Evolving Perspectives on Advancedness: A Symposium on Second Language Spanish

Advanced language proficiency has garnered renewed attention in recent years as universities work to graduate students with high levels of language use. In addition to developing the skills necessary for students to analyze and critique literary and cultural texts, foreign language programs must also produce advanced- to superior-level users of foreign language in order to meet professional and societal demands for multilingualism. To that end, program assessment metrics often use descriptors such as advanced near native professional, and fluent, to name just a few, but without any shared understanding among directors, department chairs, professors, advisors, or SLA experts, of the meaning of such terms. What does an advanced learner “look like” in terms of linguistic knowledge and ability to communicate? Are linguistic analyses or native speaker perceptions better indicators of achievement? Does enrollment in an upper-division course constitute an advanced level of linguistic knowledge? Is studying abroad the only way for a student to become an advanced speaker? SLA scholars have argued the need for more detailed descriptions of high-level L2 competencies, as well as an expansive and articulated conceptualization of advancedness, in order to address such questions (e.g. Birdsong 2005; Norris 2006; Piller 2002; Ortega & Byrnes 2008).
This symposium aims to address these questions and offer new understandings from the field of Spanish as a Second Language.