformation. The second, "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature," considered "… the relationship between the goals and objectives of undergraduate concentrations in their disciplines and those of a liberal education" (ii).

"New Structures" (240–2) advocates the abolition of the firmly entrenched two-tiered system of foreign language instruction whereby tenured or tenure-track literary scholars determine the form and content of a department's curriculum. Instead, all departmental members (term appointments, nontenured language instructors) must join forces to achieve a deep-seated curricular reformation with a broad disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective on the language(s) and culture(s) represented. To achieve this sort of far-reaching curricular reform, departmental governmental restructuring must also occur to ensure that all members participate in a comprehensive reorganization. The corporate authors of "New Structures" argue that this is the most important part of program modification. In fact, they warn that

Unless this kind of and degree of change happens over the next ten years, college and university departments of foreign languages will not be in a position to provide leadership in advanced language education. Lack of change will most likely carry serious consequences for higher education and language learning. Language learning might migrate to training facilities, where instrumental learning will eclipse the deep intellectual and cultural learning that takes place on college campuses.

(241)

With the two MLA reports as a point of departure, Hispania editor, Sheri Spaine Long, issued a call for position papers with three basic questions to be addressed in the following sections.

How Do the Suggested Changes in These Reports Alter the Way You Think about Instruction in Your Milieu?

The provocative MLA reports remind us all that transformative curricular reform can be challenging, stressful, and time consuming. The process of curriculum review and revision also requires that longstanding barriers, the "two-tiered system" (MLA "New Structures" 240), be lowered through candid and open communication with all constituencies represented.

Both MLA reports note that in the twenty-first century, faculty in foreign language departments must reevaluate the existing hierarchical curricula with a sense of urgency. Globalization, multiculturalism, diversity, and other ongoing modifications mean that the foreign language curriculum must change in a variety of ways (MLA "New Structures" 241) to be more inclusive in terms of course content and student enrollment. In many institutions, it should be noted, foreign language curricula have already undergone significant change to include a broader array of permissible subject matter, including the performing arts (film, theater, ballet, music) and the plastic arts (painting, sculpture, architecture). These curricular additions are not mere superficial embellishments. Rather, they represent the opportunity to nurture the requisite interdepartmental relations required to enhance and expand the scope of a revamped major so that students may receive interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives on various issues unavailable through a single, sometimes restrictive viewpoint.

The two reports make it clear that a substantially revised major requires that students acquire in-depth knowledge and conceptualization of culture (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages [ACTFL] standards' three Ps: products, practices, perspectives) through a systematic knowledge of cultural sign production (Danesi and Perron 67–110) encapsulated in language.

In my role as chief reader of an AP world language (Italian), it must be noted that students who receive the highest scores in the free response sections (grammar, writing, speaking tasks, and culture) of this rigorous and challenging national examination must...