Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum for

It's Not

[Language]

101

2011 Conference

Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum for International Students and Heritage

Language Learners

Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC) promotes the idea that multiple cultural perspectives and materials in multiple languages can and should be incorporated into and inform the teaching of academic content in all areas of the curriculum.

This panel examines ways in which CLAC programs can and do serve the needs of heritage language learners and international students and help integrate them into the campus community.

Competition & Collaboration in the Global Transformation of Higher Education

2011 Conference

It's Not 101:



Diana K. Davies, Vice Provost for International Initiatives,

Princeton University

Uliana Gabara, Dean and Carole M. Weinstein Chair of

International Education, University of Richmond

H. Stephen Straight, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of

Linguistics, Binghamton University


2011 Conference

What is CLAC?

It’s not 101.

Diana K. Davies

Vice Provost for International Initiatives

Princeton University and

President

Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum Consortium


What is CLAC?

2011 Conference

1) Meaningful use of a second language and authentic second culture texts;

2) where bi(multi)lingual and intercultural insights are used to understand, from a different perspective, academic and extracurricular content and experiences;

3) allowing for a deeper, more critical and more inter-culturally nuanced understanding of the content;

4) in any curricular or extra-curricular context


What is not CLAC?

2011 Conference

• Content Based Language Instruction

• The infusion of culture into language teaching

• The study of languages and cultures as academic “objects”


2011 Conference

What does CLAC look like?

(native U.S.-English speakers)

• Reading, discussion and referencing of materials written in

English by native speakers of another language (low immersion/”Global English” model)

• Measured use of authentic materials in a second language

(hybrid model)

• (Nearly) exclusive use of authentic materials in a second language, in their immediate cultural context (full immersion)


2011 Conference

What does CLAC look like?

(heritage learners and non-U.S. students)

• (Nearly) exclusive use of authentic materials in

U.S.-English, in their immediate cultural context (U.S. colleges and universities)

• Meaningful use of authentic materials in the student’s first language or heritage language, with an emphasis on relevant vocabulary, cultural filters, comparison


2011 Conference

What is CLAC?

It’s not 101.

Diana K. Davies

Vice Provost for International Initiatives

Princeton University and

President

Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum Consortium


CLAC at Binghamton

2011 Conference

How Binghamton University’s

Cultures and Languages Across the

Curriculum Program Serves

International Students and

Heritage Language Learners

H. Stephen Straight

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Linguistics

Former Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and International Affairs

Founding Director (1991-1999), Languages Across the Curriculum (LxC) straight@binghamton.edu


2011 Conference

Cultures and Languages

Across the Curriculum (CLAC)

• Emphasizes cultural content even in supposedly “universal” disciplines (i.e., disciplines allegedly free of cultural content, such as sciences & engineering).

– Helps students identify cultural content within all disciplines and develop essential cross-cultural interpretive skills.

• Instills appreciation of differing cultural perspectives, interdependencies among all nations and regions, and issues of long-term sustainability of proposed solutions.

– Fosters commitment to responsible global citizenship.

• Introduces flexible cross-cultural navigation strategies

– “First, seek to understand; then, seek to be understood” (Stephen

Covey).


The LxC Model of CLAC

2011 Conference

Native speakers/content experts (“Language Resource

Specialists”) lead optional LxC study groups linked to larger courses otherwise taught in English.

– Students in these groups meet weekly with the LRS to utilize authentic non-English texts and resources relevant to the course content.

– Participation counts toward course requirements and contributes to the grade in the larger course.

– Skill levels and amount of use of the language (in reading, listening, speaking, and writing) may vary between and even within groups.

• Heritage learners sometimes have little reading knowledge of their heritage language but can often understand it when read aloud and use the language in study-group discussion.


2011 Conference

LxC’s

Language Resource Specialists

• Increase in demand for Asian languages—Korean and Hindi as well as Chinese and Japanese—was actually easier to satisfy than previous demand for the Big Three …

– … because Binghamton enrolls more graduate students from Asia than from Europe or Latin America.

– Unlike language study per se, LxC enrollment demand is balanced between Spanish and the LOTS (languages other than Spanish).

