Studying Romance Languages in the US: Decision-Making in Regard to Language Choice and Persistence

This presentation focuses on a study aiming to address the longstanding crisis of enrollments and retention in US-based language programs. Focused on the four most commonly taught Romance languages - French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish - the study investigated key factors leading U.S. undergraduates to choose these languages at the university level. Further, the study examined salient reasons in their decision to continue or quit language study upon fulfillment of the language requirement, also proposing a number of initiatives for language programs to improve their enrollment numbers and retention rates.
Presenter:
Federico Fabbri is the Director of Language Instruction in Italian at the University of Minnesota. A recent graduate in the doctoral program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at the University of Arizona, his main interests are in Language Program Administration, particularly Curriculum Design and Materials Development; he is also involved in research projects on L2 Enrollment and Retention, Open Educational Resources, and L2 Autoethnography.