Languages for Specific Purposes Curriculum in the Context of Chinese-Language Flagship Programs

FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION IS currently experiencing rapid and significant change. The need for Americans to acquire language proficiency in languages other than English is more critical than ever, especially in light of the challenges that economic globalization and social mobility pose to students in the 21st century. These challenges demand that language learners are able to achieve high levels of linguistic proficiency and cultural competence, so that they can function professionally, regardless of whether their focus is on international diplomacy, sustainability, global health, or any other field that transcends the borders of individual nations.¹ This article will provide an overview of an innovative national program that integrates languages for specific purposes (LSP) components into a larger, restructured foreign language initiative, that is, the Language Flagship Program.

THE LANGUAGE FLAGSHIP PROGRAM: AN OVERVIEW

The Language Flagship Program, which began in late 2000, offers an impetus for changing how languages are taught in the United States. This program started as a small pilot project that challenged a few U.S. universities to develop highly advanced language education programs in less commonly taught languages. The first Flagship grants, awarded in 2002, targeted postbaccalaureate programs in Korean, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese aimed to graduate students at Superior Level language proficiency (i.e., Interagency Language Roundtable [ILR] Level 3 and/or the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages [ACTFL] Superior Level)² and cultural competence. The Language Flagship Program combines rigorous language training and content-rich instruction, providing language-specific training tailored to each student's major both on U.S. university campuses and overseas. This preparation includes special topics such as media and current events as well as cross-cultural communications, which is germane to their in-country capstone study experience and structured internship. As such, it is evident that LSP instruction plays an integral part in all Flagship programs.

Currently, with 22 Flagship Centers and programs, eight overseas Flagship Centers, and three K–12 Flagship programs, Flagship has programs in African languages, Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Urdu, Korean, Persian, and Russian, with new grants soon to be awarded in Portuguese and Turkish. Upon completion of these rigorous programs, students are well poised to enter the workforce or continue with graduate studies, having had significant cultural immersion and having achieved Superior Level proficiency in a challenging language. Interwoven throughout the various aspects of each Flagship program are LSP-focused courses, individualized tutorials, and online resources that support these programmatic goals.

DEFINING GOALS INTEGRAL TO THE LANGUAGE FLAGSHIP PROGRAM

In many ways, the Language Flagship Program presents opportunities for creating a new paradigm for advanced-level foreign language teaching in the United States, which, to some extent, resonate with the Modern Language Association (MLA) (2007) recommendations for new approaches to foreign language instruction to fit the needs of the next generation of language learners. Noteworthy characteristics of the Language Flagship Program include the following: (a) intensive language and culture instruction, through classes, individual tutoring, and diverse extracurricular activities; (b) immersion overseas where students directly enroll in foreign universities; (c) language-intensive internships through public and private partnerships with international organizations and corporations; and (d) the opportunity to reach professional-level language proficiency, while also completing an academic major of students’ choosing. Although each of these programmatic elements is often seen in college-level foreign language programs, it is somewhat unusual for all components to be linked together as part of the fundamental curricular design.

CHINESE-LANGUAGE FLAGSHIPS

Increasingly, colleges and universities pledge to prepare students for careers that involve active global engagement and, for many, interaction with China in fields such as international commerce and economics, architecture and design, and fashion typifies one aspect of global engagement. Currently, there are nine Chinese Flagship programs, housed at Brigham Young University, the University of Mississippi, the University of Oregon, Arizona State University (ASU), Indiana University, San Francisco State University, the University of Rhode Island, Hunter College, and a pilot program at Western Kentucky University. The curriculum at each of these Flagships varies, but all programs focus on producing students with combined expertise in a given discipline and demonstrably high levels of language proficiency in Mandarin.

