Seven campus teams participating in CIC’s new Network for Effective Language Learning (NELL) will meet for the first time this summer to explore innovative approaches to foreign language learning. Each participating institution will send a four-member team to the week-long meeting, being held at Drake University (IA) on July 9–13.

Participants will leave the summer meeting with ideas about how they can invigorate their current offerings, add additional languages to the curriculum, and generate student interest in foreign language study. In addition, the newly created alliance of institutions will host consultants on campus during the 2007–2008 academic year and participate in an ongoing eCommunity that will share best practices and language-learning resources.

CIC initiated NELL to address the current undergraduate foreign language learning crisis. Language programs at many colleges are languishing, with too few students achieving meaningful proficiency in a foreign language and with critical languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic finding their way onto too few campuses. NELL will introduce institutions to learner-centered approaches to language learning and cultural proficiency, as modeled in the Drake University Language Acquisition Program (DULAP).

The Modern Language Association’s Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages has recognized the current crisis and advocated an approach to language learning that is in keeping with the basic principles of NELL, but some foreign language experts have voiced concern about the new CIC program. These criticisms have been in response to NELL’s shift away from the traditional emphasis on literature. NELL instead promotes preparing students who have a wide range of reasons for language study. Literature is just one component of a more broadly-defined view of cultural competence, and a reasonable degree of fluency is an attainable goal.

CIC President Richard Ekman said, “CIC is glad to be on the leading edge of innovative language learning and is pleased to have facilitated this very important discussion. The deplorable state of undergraduate foreign language study is a matter of great urgency. NELL offers a real future for language study at a wide array of colleges and universities.”

The institutions participating in the 2007–2008 Network include Bethany College (WV), Carson-Newman College (TN), Colleges of the Fenway (MA), Saint Joseph College (CT), Salve Regina University (RI), St. Edward’s University (TX), and Tougaloo College (MS). Other private colleges and universities will have the opportunity to apply to participate in 2008 and 2009. NELL is made possible with the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. CIC Senior Advisor Jan Marston, founding director of DULAP,
directs the project.