From Faculty Academy 2008 Wiki
[edit] Plenary Session: "Why Johnny Can't Learn Spanish: How the Academy is Undermining Our Efforts to Teach Language, and What Can be Done About It"
Barbara Sawhill (Oberlin College)
Across the country in Academia we are facing a quiet crisis in the field of language instruction. For decades language instructors have been at the forefront of making pedagogically sound and innovative choices for incorporating technology into the curriculum, and yet at the same time have become increasingly relegated to the fringes of the important discussions within the Academy.
The task of teaching language and culture wisely and well has become awesome (if not impossible), given the myriad of external constraints imposed upon us from a variety of forces and fears. This talk will offer suggestions as to how language teachers can re-claim their status as fearless, forward thinking educators and move from the liminal, marginal spaces of the Academy and back into the center of the conversation.
