What role should classical Persian literature play in advanced language teaching and learning? The current climate seems hardly appropriate for arguing that medieval texts, canonical or otherwise, should dominate our advanced curricula as it did in decades prior. For one, universities across the U.S. continue to reduce or drop altogether their foreign language requirements, a perhaps misguided step towards a fully commodified model of education wherein students become “customers” and classes become “products” whose consumption will transfer directly to students’ post-baccalaureate employment. Furthermore, recent developments in language acquisition theories have transformed the field itself so that the communicative approach that dominated pedagogical discourse around the turn of the 21st century has given way to post-communicative thinking in general and curricular design grounded in Content-Based Language Teaching (CBLT) and Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) in particular. Indeed, as the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) has defined and continues to refine national standards for foreign language learning and developed proficiency guidelines that inform our means and methods of assessment, Persian instructors, as with any other language, might reasonably assume that medieval texts no longer offer the most practical or efficient materials around which to design advanced language courses. However, this paper argues that we can and should continue to keep classical Persian literature in our advanced curricula and can do so in a manner that both responds productively to the changing nature of higher education in the U.S. and remains informed by the latest and most advanced theories and standards of language competency. Combining data from practical experiences in teaching and curriculum design and theoretical insights from Byrnes and Manchón’s recent work on TBLT (2014) and ACTFL’s standards and proficiency guidelines, this paper argues that we should still be teaching literature at the advanced level and offers some applicable strategies for how instructors can do so in a manner that remains effective and state-of-the-art.

In this presentation I will address a number of interrelated notions in line with the theme of the panel. First, I will revisit the construct of ‘advancedness’ and what is meant by advanced language proficiency in college level language instruction. I will take a critical look at how the construct is defined in second language teaching and learning as a key initial stage in conceptualizing, planning, and executing a language curriculum. Next, I will raise the question of how feasible it is to develop advanced-level capacities in additional languages through an overview of research in both foreign and second language learning contexts, and the particular case of Persian as a foreign language in the US. I will next focus on developing pragmatic competence as a key consideration in advanced level instruction, and how different contexts of language use, registers, and domain areas can motivate the development of pragmatic competence among other features of advanced level proficiency. The quality and quantity of time on-task both inside and outside the classroom will also be highlighted as a major consideration in curricular planning for advanced level instruction. This will be elaborated through specific examples of some of the designed interventions in the Persian Flagship program at the University of Maryland that create variety, intensity, and independent learning opportunities for advanced learners.

As Persian language programs are growing along with centers for Iranian studies post-graduate settings, so does the need for establishing some kind of unanimity in their respective curricula. One way to ease this transition is through textbooks that can accommodate university students’ needs and be attractive to the Persian language pedagogists. Throughout the last two decades or so, many an introductory level Persian textbook is published. However, one can find very few higher-level Persian course books, and those that do exist do not have a particular focus. The aim of this talk is to discuss using content-based materials in teaching advanced level students of Persian. Some content-based materials include translation of literary texts, simultaneous translation of films, classical literature, modern literature, film studies, and media, to name just a few. Teaching the advanced level encompasses structural and lexical and discourse or pragmatic subtleties of the language; therefore, any of the afore-mentioned topics can be adopted in order to demonstrate the higher-order complexities of the language. In this paper, I will give an example of such texts, with a focus on journalistic texts. I will discuss various relevant topics, including but not limited to the analysis of Advanced level students’ needs on the one hand, and higher education curricular needs on the other, as well as how to bridge the two. In my discussions, I will adopt a linguistic point of view in regards to learning and teaching a second language, and an applied linguistic approach in regards to the curricular demands and meeting those demands by the pedagogists. Most teaching methodologies, from the earlier ones, such as natural approach to later ones, such as the task-based approach are more apt to the beginner level or at most, the lower intermediate level. We cannot expect the advanced level students to pick up the fine differences between their first and second language on their own or to master different registers used in different texts and contexts without making them conscious of those differences. Therefore, a lot of care must be taken when designing material for this level so that students will reach near-native level of proficiency.

This work is a show-case of samples modules for the content based instruction (CBI) of Persian through interactive web-based material at advanced and superior levels. These modules are part of the CBI Path, a project of the Western Consortium of Title VI Resource Centers for Middle East Studies, initiated by the Middle East Studies Center at Portland State University. CBI Path offers modules for all four major Middle Eastern languages but this presentation focuses on the Persian modules. CBI seem to be interpreted differently by different people. Here, we adopt the definition provided by Stryker & Lou-Leaver (1997: 3-5) and define the CBI as a holistic and global approach to foreign language education that departs from traditional language teaching methods in that language proficiency is achieved by shifting the focus of instruction from “learning the language” to “using the language as a tool to study a specific subject matter”. Thus a CBI curriculum has the following characteristics: 1) based on a specific subject matter 2) uses authentic texts 3) addresses the needs of specific groups of students (not a general language course). The crucial point of this definition is that the CBI curriculum is not designed around forms, functions, situations, tasks, or skills but instead it is designed around a specific subject matter such as math, economy, arts, social sciences, etc. Some of the variations of CBI used around the world are: sheltered content courses, adjunct courses, theme- based courses, area studies modules, language for specific purposes, discipline-based instruction, and foreign languages across the curriculum. While the CBI has been extensively studied for commonly taught languages and even for some of the less commonly taught languages such as Arabic, practical models for CBI of Persian still need exploration as there exist few actual case studies of CBI for Persian. This presentation provides concrete and practical ideas for implementing CBI of Persian in a variety of subject areas such as women’s studies, history, sports studies, and translation studies. In response to the increasing need for web-based and on-line instructional material, this project offers practical modules freely accessible to educators and learners across the globe. The modules are interactive and enable learners to work independently. As such they are great resources in achieving the very core goal of CBI which is “encouraging students to become independent learners and to continue the learning process beyond classroom in order to become autonomous life-long learners”.