New Alignments, New Discourses

Abstract

The report of the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages touches on a number of issues in foreign language teaching today from several per spectives: logistical, paradigmatic, curricular, and administrative. In that report, committee members were at pains not to single out any language in particular, even though the situations for Spanish and for less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) differ greatly. Evidently, the report has reso nated with language professionals across the country, because it touches on knotty, core issues that every foreign language department faces but that are rarely discussed outside departmental boundaries. By convening this committee, the Modern Language Association took a key step in approaching three substantive ideological divides: between language and literature, between traditional academic curricula and gov ernment programs, and between the worlds of teaching and research. Each of these divides has its own history, its own advocates, its own critics, and its own inertia, heavily weighted down by the legacy of past practice and discipline-fed mythology. The ad hoc committee's report and its recommendations show a shift of attention and intent on the part of the MLA leadership to reexamine goals and curricula, to assess the impact and implications of global security issues on language and culture teaching, and to realign itself with other professional and advocacy groups for an agenda that is both short-term and long-term, academic and public. The report aims to stimulate experi mentation with new curricular models that go beyond national security