Assessing Languages Across the Curriculum: Critical reflection and student learning perspectives

Abstract

Language program evaluation is a complicated field of practice, especially for models that are not commonly implemented in higher education. This article features Languages Across the Curriculum (LAC), a lesser-known program model, reporting on a qualitative evaluative program study taking place in a Northeastern university. It identifies challenges associated with common program evaluation approaches (used in LAC and other language models) and advances a holistic framework, informed by multiple learning perspectives, to interpret students' experiences. Drawing on interviews with 16 students of Korean, Mandarin, and Spanish (as primary data) and triangulating interviews with observations in nine classrooms as well as other programmatic artifacts, it explores how participants reflected on their experiences and identifies the learning types that LAC appears to support. Findings indicate that LAC especially supported critical content-based language learning, language maintenance, and peer-to-peer collaboration among learners of mixed abilities. Implications for LAC program evaluation are discussed.