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Linda Chance, Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, specializes in Japanese medieval literature. Both she and her institution have strong commitments to excellence in the conduct and support of language instruction.

Scratch any Asian Studies specialist from whatever discipline, and you may find a person whose most revealing insights came through an encounter with language. No amount of lecturing on Asian specificities and differences can equal the impact of learning negation, the colors, orthography, or politeness strategies in another language. All across the curriculum in the English-speaking world, more awareness of Asia and more facility with foreign language are being called for as we face the twenty-first century. Asian language study, K–16, is the necessary link between these two imperatives.

In light of this, it only makes sense to launch a column on the teaching of Asian languages at all levels. I hope you will agree that this is an important undertaking, and that you will help us develop the column through your requests and contributions. The goal here is to be a practical advocate for and facilitator of short-term work and long-range planning in Asian language education.

To begin with the larger context, the column will advocate the enhanced funding, training, and status of professional language teachers. Asian language study needs to find active incorporation into curricula at all institutions. How is this to happen, however, when it is not uncommon for faculty in Euro-American fields to fail to appreciate the fact that Asian studies is an indispensable component of multiculturalism and internationalization—those two slogans that by fights should mean our time has come? Addressing these issues is every bit as important as daily success in the classroom.

All else is for naught, of course, if instruction is not effective. The column will focus on strategies for the improvement of instruction, and provide concrete ideas for the classroom. Instruction improves with effective strategies, but also with due attention to evaluation, goals, articulation, and integration. Both the discussion of how to evaluate student progress and evaluation of existing programs and practices can be applied across Asian languages. Cutting vertically through each language is the set of goals we pursue in teaching and the articulation of those goals. Much of the groundwork has been laid by the National Standards in Foreign Language Education Collaborative Project, but the implementation of those standards in a variety of Asian languages will take time.

With the diversity of opportunities available now, instructors need to be more conscious of how students might negotiate moves from one kind of learning situation to another. The articulation of goals becomes crucial at the points where students move between institutional levels. As schools expand their offerings, instructors may become aware that area high school preparation does not mesh with college courses, for example, and that the reduplication of effort as colleges partially retrain these students leads to frustrated learners.

Other areas where we must take care to build smooth transitions are study abroad and the teaching of disciplinary subjects via the target language. Asian languages have traditionally been called LCTs (less commonly taught), and while this is no longer entirely applicable, students and others may still expect to encounter more difficulties and be hesitant about sampling the full range of activities.

Not to be ignored is the changing nature of our students and of our world, especially in terms of ethnicity and technology. Both must be addressed in the areas of materials and learner styles. It is no longer the case that the classic style of textbook, most of which presume native English-speaking learners, adequately serves the target population, increasingly drawn from ethnic groups who speak some Asian language natively.

Beyond linguistic complications that this introduces the question of how to address cultural material in the mixed-ethnic classroom commands attention. Changing technologies, and the need to balance their costs and benefits, confront us all, but our students have been changed by technology as well, and we should not be surprised if learning styles have altered as a result.

Finally, it goes without saying that the Asian language field has its differences of opinion. The process of learning a language is such a challenge to the ego, I believe, that we all carry scars and attachments to the irrational parts of our linguistic identities and the methods that saved us. This column will endeavor to be neutral where these controversies are involved. Whatever works, works, after all, and research has confirmed that the teaching most questionable by the standards of a given methodology sometimes best satisfies the clientele.

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