In the United States today there is lively discussion, both among educators and employers, about the best way to prepare students with high-level language and cross-cultural communication proficiency that will serve them both professionally and personally in the global environment of the twenty-first century. At the same time, courses in business language and medical language have become more popular among students. Language for Specific Purposes (LSP), which encompasses these kinds of courses, responds to this discussion and provides curricular models for language programs that build practical language skills specific to a profession or field. Contributions in the book reinforce those models with national survey results, demonstrating the demand for and benefits of LSP instruction. 

With ten original research-based chapters, this volume will be of interest to high school and university language educators, program directors, linguists, and anyone looking to design LSP courses or programs in any world language.

Mary K. Long is Senior Instructor and Director of the Spanish for the Professions program at the University of Colorado--Boulder. Her research areas include twentieth and twenty-first-century Mexican literature and culture and cross-cultural communication between Latin America and the US. She has also presented and written about Spanish for the Professions and LSP.

Introduction: LSP and the Creation of Translingual and Transcultural CompetenceMary K. Long

1. New Directions in LSP Research in US Higher EducationLourdes Sánches-López, Mary K. Long, and Barbara A. Lafford

Part I. New Direction in LSP Curriculum Development

2. Developing and Implementing LSP Curricula at the K-12 LevelMary Risner, Melissa Swarr, Cristin Bleess, and Janet Graham

3. Preparing Students for the Workplace: Heritage Learners' Experiences in Professional Community InternshipsCarmen King de Ramírez

4. Developing Intercultural Competence and Leadership through LSP CurriculaLeAnn derby, Jean W. LeLoup, James Rasmussen, and Ismênia Sales de Souza

5. Developing a More Efficient Conversation Paradigm for Learning Foreign Languages: Lessons on Asking and Answering Questions in an LSP ContextRobert A. Quinn

6. Integrating Project-Based Learning into English for Specific-Purposes Classrooms: A Case Study of EngineeringTatiana Nekrasova-Beker and Anthony Becker

Part II. Rethinking Instructor Roles

7. The Instructor's and Learner's Roles in Learning Arabic for Specific PurposesEl-Hussein Aly

8. LSP Educators as Informal Career CounselorsAnnie Abbott

Part III. Exploring Workplace Realities

9. Court Interpretation of an Indigenous Language: The Experiences of an Unexpected LSP ParticipantMary Jill Brody

10. Señor Google and Spanish Workplace Information Practices: Information Literacy in a Multilingual WorldAlison Hicks

Conclusion: LSP Studies and the Future of Higher EducationMary K. Long

List of ContributorsIndex