Since Flagship programs are situated in different academic departments and institutional settings throughout the country, it is difficult to speak specifically of how LSP pertains to these programs. Rather, this article takes the program ASU Chinese Flagship as an example of how LSP and content-based instruction are integrated in both the stateside and capstone year experiences. Readers are encouraged to visit the Web sites of other Flagship programs, those involving Chinese as well as other languages, to gain a broad overview of how other programs use LSP instruction.⁹

ASU's Chinese Flagship accelerates and focuses students’ language learning processes through intensive summer work, combining content-based instruction with adjunct courses, extracurricular activities, and a domain-specific tutorial program through which learners access a body of specialty LSP language materials tailored to their linguistic goals.

CURRICULAR OBJECTIVES AND THE ROLE OF LSP IN ACHIEVING THESE GOALS

In considering the specific application of LSP in the ASU Chinese Flagship, six overriding principles and objectives integral to the program merit comment, that is, focus on outcomes, dynamic instruction and innovative course design, longitudinal objectives, curricular articulation and instructor collaboration, high levels of student motivation and engagement, and domain-specific, individual tutorial sessions.

Domain-Specific, Individual Tutorial Sessions

One-on-one domain-specific tutoring is important since Flagship students have such diverse majors. These tutors are native Chinese speakers who are graduate students at ASU. Thus, a Flagship student in biology is paired with a Chinese graduate student in that area, and the same holds true for Flagship students in sustainability, economics, linguistics, history, finance, tourism, architecture, and so on. These tutors undergo rigorous training from the Flagship lecturer, who holds orientation sessions with them each semester and then meets with each tutor weekly to gauge students’ progress. Both tutors and Flagship students are required to complete and submit weekly reports that include records of specific vocabulary acquisition, titles of articles read and Web sites visited, and updates on pronunciation issues, fluency, and familiarity with domain-specific conventions. These LSP tutorial sessions complement the other courses Flagship students take (e.g., FMLI, adjunct, and linked courses, as outlined in Figure 1).

Among the six curricular elements previously outlined, LSP is most obvious in the design of the advanced-level stateside curriculum and the experiences students have during the capstone year. This is the time when students are expected to move from Advanced to Superior Levels of linguistic proficiency and similarly high levels of cultural competence. As Figure 2 indicates, students at this point are taking intensive coursework at ASU in preparation for the overseas capstone year. Students’ proficiency levels at the end of that year are formally assessed (using an OPI and nationally recognized assessments in reading and writing, such as those outlined in the ensuing discussion on assessment later in this article).

SUPERIOR LEVEL FOR FLAGSHIP STUDENTS OF CHINESE: AN ACHIEVABLE GOAL?

Foreign language educators in languages such as Spanish, French, German, and Italian may not find the previously-mentioned description of LSP in Flagship courses especially unique. After all, undergraduates have been taking content courses at top universities in Europe for decades. It may be useful to return briefly to the descriptors of Superior Level proficiency discussed at the outset of this article when considering this goal for learners of Chinese.

The FSI estimates that approximately 2,400–2,760 hours of instruction are required for a student to achieve Superior Level proficiency in a Category IV level such as Chinese (other Category-IV-level languages include Arabic, Japanese, and Korean). Typically, however, undergraduate Chinese programs offer 2 to 4 years of Chinese, which amounts to approximately 200–400 hours of instruction. Even for a native English speaker to acquire Intermediate-Mid level (ILR 1) in Chinese requires at least 480 hours of instruction (Omaggio-Hadley, 2001). Flagship programs augment the numbers of instructional hours through offering multiple courses that often take place concurrently, intensive summer coursework, and extracurricular language immersion opportunities. However, being a Superior speaker/reader/writer of a language requires more than simply increasing the number of hours of instruction.

