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An essay is presented on the challenges and progress in the integration of language for a specific purpose (LSP) and community service learning (CSL) within foreign language programs after 2007. The rise in LSP and CSL scholarship driven by the growing number of professional association workshops which reflects the expansion of the foreign language curriculum is noted. Cited challenges include lack of graduate level training, reluctance of faculty members, and other professional challenges.

This paper presents a qualitative case study of a virtual service learning project that connected high school students in rural Michigan with communities and a non-profit developmental organization in Honduras. First, students created individual research presentations over Honduran history, current events, economics, and poverty. Second, students were introduced to the concept of service learning, the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, and Muhammed Yunus's micro-credit economic process through readings in the target language. Third, using collaborative and Internet-based technology such as Google Docs, students were able to successfully engage in a meaningful service learning opportunity to translate training documents for a micro-loan organization despite the lack of an accessible, locally based Spanish speaking community. Finally, students reflected on their experience with the service learning project. Additionally, the authors discuss the connection between the student translation project to ACTFL's World-Readiness Standards for Language Learning and the formation of a 21st century skill set. While proximity and access to such physical communities remains an obstacle for many foreign language instructors seeking to integrate civic engagement, this case study presents one possible solution that pushes the boundaries of the very concepts of community and service learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crisis looms on the horizon for graduate programs in foreign languages. It is evident in ever tightening budgets, institutional demands for cross departmental collaboration, interdisciplinary courses, community service-learning, online courses and majors, greater enrollment and retention, and student needs for applied language courses beyond those offered at the undergraduate level. Symptomatic of greater changes in the job market and society impacting the restructuring of higher education across the board, this crisis threatens to render graduate language programs as traditionally conceived obsolete. Meeting the current challenge, however, will require a critical reflection on not only existing course content and delivery, but also on the very purpose, potential value, and goals and objectives of graduate foreign language programs. To this end, this article presents a graduate level Spanish course combining civic engagement and Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), titled "Teaching Spanish for Specific Purposes and Civic Engagement." (SSP) as well as model for assessment. This course serves as a model to graduate foreign language programs, aims to inspire interdisciplinary collaboration, and exemplifies the innovation needed in meeting current needs and challanges. In the process, this paper assesses the current state of graduate foreign language programs and considers the potential value of integrating LSP courses as a core component of graduate curricula. I argue that the development of such courses and the broadening of our thinking with regards to aims and objectives of graduate programs in foreign languages are imperative if we are to remain relevant for students, institutions of higher learning, and society at large in the ever-changing world of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2007 MLA assessment of the state of foreign languages in higher education correctly identifies the need for restructuring both program curricula and governance in order to meet current student needs. In its recommendations for doing so, however, the committee inadvertently defines the goals and objectives of graduate foreign language programs as narrowly focused on the production of future academics. The current reality of the academic job market, institutional demands, and of the global economy calls for a critical reassessment of this assumption. This article considers the potential benefits of, and challenges to, broadening existing graduate curricula, specifically through the incorporation of courses in Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), and presents a model graduate LSP course. It is imperative that graduate programs in foreign languages broaden their goals, objectives, and course offerings beyond literary and language competency in order to remain relevant. Expanding graduate course offerings to include LSP as an integral component of existing curricula better equips students to adapt and apply their education to the ever-changing demands of today's global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often, students entering a first-year Spanish language course lack knowledge concerning how to use metacognition to their own benefit. It is also common that they do not understand the reason why they are being taught in the way that they are (i.e., immersion in the target language). In this study, an experimental group of 49 first-year Spanish students received lessons in English at the beginning of the semester dealing with language acquisition, foreign-language teaching methodology, and metacognitive awareness. During this time the students also discussed the meaning of deep culture and related past experiences concerning their own language-learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]