Exploring the US Language Flagship Program

Dianna Murphy is Associate Director of the Language Institute and Russian Flagship Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are in foreign language education at the postsecondary level, with a focus on students’ goals and perspectives on their foreign language learning.Karen Evans-Romaine is Professor of Russian in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic and Director of the Russian Flagship Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include Russian language pedagogy and early 20th-century Russian literature, particularly intersections of music and literature.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsContributorsKaren Evans-Romaine and Dianna Murphy: Introduction1. Michael Nugent and Robert Slater: The Language Flagship: Creating Expectations and Opportunities for Professional-Level Language Learning in Undergraduate Education2. Dianna Murphy, Karen Evans-Romaine, Valerie Anishchenkova and Zhuo Jing-Schmidt: Laying the Groundwork: Programmatic Models in US Language Flagship Programs3. Sandra Freels, Olesya Kisselev and Anna Alsufieva: Adding Breadth to the Undergraduate Curriculum: Flagship Approaches to Interdisciplinary Language Learning4. Peter John Glanville: The Road Through Superior: Building Learner Independence5. Victoria Hasko, Robert Moser, Fernanda Guida, Mary Elizabeth Hayes and Viviane Klen Alves: Maximizing Oral Proficiency Development via Telecollaborative Partnerships in the Portuguese Flagship Program6. Sharon Bain and Madeline K. Spring: Creating Collaborative Communities through Online Cafés7. Olga Kagan and Cynthia Martin: Heritage Language Learners in Flagship Programs: Motivation, Language Proficiency and Intercultural Communicative Competence8. Dan Davidson, Nadra Garas and Maria Lekic: Assessing Language Proficiency and Intercultural Development in the Overseas Immersion Context9. Samuel Eisen: Overseas Internships in Advanced to Professional-Level Language Acquisition10. Mahmoud Al-Batal and Christian Glakas: Beyond Proficiency Gains: Assessing the Academic, Cultural and Professional Impact of the Flagship Experience on Alumni11. Thomas J. Garza: Raise the Flag(ship)! Creating Hybrid Language Programs on the Flagship ModelKaren Evans-Romaine and Dianna Murphy: ConclusionAppendix AAppendix B

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) enthusiastically endorses and supports the goals of the Language Flagship initiative to develop and recognize the professional language proficiency of our nation’s future leaders. Language Flagship programs are a national model for establishing proficiency outcomes, designing instruction to target benchmarks, and systematically assessing progress towards those targets. The chapters contained in this volume examine the challenges, complexities, opportunities, and successes of the Language Flagship Initiative’s innovations for language instruction in post-secondary education.