Foreign Language Proficiency in Higher Education

This volume comprises of chapters that deal with language proficiency relating to a wide range of language program issues including curriculum, assessment, learners and instructors, and skill development. The chapters cover various aspects of a broad-based proficiency initiative, focusing on numerous aspects of foreign language learning, including how skills develop, how assessments can inform curriculum, how learners and instructors view proficiency and proficiency assessment, and how individual use of technology furthers language learning. The concluding chapter points the way forward for issues and questions that need to be addressed.

This volume comprises of chapters that deal with language proficiency relating to a wide range of language program issues including curriculum, assessment, learners and instructors, and skill development. The chapters cover various aspects of a broad-based proficiency initiative, focusing on numerous aspects of foreign language learning, including how skills develop, how assessments can inform curriculum, how learners and instructors view proficiency and proficiency assessment, and how individual use of technology furthers language learning. The concluding chapter points the way forward for issues and questions that need to be addressed.

“This collection provides a long-overdue update of one of the most enduring concepts in foreign language education of the past three decades: proficiency. The 16 chapters demonstrate how proficiency continues to inspire and anchor insightful SLA research designs, flexible frameworks for curricular innovation, meaningful assessment, and relevant professional development in postsecondary foreign language education. This volume will undoubtedly attract a broad readership, including SLA researchers, curriculum experts, test developers, teacher trainers, language program directors, and administrators. The insights will energize them in their shared commitment to optimize collegiate foreign language learning and thus to better serve our field’s most important stakeholder: the student in the undergraduate language classroom.” Per Urlaub, Middlebury College, VT, USA