As was noted previously, Superior Level language proficiency implies both linguistic goals and sociocultural competence and knowledge-based cultural understanding. In the case of Chinese, these factors carry a variety of implications.¹³ To succeed in high-level intellectual communication, written or oral, within the various Chinese worlds and professions, students need to be familiar with China's vast historical, philosophical, and literary traditions. China is a highly literate country in which the past still impacts the present, as is reflected in contemporary values, conventions, and ways of thought. It would be overly ambitious of the ASU Chinese Flagship Program (or any other Chinese program) to propose a plan of study that approximates mastery of this enormously complex topic; rather, the program targets four main types of coursework that in combination offer a reasonably strong foundation in China's main traditions and their representations. These areas are (a) general coursework in English on a China-related subject, such as history, literature, economics, political science, geography, film, and so on; (b) a semester or more of college-level classical (or literary) Chinese (wenyanwen); (c) a one-credit cross-cultural communication module that precedes the capstone year; and (d) advanced-level LSP and content courses taught in Chinese.

HOW IMPORTANT IS CLASSICAL (OR LITERARY) CHINESE TO THE FLAGSHIP CURRICULUM AND WHY?

A brief explanation about the connection between literary Chinese and modern Chinese may be useful. According to the national ACTFL guidelines, one characteristic of a Superior Level reader is being “able to read with almost complete comprehension and at normal speed expository prose on unfamiliar subjects and a variety of literary texts” (ACTFL, 1985). In addition, a reader at this level is able to comprehend “grammatical patterns and vocabulary ordinarily encountered in academic/professional reading” (ACTFL, 1985). Texts written in classical or literary Chinese figure prominently in Chinese literature and history, and most articles and books on contemporary issues and current events still include structures and vocabulary that are drawn from the literary language. Students in China, Taiwan, and other Chinese educational settings normally begin their study of literary Chinese in middle school and continue learning to read works of this type through their freshman year of college. Classical Chinese is also part of the college entrance examination in China and Taiwan.

Although it may not be feasible for U.S. students to attain the same degree of familiarity with literary Chinese as their Chinese counterparts, it is quite reasonable to require that they have a grasp of the fundamentals of that language so they can succeed in advanced-level coursework at ASU and Nanjing University. The Chinese for Academic and Professional Purposes course and FMLI courses, which will be discussed forthwith, connect a student's understanding of literary Chinese with current formal language usage in modern Chinese, both oral and written. This knowledge and awareness will have a direct impact on the student's performance during the internship in China.

COURSE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

LSP courses are woven throughout the curriculum for ASU Flagship students to prepare them for the capstone year. Research indicates that content-based instruction in the target language is one of the most effective ways to combine intellectual engagement and linguistic achievement to reach these goals (Dueñas, 2004; Grabe & Stoller, 1997; Jacobs & Farrell, 2003). Drawing on this research, ASU's Flagship has developed and delivered content-based courses in Chinese economics, religions, the history of Chinese medicine, journalism, media studies, linguistics, literature, and Asian-American studies. Each course involves extensive writing in Chinese (e.g., weekly reflective essays, term papers), performance-based activities such as formal and informal presentations and debates, and small-group projects that integrate critical thinking with interpretive skills so that students become adept at presenting and defending intellectual arguments and negotiating meaning with an interlocutor in Chinese. The models for these courses draw on those created in the 1980–1990s through languages across the curriculum (LAC) initiatives (Adams, 1996; Klee & Barnes-Karol, 2006; Straight, 1998). Given that most content-based instruction programs were designed for English as a second language and bilingual programs (e.g., Brinton, Snow, & Wesche, 1989; Grabe & Stoller, 1997), one would expect differences in curricular design and implementation for a FSI Category IV language such as Chinese. Nevertheless, many of the pedagogical factors transfer readily since Flagship inherently takes an LSP approach throughout the programs, and thus the overall models, with some modification and adaptations, are still applicable. These models are (a) theme based, (b) sheltered, (c) adjunct (Brinton et al., 1989), and (d) foreign language medium instruction (Han & Dickey, 2001) or second language medium classes (Dueñas, 2003). All these approaches share the same general objectives, namely, to “promote student involvement in content learning, provide opportunities for student negotiation of language and content tasks, allow for cooperative learning, focus on the development of discourse-based abilities, and use content materials that should motivate students” (Stoller & Grabe, 1997).

