Practices That Work: Bringing Learners to Professional Proficiency in World Languages

The many and varied demands of the digital age require cadres of professionals capable of collaborating effectively and engaging globally in the world's languages and cultures. This volume represents a collection of classroom- and field-tested practices used to prepare global professions to the highest standards of proficiency in their languages in order to meet these global challenges. Culled from faculty of government, private, and state educational programs, these "practices that work" offer the language practitioner a selection of "recipes" for helping language learners attain near-native professional proficiency. The techniques and practices offered in these pages can be incorporated and used in virtually any curriculum or learning environment and are highly learner centered. The path to native-like proficiency in world languages can be demanding, but this volume can help make it more productive and enjoyable.

Thomas Jesús Garza (Ed.D., Harvard University) is UT Regents' and University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and Director of the Texas Language Center. He coordinated the Russian program at U Texas from 1990 to 2010 and directed the Arabic Flagship program between 2015-2018. He has co-authored several textbooks of English as a Foreign Language and Russian, as well as the World Readiness Standards for Russian (2020) with Jane Shuffelton and Peter Merrill.