Before reviewing my chapter, I wanted to share that I have recently received feedback from two adolescent high school students who took a DL Spanish course. Both opinions were the same: they thought it was a waste of time to learn to speak the language even if the grammar and writing skills were learned. They felt the conversation was more important but were obligated to take these courses. I doubt the efficiency of this teaching strategy. I would have to speak with Spanish teachers who have experience with this to have a more open view.
Learning a foreign language through distance learning was covered in this chapter. I was surprised to learn that online learning has a 9.7 percent (specifically in the association institutions) growth rate versus the 1.5 percent growth in the rest of higher education. I don't think teaching a world language via DL will ever replace the face-to-face with native speakers in order to reach advanced proficiency levels.
The author believes the U.S. needs to produce more bilinguals and take advantage of the rich bilingualism that already exists among our international communities. I believe our country needs to work hard on wiping out prejudices that accept these communities as our neighbors.
I believe it is imperative that universities push their study abroad programs because I witnessed advanced proficiency in my now 27 year old daughter who spent 5 weeks in Morelia, Mexico. She lived with a family who had a 5 year old daughter that taught my daughter more Spanish than anyone had ever in the past and she comes from a bilingual home.
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