Theme-based courses require little explanation—courses of this type are fairly common in most foreign languages, and specifically in all Chinese Flagship and many non-Flagship Chinese programs nationally. Advanced language courses, designed around themes such as public media, current social and cultural phenomena, and economic and political issues, generally fall in this category. Typically, these courses, conducted entirely in Chinese, are offered either within the framework of a language program (e.g., a 4th- or 5th-year Chinese class), as a single semester/quarter, or as a year-long sequence. These courses set linguistic goals for improving students’ levels, especially in oral and writing skills, and they generally make extensive use of informal and formal assessment to ascertain whether students have reached these language-proficiency expectations. Whereas such theme-based offerings of this type are increasingly being implemented in Chinese programs nationwide, they are still far less prevalent than they are in the more commonly taught languages. Theme-based courses, of course, differ from LSP, as has been seen throughout this volume. Nationally, most LSP courses are related to Chinese business courses (e.g., Wang, 2007), although in some cases there may be a disconnect between a student's linguistic proficiency level and the ability to produce technical language fluently, which is key to success in this arena.¹⁴

Sheltered courses, which usually are developed in second language learning environments rather than foreign language contexts, offer an alternative to theme-based courses. Courses of this type use a content curriculum for a targeted group. Generally, the participants in this course environment are linguistically able to move away from language classroom settings but still have limits to their proficiency. Sheltered classes generally offer accommodations for second language learners both in materials and instruction, which may lower learner anxiety and also allow students early access to authentic materials that are less nuanced or rhetorically charged (Brinton et al., 1989; Krashen, 1981). Native speakers of the language are generally not included in sheltered courses. As Dueñas (2004) observed: “Although a primary goal of the model is accelerating the development of language abilities for students to reach the course aims; it has to be kept in mind that the overall purpose of sheltered courses is facilitating content learning rather than language learning” (p. 81).

Adjunct courses (sometimes called trailer courses), like the other models discussed here, had their origin in ESL and bilingual language contexts. This model refers to courses that are purposefully designed to help students attain language levels necessary for them to succeed in the content course. The adjunct course is a support for the content course; ideally, teachers of all Advanced Level Flagship courses collaborate so that students gain language strategies and specific foci that enhance their understanding of concepts presented in the discipline-specific course (Dueñas, 2004; Snow & Kamhi-Stein, 1997).

Foreign language medium instruction (FLMI) (Han & Dickey, 2001) or second language medium classes (Dueñas, 2004) refer to content courses taught completely in the second language. This model, seen frequently in immersion programs at the K–12 level, has been adopted extensively in the ASU and in some other Chinese Flagship programs. Certainly, Dueñas (2004) is correct in commenting that content-based teaching “cannot be conceptualized as a fixed, immovable method; quite contrarily, it is commonly perceived as a flexible operational framework for language instruction, with a heterogeneity of prototype models and application options available for different contexts and pedagogical needs” (p. 75). Such flexibility has been key to designing ASU's Flagship curricula; aspects of all the models outlined above are used to varying degrees. For example, students at the Intermediate-High to Advanced-Low levels pursue theme-based courses such as Pathways to Chinese Culture and Fourth-Year Chinese, both of which are theme-based courses. They also take an adjunct/linked course, which involves a linguistics course on the history of the Chinese language (taught in English by a content specialist) with a 1-hour Chinese discussion class, led by the Flagship lecturer. As students progress to higher levels of proficiency, they enroll in one or more FLMI courses, plus they concurrently take an adjunct/linked course and an individualized writing module.

Figures 3 and 4 reflect examples of the dynamics between various FMLI content courses and the adjunct course models. Since two different FMLI courses are offered each semester, an illustration of how two concurrently offered courses are supported through the adjunct language course and the writing modules is also included. Each of the FLMI courses listed in the tables has been taught at least once, and several are being taught on a recurring basis.

