The contributions to this book address the role that the U.S. Department of Education Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs have played in building the largest and highest quality infrastructure in the world for training in languages and other aspects of foreign area knowledge. The volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Title VI and associated Fulbright-Hays programs, which have established more than 150 centers of excellence for modern foreign language and area studies and international business education in more than 60 U.S. universities.
The authors review the history of the programs, including their founding and their cumulative impacts on internationalizing the American university at the graduate and undergraduate levels. They review how programs for foreign research, technology for foreign information access, and undergraduate programs have built the foundations of U.S. language-learning materials for use in college courses and government with improved language-learning pedagogies, erected the most distinguished library holdings on foreign countries, supported in-depth research abroad in virtually every nation, and created capacity to teach more than 200 less commonly taught languages.

Since its original publication in 1968, Rivers's comprehensive and practical text has become a standard reference for both student teachers and veteran instructors. All who wish to draw from the most recent thinking in the field will welcome this new edition. Methodology is appraised, followed up by discussions on such matters as keeping students of differing abilities active, evaluating textbooks, using language labs creatively, and preparing effective exercises and drills. The author ends each chapter of this new edition with questions for research and discussion—a useful classroom tool—and provides an up-to-date bibliography that facilitates further understanding of such matters as the bilingual classroom.