Curricular Planning along the Fault Line between Instrumental and Academic Agendas: A Response to the Report of the Modern Language Association on Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World

In calling for new governance structures and unified curricula, the MLA Report distinguishes between instrumental and constitutive views of language that characterize our often schizophrenic agendas of language acquisition on the one hand, and disciplinary knowledge on the other. This paper explores...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Die Unterrichtspraxis 2009-10, Vol.42 (2), p.115-122
Main Author: Walther, Ingeborg
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Challenges to the Profession
College Faculty
Cooperation
Cultural Awareness
Cultural education
Cultural studies
Curricula
Educational Change
Educational Innovation
Evaluation
Governance
Graduate students
Graduate Study
Language
Language acquisition
Language Attitudes
Language Teachers
Literacy programs
Literature
Nonnative languages
Personnel Selection
Rewards
Second Language Instruction
Second Language Learning
Second languages
Study and teaching
United States
Universities and colleges
World language instruction
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Summary:In calling for new governance structures and unified curricula, the MLA Report distinguishes between instrumental and constitutive views of language that characterize our often schizophrenic agendas of language acquisition on the one hand, and disciplinary knowledge on the other. This paper explores some common theoretical insights from the fields of language acquisition and cultural studies that interrogate these views, providing a basis for sustained collaboration around curricula among faculty on both sides of the divide. While these have already yielded the kinds of curricular innovations recommended by the Report, a case is made for more radical changes in hiring practices, distribution of teaching and service, reward structures, and graduate education—changes which have the capacity to transform the institutional values upon which they will also depend.
ISSN:0042-062X
1756-1221
DOI:10.1111/j.1756-1221.2009.00045.x