The FLMI courses are generally taught by ASU tenure or tenure-track faculty who are specialists in the given academic discipline and have demonstrated that they are qualified to offer courses entirely in Mandarin. Grant funding has allowed ASU to hire a Flagship lecturer, who teaches the adjunct/linked LSP course (i.e., Chinese for Academic and Professional Purposes), and who, with the program director, works with a teaching assistant to deliver the individualized writing modules. This instructional team meets frequently to develop and implement a cohesive plan for integrating assignments in the FLMI course with the adjunct course. Since at least two FLMI courses are usually offered in a given semester, it is also important that instructors of all classes collaborate on due dates for writing assignments, oral presentations and other projects, midterms and final exams, term papers, and so on, so that students who take both FLMI courses will consistently be appropriately challenged, yet not overwhelmed. The instructional objective of the adjunct course, similar to an English for academic purposes course, which have a long history of proven success (see, e.g., Clapham, 2001), is to enhance the content course through intensive work with content-rich, authentic materials that target specific aspects of linguistic awareness, and through the writing module, which offers individualized instruction for students to reach more advanced levels of academic and professional writing.

In Chinese for Academic and Professional Purposes, students gain technical and professional language skills and develop sophisticated language learning strategies, based on their individual learning style. Course content includes cultural awareness, business issues, current events, and topics such as science, technology, and architecture. Frequent formal and informal assessments are varied (interpersonal, interpretive, presentational), and explicitly linked to the content and skills that comprise the learning goals of each unit of study. Students apply their growing cultural knowledge to communicative tasks in real-life contexts and develop the ability to write and speak in a range of discourse styles, using both keyboarding and handwriting skills, to varied audiences.

The ongoing collaboration outlined above is not the norm in many university settings, especially for faculty who are not foreign language specialists. One of the greatest challenges in offering a content course and an adjunct course simultaneously is aptly summed up by Lonon-Blanton (1992), who stated: “As it is obvious, this model requires a willing interaction and coordination among teachers in different disciplines and across academic units and, for that reason, may be administratively difficult to arrange” (p. 287). Fortunately, the ASU Flagship has had great success in leveraging transdisciplinary collaboration, and this model has worked well. Some of the subject matter professors, who often teach the same course in English, have had experience with Chinese-language learners, but for the most part they are not involved with assessing the students’ language gains; that is the domain of the instructors of the adjunct course and the writing module. Since these courses often can be used also to satisfy general education requirements, it is essential that the level of conceptual and linguistic complexity in these courses contain comparable intellectual rigor and challenge to that found in the parallel course taught in English.

As is apparent in the visual representations shown in the figures, writing is a significant component in the Flagship curriculum; in order for students to function globally, they need to demonstrate a wide range of writing skills, both formal and informal. In addition to writing academic or professional papers or course-related assignments, students need to be equipped to handle a wide variety of writing tasks, such as letters, emails, messages (phone, texting, tweets, etc.), filling in documents, creating newsletters, brochures, schedules, flyers, posters, reports, advertisements, tables, and Web pages, that they would need to produce in a work environment.

The complexities of teaching writing to learners of Chinese are well-documented issues (DeFrancis, 1984; Everson, 2008, 2009; Jing-Schmidt, 2011; Norman, 1988; Unger, 2004; Xiao, 2009). In brief, they involve the following questions: Should students learn to write simplified characters, full-form (traditional) characters, or both? To what extent should students be required to write by hand versus electronically? What kinds of writing styles are appropriate for students at different levels of proficiency? What is the role of explicit instruction of formal versus informal writing?

