Usage-Based Instruction: Enhancing Interpersonal Communication in Foreign Languages

Setting The Stage: Instructional Context

Lewis University is a private university located some 40 miles southwest of Chicago, which offers 80 undergraduate majors and 25 graduate programs through its 4 colleges. It is one of more than 60 universities worldwide sponsored by the De La Salle Christian Brothers, a more than 300 year-old religious order devoted exclusively to teaching. With its yearly growing enrollments, Lewis University is recognized by U.S. News and World Report and Princeton Review as one of the finest, mid-sized, comprehensive Catholic universities in the country which focuses on professional and career preparation in a liberal arts tradition. Its total student body is 6,500 undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom represent the first college educated generation in their families.

From 1978 to 2004, the University was not offering foreign language instruction to its students. In 2004, thanks to the 1.7 million Title III Grant from the U.S. Department of Education Program, it became possible for the University to re-institute foreign language instruction through the newly established Foreign Language Program. The new Program director, and the author of this case study, was hired with a mandate to establish the type of instruction that would meet immediate practical needs of students in studying foreign language. Today, the Program offers instruction in nine foreign languages, including not only such commonly taught languages as Spanish, French, and German, but also such critical languages as Russian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Arabic.