Where's the Community?

It is gratifying to see that the two Modern Language Association (MLA) reports, "Foreign Language and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" and "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature," address important issues regarding the improvement of language teaching in the increasingly interdependent world in which we live. The MLA's controversial recommendations, particularly regarding transforming two-tier foreign language departments, have generated several reactions (for example, Geisler; Levine et al.). However, though the suggestions might be far-reaching for many institutions, I believe they do not go far enough for a small liberal arts college such as Pitzer College. In many ways the collaborative statement in the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages et al.'s "Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21^st Century" was more visionary because of its recommendation to include student interactions with communities of native speakers in the "integrative approach … to the major" that the MLA ad hoc committee endorses. At the time, the "Standards" provided the impetus (and continues to do so) for many foreign language educators across the country to advance pedagogies of community engagement and, particularly, service learning in Spanish. In fact, along with others, this document assisted Pitzer's development of a community-based Spanish program in 1999. And although our program is still a work in progress, the college has steadily been forging a creative twenty-first-century Spanish major along the lines suggested in the MLA reports. Although our institution is small and in many ways unique, it provides a useful example of what a state-of-the-art "broad, intellectually driven approach to teaching language and culture in higher education" (MLA, "Undergraduate Major" 234) should look like.

For many reasons, Pitzer's institutional context is particularly favorable for a creative experimental approach to language teaching. First, it is consistent with the college's mission to "produce engaged, socially responsible citizens of the world through an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary liberal arts education emphasizing social justice, intercultural understanding, and environmental sensitivity." (Board of Trustees) Second, it fits easily within a curriculum emphasizing the social and behavioral sciences and educational objectives for interdisciplinary perspective, intercultural understanding, and concern with social responsibility and the ethical implications of knowledge and action. Third, it reinforces generally agreed upon institutional values to promote ethical practices in a diverse community through a commitment to social responsibility; the quest for equity, access, and justice; dedication to civic involvement and environmental sustainability; and respect for diversity, pluralism, and freedom of expression. Fourth, since Pitzer is part of the Claremont Colleges consortium, there has been broad support to develop a completely new approach that is complementary to the other colleges' more traditional programs. And fifth, the college's location in Southern California ensures that Spanish-speaking communities are accessible.

The process-oriented community-based language learning methods that we foster for our students help them understand

These objectives are reflected in the curriculum not only through its content but also through the processes of experiential immersion and reflection that are vehicles for language acquisition and use. The conceptual framework and teaching practices go beyond a list of courses in Spanish to foster a conceptual journey through intentionally structured learning environments aligned with the global, intercultural, interdisciplinary, ethical, and social responsibility goals of the college.

The program teaches Spanish through interdisciplinary content areas and emphasizes ethnographic methodologies applied to language and cultural area studies in order to deepen the connection of the curriculum with communities both locally and abroad. It is a nontraditional program with a pedagogical framework based on the deceptively simple concepts that language is a social practice and culture is inextricably linked to language teaching. This approach promotes linguistic and cultural proficiency by contextualizing instruction, research, and learning in national and transnational Spanish-speaking environments with a service-learning, community-building language learning approach. Intercultural understanding is central to both the Spanish major and minor through the requirement...