Tim Jansa

ADFL Bulletin 46(1), 2020; In a 2017 report, the Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education called on institutions of higher learning to “devote far more attention to and support for the quality of teaching and the teaching workforce” to ensure that “students in every program and institution receive the education they need to succeed in the twenty-first century” (5). Although instructional leadership has been shown to affect student learning significantly more than other leadership practices (Robinson et al. 635), Mestenhauser pointedly stated that, in reality, leaders are often “concerned more with power, influence, standardization, costs, and balance of interests” (58) than acting in the interest of meaningful student learning. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to focus attention on the much-neglected need for post-secondary world language department chairs to assume the role of curricular and instructional leader and to provide an impetus for faculty to change prevailing legacy structures of teaching and learning. This article will begin with an overview of the factors that influence student persistence and motivation in higher education, and a demonstration of how these findings apply to world language learning. The second half of the paper is dedicated to the concept of department chairs as instructional leaders. It will close with several sequenced recommendations to help chairpersons assume—and then hand off—the responsibility for devising and implementing change in the classrooms in the interest of enhanced student retention and learning.

Research in Comparative and International Education, 15(1); Since the emergence of models and frameworks for college and university internationalization in the early 1990s, post-secondary world language education has remained a core dimension of internationalization in theory (American Council on Education, no date; Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2007; Hudzik, 2011; Rudzki, 1995; Spencer-Oatey and Dauber, 2016). Yet a report by the American Council on Education (ACE, 2017) found that, in actuality, most institutions have afforded little attention to developing students’ second language proficiency despite the considerable benefits of language learning experiences to prepare learners for the challenges of a global workforce in the 21st century. This article argues that developing an informed intercultural mindset paired with proficiency in at least one language other than English is essential for graduates to take advantage of the many professional, societal, and educational opportunities of today’s global community. To this end, we urge internationalizing post-secondary institutions with an interest in providing students with second language skills and the relevant educational experiences for which leading language organizations consistently advocate (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2015a, 2015b; Modern Language Association, 2007).

ADFL Bulletin 45(2), 2019; More than ten years have passed since the 2007 MLA Ad Hoc Committee of Foreign Languages report recommended structural and curricular change initiatives to counteract the growing crisis in postsecondary world language education. Almost a decade earlier, Heidi Byrnes had already expounded on the need to replace persistent bifurcated curricular legacy systems in world language education with clearly articulated programs across the entire undergraduate spectrum. To do so, she argued, faculty members at all levels needed to abandon unrealistic and nativist expectations of student proficiency, stop pitting teaching against research, and replace the dictates of a textbook or chosen methodology with well-thought-out curricula. She also urged practitioners to engage in “deep reflection on the value of foreign language study in a collegiate context” to help “learners perform the humanist act of discovering themselves” through the acquisition of multiple literacies (278). If we consider John Kotter’s change theory (1993), world language practitioners have been aware of a sense of urgency to devise and enact change since the 1990s; however, attempts at building a guiding coalition or forming a strategic vision and initiatives have—with few notable exceptions—rarely been enacted or yielded many tangible results at the department level. [...]