• Benefits to the LRSs who staff LxC’s study groups include new insights into their own cultures as well better integration into the university community—and excellent training in pedagogy

(in the LxC seminar LRSs attend throughout the semester).


Recent LxC Languages

2011 Conference

Spring 2009 Global Language Groups included students using:

Arabic, Armenian, Cantonese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean,

Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu (21,

11 of which—in italics—are not taught at Binghamton University)

Fall 2009 Global Language Groups included students using:

Arabic, Cantonese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin,

Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian (15, 5 not taught at BU)

Spring 2010 Global Language Groups included students using:

Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian,

Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian (15, 6 not taught at BU)

Fall 2010 Global Language Groups included students using:

Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin,

Polish, Russian, Spanish, Turkish (15, 5 not taught at BU)

Information provided by Suronda Gonzalez, Director of LxC and Global Studies


CLAC at Binghamton

2011 Conference

How Binghamton University’s

Cultures and Languages Across the

Curriculum Program Serves

International Students and

Heritage Language Learners

H. Stephen Straight

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Linguistics

Former Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and International Affairs

Founding Director (1991-1999), Languages Across the Curriculum (LxC) straight@binghamton.edu


2011 Conference

It's Not 101: Cultures and

Languages Across the

Curriculum for International

Students and Heritage Language

Learners

Uliana Gabara

Dean and Carole M. Weinstein Chair of International Education

University of Richmond


2011 Conference

Why C-LAC at

Richmond?

• Daunting History

• Encouraging Trend

• Ultimate Goal


UR CLAC Enrollment, S ‘11

2011 Conference

* Credit: ¼ unit

* Can offer the same C-LAC section in multiple languages

* Intermediate Proficiency

* C-LAC sections: tied to a regular course

* Must be enrolled in or have previously studied the course material

(Language) Course Title (Number of Students Enrolled)

(Sp) Economic Development 1

(Sp) Teaching Modern Language 2

(Sp) Intro. to Linguistics 3

(Sp) Statistics for Business 1

(Sp) Capstone 3

(Sp) Intro. to Latin Amer. Film 6

(Sp) Global Climate Change 1

(Sp) Human Resource Mgt. 8

(It) Teaching Modern Language 2

(It) Europe Today 2

(Ge) Introduction to Linguistics 2

(Ge) What is France Today? 1

(Ge) Language, Race, Ethnicity 1

(Fr) Introduction to Linguistics 3

(Fr) Teaching Modern Language 4

(Fr) What is France Today? 3

(Fr) Modern Western Philosophy 3

(Fr) Statistics for Business 1

(Fr) Europe Today 1

(Fr) Language, Race, Ethnicity 1

(Ru) St. Petersburg 6

(Ru) Words to Die For 9

(Ch) Representing Chinese Emp. 3

(Ch) What is France Today? 1

(La) Hellenistic Greece 2

(Gr) The Classical Tradition 1


2011 Conference

International

Students

• Why do they come?

• Why do we support them?

• What has this got to do with

C-LAC?


2011 Conference

Give them a voice and give them

$


2011 Conference

Remember the

Brain Drain!

A modest proposal for addressing it, while contributing to learning built on cross-cultural understanding / interpretations of reality


2011 Conference

It's Not 101:



Diana K. Davies, Vice Provost for International Initiatives,

Princeton University

Uliana Gabara, Dean and Carole M. Weinstein Chair of

International Education, University of Richmond

H. Stephen Straight, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of

Linguistics, Binghamton University


It's Not

[Language]

101

2011 Conference



Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum (CLAC) promotes the idea that multiple cultural perspectives and materials in multiple languages can and should be incorporated into and inform the teaching of academic content in all areas of the curriculum.

This panel examines ways in which CLAC programs can and do serve the needs of heritage language learners and international students and help integrate them into the campus community.


Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum for

[Language]

What is CLAC?

It’s not 101.

What is CLAC?

What is not CLAC?

What does CLAC look like?

What does CLAC look like?

What is CLAC?

It’s not 101.

CLAC at Binghamton