The Privilege of the Less Commonly Taught Languages: Linking Literacy and Advanced L2 Capacities

• Main Author: Heidi Byrnes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages 2005-01-01
• Series: Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages
• Subjects: The Privilege of the Less Commonly Taught Languages: Linking Literacy; Advanced L2 Capacities
• Online Access: http://www.ncolctl.org/files/Privilege-of-lctl.pdf

When, in 2001, Laurel Rasplica Rodd, president of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, invited me to participate in a roundtable discussion at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, I was delighted to accept, inasmuch as the topic, ''An integrated curriculum for the foreign language classroom," had occupied me for quite some time, most recently with the extensive curricular revision in my own home department, the German Department at Georgetown University (Developing multiple literacies, 1997-2000; Byrnes, 2001). My observations and experiences had convinced me that the foreign language profession, particularly faculty in institutions of higher education, needed to rethink a number of theoretical constructs and reshape many praxes in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in order to meet both the challenges and the promises of a multicultural and globalized society. That conviction was also a troubled conviction, inasmuch as I saw few signs that the profession was able or even willing to set out on that journey, despite its unmistakable urgency (Byrnes, 1998, 2005a).