The Language Program Director in Curricular and Departmental Reform

Abstract

Since its release in 2007, the MLA report Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World has stimulated lively debate about the teaching of foreign languages in the United States. In the report, the MLA Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages recommends that curricular and governance structures of foreign language programs be transformed to create an educational environment in which students will attain deep translingual and transcultural competence (237). The salutary effects of this discussion cannot be underestimated. The release of the report was followed by dialogue sessions at numerous conferences and focus sections in professional journals including the ADFL Bulletin, the German Quarterly, Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching of German, and the Jour nal of Language and Literacy Education. The summer 2008 Perspectives column of the Modern Language Journal (MLJ) continued that conversa tion by publishing the reactions of diverse stakeholders to the committee's recommendations. The arguments for a national foreign language policy will be aired in forthcoming MLJ issues. Indeed, a year after the report's