Obviously, a thorough discussion of these issues is beyond the purview of this article. However, it is important to note the complexities involved with providing students systematic attention to learning and developing advanced-level writing in Chinese. Drawing on research about the effectiveness of a process-based approach to writing (Krapels, 1990; Sasaki, 2000; Silva, 1993), the ASU Flagship designed an individualized writing module that requires each student to acquire a repertoire of learner strategies for self-revision through writing multiple drafts and receiving formative feedback. This writing module program, which was first developed at the Oregon K–16 Chinese Flagship (Spring, 2009), has proven highly successful and effective in systematically raising students’ writing proficiency to the 3,000+ characters essay level, which is the minimum expectation for students taking courses at Nanjing University. Figure 5 provides an overview of the steps students follow in this writing module program.

The carefully structured writing module program integrates and contextualizes students’ work in LSP-type Flagship courses. Individualized writing instruction helps focus the students’ linguistic and cultural literacy proficiency that they are gaining from LSP and content-based coursework. Each student keeps a log of the linguistic errors identified in the writing module, and receives a weekly completed teacher feedback form with a checklist of frequent student error types on the word, sentence, and paragraph level.

In addition to fluency and appropriate register, attention to accuracy and precise language usage is also a priority throughout the courses. Consistent with the used of best practices in pedagogical principles used in all Flagship programs (as was mentioned at the outset of this article), instruction at this level is grounded in theoretical principles of language learning and empirical research that is consistently task-based, interactive, and focused, with ongoing attention to recycling language and concepts introduced in previous or concurrent courses.¹⁵ The importance of drawing students’ explicit attention and awareness to language learning in SLA is well documented (Schmidt, 1995). This aspect of language acquisition is consistent with studies in pragmatics that highlight sociocultural factors, such as the knowledge of conventional expressions and the explicit awareness of how native speakers contextually use such language in formal and informal communication (Bardovi-Harlig, 2010; Coulmas, 1981). Furthermore, research in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) verifies that both linguistic and cultural learning work optimally when connected to meaningful communicative tasks (Bai, 2003; Everson, 2009). Connecting such a task-based approach with attention to form and function plus the integration of chunked language, which was mentioned earlier in this article, is especially important in Chinese pedagogy (Jin, 2004).

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: ENHANCING THE ACADEMIC CURRICULUM THROUGH LSP

As students move toward Superior Levels of language proficiency, it is critical that in addition to facility with general academic and social language, they gain both specific conceptual and factual knowledge in their chosen domain. Besides the formal aspects of the curriculum, students have both structured and unstructured opportunities to use Chinese outside the classroom. For example, the Flagship Lectures Series features speakers from ASU, the local professional community, and visiting faculty from China. The range of topics for these lectures, all of which are in Chinese, varies widely, including talks on green energy in China, insights on social issues in China and the United States, critical perspectives on specific Chinese films and directors or both, well-known works of literature, significant events in Chinese history, and so on. These lectures, like other opportunities to focus on LSP activities, expose students to formal oral discourse from speakers whose speech exhibits the range of linguistic variation they will encounter in China.

All Flagship students incorporate technology in their learning. One new example is the online café project, coordinated with the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawai’i. Modeled after the original MIT Cultura Project (Bauer, deBenedette, Furtstenberg, Levet, & Waryn, 2006; Furstenberg, 2004), this project connects students at different Chinese Flagships with native speakers in Nanjing, offering them a rich context for high-level language and cultural exchanges. Students have a variety of other options for maximizing their use of informal and formal Chinese l, such as living with Chinese roommates, participating in the Chinese Language Flagship Student Association, assisting with ASU's STARTALK Chinese Summer Camp, volunteering as a “Student Ambassador” at the Contemporary Chinese School of Arizona, or at one of ASU's Confucius Classrooms, or at both, and at other Chinese K–12 programs in Arizona's public or private schools. Flagship students also participate in local or national panels at which they present their current research projects and interests. In this venue they demonstrate both high-level language skills in Chinese and also the ability to translate others’ presentations into English so they are assessable to the non-Chinese-speaking audience. All these activities give students opportunities for authentic use of Chinese outside the classroom and help prepare them for their Flagship capstone year in China.

