Abstract
This article is my answer to the question: What is your vision of university language centres in the 21st century? I argue that language centres can best establish themselves as beacons of good practice by embracing, exploring and further developing the concept of plurilingualism, promoting the autonomy of their students, and constructively aligning curriculum, teaching/learning and assessment. Each of these activities requires research, so the realization of my vision entails that language centres should have the same obligation to engage in research as other academic departments. At present this is rarely the case, which suggests an important advocacy role for CercleS as it enters its fourth decade.
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© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Celebrating CercleS: introductory notes to 30 years of professional activity in the field of language learning and teaching
- Voices from current and past CercleS Presidents
- Plurilingualism, learner autonomy and constructive alignment: A vision for university language centres in the 21st century
- Recent developments concerning the use of English for teaching and research purposes
- The underlying action-oriented and task-based approach of the CEFR and its implementation in language testing and assessment at university
- The language centre as a laboratory for innovation
- The development of a Language Centre. An example of best practice in a historical perspective
- Voices from European Language Centres and beyond
- Academic, cultural and social growth through the language of websites: A challenge for European University Language Centres
- An evaluation of culture teaching and learning in a Uniwide Language Program: Teachers and students’ perspectives
- Learner autonomy, self-regulation skills and self-efficacy beliefs – How can students’ academic writing skills be supported?
- Enhancing assessment in the recognition of prior learning with digitalisation
- The university language centre as an open-badge issuer: New directions in ESP assessment and accreditation
- Cognitive test anxiety in high-stakes oral examinations: Face-to-face or computer-based?
- Exploring the relationship between motivations, emotions and pragmatic marker use in English-medium instruction learners
- Raciolinguistic ideology in first-year university (non)heritage Chinese classes
- Reports
- Taking research from periphery to core in a Caribbean Language Centre
- Integrating entrepreneurial working life skills with foreign language teaching – two cases from the University of Oulu
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Celebrating CercleS: introductory notes to 30 years of professional activity in the field of language learning and teaching
- Voices from current and past CercleS Presidents
- Plurilingualism, learner autonomy and constructive alignment: A vision for university language centres in the 21st century
- Recent developments concerning the use of English for teaching and research purposes
- The underlying action-oriented and task-based approach of the CEFR and its implementation in language testing and assessment at university
- The language centre as a laboratory for innovation
- The development of a Language Centre. An example of best practice in a historical perspective
- Voices from European Language Centres and beyond
- Academic, cultural and social growth through the language of websites: A challenge for European University Language Centres
- An evaluation of culture teaching and learning in a Uniwide Language Program: Teachers and students’ perspectives
- Learner autonomy, self-regulation skills and self-efficacy beliefs – How can students’ academic writing skills be supported?
- Enhancing assessment in the recognition of prior learning with digitalisation
- The university language centre as an open-badge issuer: New directions in ESP assessment and accreditation
- Cognitive test anxiety in high-stakes oral examinations: Face-to-face or computer-based?
- Exploring the relationship between motivations, emotions and pragmatic marker use in English-medium instruction learners
- Raciolinguistic ideology in first-year university (non)heritage Chinese classes
- Reports
- Taking research from periphery to core in a Caribbean Language Centre
- Integrating entrepreneurial working life skills with foreign language teaching – two cases from the University of Oulu