Enhancing the “Communities” Goal of the 5Cs for African Language Learning: A Proposal

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the need to enhance the Communities goal of the ACTFL Standards for students learning African languages as foreign languages. Significantly, it stresses the need for thriving communities or associations outside the classroom where all the parties involved in the teaching and learning of African languages can convene, and where their projects meet, interact, and are exchanged. Specifically, I propose communities where students can go to learn the new as well as to reinforce the old, by virtue of their membership. It is argued that the Communities strand of the five goals is the context within which the four remaining goals converge and flourish.