THE CAPSTONE YEAR IN CHINA: OVERSEAS ARTICULATION

There is compelling evidence that when students study in structured immersion programs abroad they can make significant gains in linguistic and cultural competencies (Brecht, Davidson, & Ginsberg, 1995; Davidson, 2010a; Lafford, 1995). This aspect of foreign language education is a core component of all Language Flagship programs. A recent study of the Russian Flagship overseas program suggests that students who enter the capstone year at IRL 2 to 2+ are completing this year with scores at IRL 3 or above (Davidson, 2010a). One reason Flagship is able to achieve such results is that the overseas programs are closely articulated with the stateside Flagship curricula.

Producing students who are well qualified for the capstone overseas year is an important part of ASU's curriculum. Test scores offer one form of evaluating a student's proficiency levels. To be admitted to the overseas program, applicants must be solidly in the Advanced-Mid level (ILR 2+) or higher in speaking, and reading, with strong evidence of Advanced Level writing skills. The online application to the program also includes the following explanation of a student's readiness for the program:

The curricular options, set forth above in this article, have been designed so that ASU students will be highly competitive in this aspect of the program.

When students at each Chinese Flagship have reached the advanced-mid to advanced-high level of language proficiency, they apply for admission to the capstone year in China. This generally occurs in a student's senior year, although, as shown in Figure 2, some students take 5 years to complete this program. This depends on the demands of the student's other major and also his or her level of Chinese when starting Flagship. The first semester of this year, which may start in either fall or spring, involves direct enrollment at Nanjing University in two to three courses that relate to the student's major field of study (taught in Chinese), plus two required courses run through the Nanjing Flagship Center. The Flagship courses are Current Media in China and Advanced Composition, which focuses on specific language usage, register, genre, and other rhetorical devices that occur in academic and professional settings. These LSP courses are taken by Flagship students from all U.S. programs; they enhance students’ performance in their direct enrollment courses at Nanjing University and also in their subsequent internships.

The second part of the capstone year is a 4- to 6-month structured internship in China that pertains to each student's academic area of specialization or domain. The range of internships held by students in China is extensive. For example, a student of media worked at a television station; a student majoring in finance interned in a bank; prelaw students have worked at law firms; business and communications majors have worked at export companies that focus on international trade; other internships involved working at a Chinese medical university hospital, assisting in the production of a journal on architectural design, and being a member of a team that conceptualized and designed museum exhibitions on ethnic culture. In each case, the specific language, linguistic, and cultural conventions that the student has worked on both through on-campus coursework and individual tutoring is enhanced significantly through the capstone experience. These students perform at professional levels according to Chinese standards, which is an expectation that carries a certain degree of responsibility and requires both linguistic and cultural appropriateness.

Although ASU students are on their internship, they are required to participate in a 3-credit online capstone course, the purpose of which is to help organize their cumulative cultural and linguistic experiences in Flagship and to provide a forum for reflection on their high-level language and cultural learning experiences. The course objectives are as follows: (a) to reflect on domain-specific culture, conventions, and practices; (b) to learn about Chinese professional and social life, including employer–employee relationships and other conventions found in workplace culture; (c) to practice information-gathering skills in the Chinese context appropriate to each student's field (notetaking, lab use, library use, etc.); (d) to build on students’ academic and social experiences in Nanjing and ASU coursework and to continue learning the language of their field (specialized terms, report/presentation style); and (e) to establish collegial, professional relationships with members of the community beyond those in the internship site. Students in this course are required to create an online blog and to write a domain-related research paper. As students reflect on their experiences in the internship, they utilize all the LSP linguistic skills and cultural knowledge and awareness they have acquired throughout their study at ASU and at Nanjing University.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ONGOING ASSESSMENTS IN THE FLAGSHIP PROGRAM

