Introduction

Increased interest in the United States in promoting the study of languages considered critical to US national security requires language programs to address two important goals. The first is to increase the number of learners who achieve high levels of language proficiency (Interagency Language Roundtable [ILR] 3; Appendix A). While every language program has one or two stars who seem to instinctively know how to learn a language, other students seem to require explicit strategy training to achieve similar results (cf. Rubin, 1975). At the same time, bringing learners to a certain level of proficiency does not, on its own, ensure that they can or will continue learning once the course ends, though many of them will pursue careers where language maintenance and/or improvement will be necessary. A second goal, therefore, is to produce learners who can achieve superior proficiency (ILR 3) in a formal educational setting and be capable of continuing independently to distinguished proficiency (ILR 4) and beyond.

In this chapter, I present a model for building learner independence used in the Arabic program at the University of Maryland to achieve these two goals. The model is a course component that can be added to any existing language course. It consists of independent listening, reading, speaking and writing assignments designed to train learners to exploit linguistic resources and keep progressing in their acquisition of the language by processing a text, noticing and documenting new language and activating this new language in their linguistic production. The assignments combine to function as a learner record that is used as a teaching tool and as a method of assessment that provides an alternative to standard examinations (cf. Syverson, 2014).

I begin the chapter by defining learner independence and situating it within the larger concept of learner autonomy.