2010 CRITICAL AND INTERCULTURAL THEORY AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

Article After the MLA report: Rethinking the links between literature and literacy, research, and teaching in foreign language departments

Author
Arens, Katherine
Volume
2010 CRITICAL AND INTERCULTURAL THEORY AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY
Date Issued
2010-01-01
Keywords
Publisher
Heinle Cengage Learning
URI/DOI
10125/69690
PDF
Citation
Arens, K. (2010). After the MLA report: Rethinking the links between literature and literacy, research, and teaching in foreign language departments. The American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators and Directors of Foreign Languages Programs (AAUSC), 216-228. http://hdl.handle.net/102015/69690
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Abstract
This chapter takes up today’s literary and cultural theory as lacking attention to research and classroom implementation. The National Standards for Foreign Language Learning, I argue, can be used as a heuristic to develop these missing strategies, as they clarify what is at stake in learning culture. This chapter calls for a more responsible approach to curriculum, at all levels from beginner to graduate/professional, by focusing on appropriate stages of cognitive development and by insisting that the theory project be integrated into concrete and defensible pedagogical goals––an urgent necessity in a moment when institutional demands on humanities departments are forcing the encounter between theory and praxis.