Two recent reports offer some paradigm-shifting proposals regarding the teaching of world languages in general at the undergraduate level. The Modern Language Association's (MLA's) "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" and "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature"…

The present study investigates to what extent learners' first language (L1) may have an impact on their writing and speaking performances. While Japanese continues to enjoy a large enrolment across levels in Australian schools and universities, the population of learners has become increasingly diverse creating challenges for teachers. One…

Background: The effect of note-taking has been well-recognized by EFL educators. However, little empirical research has been done to investigate combined effects of note-taking instruction and note-taking language (whether in L1 or L2) in an acquisition-poor environment, where English is used as an instructional language yet the audience is…

There has been a long history of Chinese learning and teaching (CLT) in the UK, but until recently CLT was predominantly confined to community schools for Chinese children at weekends and a small number of other schools and universities. Therefore, it had remained peripheral for a long time in terms of student numbers and its position in the…

This article is part of a large-scale project on the study of Spanish in high school that reports on an investigation of the low college enrollments in Spanish courses of students who study Spanish in high school. An online survey was administered to 631 high school students studying Spanish and 19 Spanish teachers, and the results revealed that…

Since 1958, the Modern Language Association (MLA), with the continuous support of the United States Department of Education, has gathered and analyzed data on undergraduate and graduate course enrollments in languages other than English in United States colleges and universities. The previous survey examined language enrollments in fall 2006; here…

Portal: Your Door to World Languages and Cultures was a series of public cultural events, in a variety of formats, created through a new partnership between the credit and continuing education (noncredit) foreign language programs at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Portal was designed to cultivate interest in foreign languages…

Efforts to fund the teaching of critical languages, along with increasing enrollments in less commonly taught language (LCTL) classes, have evidenced a renewed interest in LCTL pedagogy. While much is known about enrollment trends, materials development, and professional training, far less research has compared LCTL and commonly taught language…

This interdisciplinary paper is about applying Adult Education methods of learning and teaching to higher education. I argue that higher education students need to be stimulated via interactive methods that improve their motivation and lead them to question the value system/s that exist around them. A Freirean approach as used in the teaching of…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between foreign language learning and verbal ability in English as measured by the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Reasoning Test. Comparing foreign language students to nonforeign language students in this study, the effect of taking a foreign language on SAT verbal…

With the continuous support of grants from the Department of Education, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has since 1958 gathered and analyzed information on enrollments in languages other than English as reported to them by United States institutions of higher education. This latest and twenty-first survey examines trends in enrollments for…

A MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION (MLA) STATISTICAL SURVEY SHOWS THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS STUDYING FRENCH, SPANISH, GERMAN, OR LATIN IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS DURING EACH SCHOOL YEAR FROM 1958-59 TO 1964-65, THE PERCENTAGE STUDYING EACH LANGUAGE IN RELATION TO THE TOTAL HIGH SCHOOL POPULATION, AND THE PERCENTAGE STUDYING LATIN IN RELATION TO THE TOTAL…

This study of foreign language enrollments in public secondary schools, the thirteenth in a series, focuses primarily on enrollments in Fall 1978, but it also presents comparative data from earlier reports. The report is based on a questionnaire survey directed in fall 1979 and spring 1980 to all state foreign language supervisors. In the 20…

Attempts to uncover some hidden gaps in design of enrollment surveys in general and foreign languages in particular. Discusses accuracy of reporting, education funding, and overall enrollment. Provides teachers with approach to determining relevance of enrollment studies to their school system. (Author/BK)