The ASU Chinese Flagship offers ongoing evaluation of individual student performances in speaking, reading, listening, writing, and cultural competence at regular and frequent points. A wide range of formative assessments and summative assessments, self-assessment, and formal and informal peer assessment is vital for giving meaningful student and teacher feedback, since obviously no single assessment or measurement tool gives the full picture of a student's linguistic profile. Like many Flagship programs, the ASU Flagship uses an e-portfolio system (see Cummins & Devesne, 2009), which can be readily accessed and easily updated. This online portfolio includes such items as the student's Chinese-style résumé, information about his or her linguistic biography, and video/audio/writing samples, as well as official documents such as certificates, awards, and test scores. The video samples include oral presentations delivered in FMLI and LSP courses, both stateside and during the semester at Nanjing University. Final research papers for these courses are also included in the e-portfolio.

As for test scores, all Chinese Flagships include longitudinal student data using most of the following assessments: the ACTFL–OPI (both formal and simulated), two computer adaptive tests, one for reading (WebCAPE) and one for listening (CCALT), the Chinese Ministry of Education's Hanyu shuiping kaoshi (HSK), and the Standards-Based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP). The next generation of the CASLS Standards-Based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP) assessments is the Computerized Assessment of Proficiency (CAP) test, which measures student performance in four communicative modes: presentational writing, presentational speaking, interpretive listening, and interpretive reading (Clark, 2010). The CAP plus two additional assessment instruments, the ACTFL Multi-Media Performance Assessment (AMMPA) and the Presentational Speaking Test (PST), developed by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), are currently in the pilot stage (see Ross, Masters, Malone, Janesh, & Restenburg, 2010) and may be adopted in the future by Chinese Flagships.

Tracking students’ progress as they make gains in proficiency is integral to each Flagship program (Bourgerie, 2010; Davidson, 2010a). Both individual student data and group-level data about students as they proceed through the various stages of curricula offer new research opportunities for educators who are seeking to understand how learners best acquire language and cultural awareness, especially at the Advanced to Superior Levels. This area has previously been largely ignored; most research in TCFL focuses on learners of Chinese at lower levels, since in the past this was the only group from which one could gather significant samples that were statistically relevant. The various pathways that Flagship learners take to move from Levels 0–3 of proficiency offer a rich source of data, which will be invaluable in guiding teachers and learners in the future. Program administrators and instructors will be able to evaluate and interpret these data to determine the effectiveness of current curricula and pedagogical approaches as well as to inform decisions about new curricula.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS AND CHALLENGES

Flagship is an ambitious program with ambitious goals. Certainly, any educational institution can consider ways to incorporate various elements of this program, with little or no external funding. Admittedly, administrative and departmental needs and structures vary tremendously and, most importantly, instructional staff and office personnel are perpetually stretched to capacity. Nonetheless, some aspects of these programs draw more on academic paradigms, curricular alignment, and individualized instruction and advising, all of which can be accomplished very cost effectively. Having a Language Flagship Program in a university setting also offers those who design curricula in other languages a positive model for adopting proficiency-based curricular design and assessment as a way of designing an articulated program that leads undergraduates to measurable outcomes of high levels of linguistic and cultural proficiency.

The integration of LSP courses and approaches in Flagship programs offers dynamic possibilities both for attracting and retaining new generations of language learners and for researchers of second language acquisition. Possible directions for future study include: discourse analysis of aspects of academic and professional Chinese that are problematic for advanced-level learners of Chinese; parallels between LSP courses in Flagship and similar courses designed for ESL learners; comparison of gains in cultural competence between heritage and nonheritage Flagship students; pedagogical implications of student motivation in Flagship programs; and explicit and implicit learning strategies of emerging Superior Level learners of Mandarin.

A report by the Language Network for Quality Assurance (LanQua) about the application of integrated content and language learning in Europe succinctly defines Superior Level proficiency as follows:

This definition lies as the very heart of Flagship objectives. Now is the time for foreign language educators to think creatively about new ways to engage students of the 21st century. These students must be equipped with skills that will make them competitive globally, and Language Flagship Programs offer multiple pathways for helping them be successful in this endeavor.